"This immensely readable book ... provides a fine panoramic vision. The deeper meaning of the war is now clear." -- Robert Giddings, Tribune Judd and Surridge add a new angle ... they conclude that the war acted as a kind of boil-lancing which enabled the two white races to march forward hand-in-hand on he road to Apartheid ... The British won the war only in the technical, constitutional sense ... The Boers won the peace. They created a new South Africa on their terms." -- Jane Ridley, The Spectator "An impressive history ... written to a high standard with undoubted scholarship." -- Andrew Roberts, Sunday Telegraph

Denis Judd is Professor of Imperial and Commonwealth History at London Metropolitan University and most recently the author of 'Empire: The British Imperial Experience from 1765 to the Present'. He wrote two BBC radio programmes on the Boer War to mark the centenary of its outbreak. Dr Keith Surridge teaches at Queen Mary College, London and Notre Dame University and is the author of 'Managing the South African War 1899-1902'. Both live in London

Part I The background to the war: British rule; confrontation and compromise,1815-1886; the descent to war 1886-1899. Part II The combatants: the British Army; rallying the empire; the Boers. Part III The campaigns, 1899-1902: the opening battles; the disasters of "Black Week"; humiliation - Spion Kop and Vaal Krantz; "thank god we kept the flag flying"; the besieged towns of Ladysmith, Kimberley and Mafeking; the turn of the tide; Lord Roberts to the rescue; marching to Pretoria (and Johannesburg); "methods of barbarism?" - Kitchener in charge. Part IV The ambivalences of war: big business, capitalism and the war; last of the gentlemen's wars?; the pro-Boers; foreigners and the war; the press and the war; the literature of the war. Part V The peace: the talks begin; taking stock; peace at last. Aftermath: the winners and losers.