The best books on Shaka, founder of the Zulu nation

This was the first book I read on Shaka Zulu. The cover of the paperback version was enough to entice a curious twelve-year-old! More than that, it was my father’s book and had clearly meant something to him. But most of all, it tells the incredible story of an outcast who built an empire only to be assassinated by his own brother! Ritter recounts the myths and facts that surround Shaka, never shying away from the limitations of his evidence but painting a compelling biography.

I recommend this book as a happy medium between two extremes. It is unlike those works vilifying Shaka as a monstrous tyrant directly and indirectly responsible for a trail of death across almost a third of Africa. But it is equally different from those that sanctify Shaka as the leonine warrior-king who forged a nation that wields power to this day. There will always be an element of controversy where race and historical interpretations mix. Ritter was writing in the mid-1950s. Given the politics of South Africa and the attitudes of the time, he manages to produce a far from myopic view of this Black African leader and military genius. It taught me the value of a balanced account. 

This is a big book, thoroughly researched but accessibly written. Morris has a military background and sees things from a strategic perspective. He wrote this book at almost the same time as Ritter’s biography of Shaka but his focus was subtly different. He seeks to evaluate not just Shaka’s nation-building but what followed, most especially the Anglo-Zulu war that culminated in the destruction of the Zulu military at Isandhlwana. As such, this book serves as a perfect companion piece to Ritter’s work. I enjoyed the immersive nature of Morris’s account as it spanned most of the nineteenth century. It gives telling insights into the British Empire’s strengths and weaknesses and does the same for the Zulu state that built on Shaka’s innovations. This book helped me set Shaka’s story in a wider context and for that alone it deserves a place on this list.

I discovered Fynn’s edited diary when I was researching my own novel, as Fynn was a character I wished to include in my historical novel. He was one of the very first white settlers of the Natal region of what became South Africa. Remarkably, he became a confidant and adviser to Shaka and kept a diary that covers 1824 to 1836. It proves a useful record of the physical and political state of the region and its customs. Most tellingly, it is an eye-witness account of Shaka at a time when he is extending his hegemony over the region. I love the fact that the man writing these words actually spoke with Shaka, a man known to us by a single-line drawing. While Fynn is, quite clearly, imbued with the attitudes of his time, his diary proved to me how valuable first-hand accounts can be in piecing together and recreating the past.

This is a serious piece of research recounted in an easily readable form. Ian Knight chronicles the historical context within which the Zulu military complex evolved. He outlines the effects it had on Zulu society. He examines the customs, the development of weapons, and concomitant tactics that allowed a small clan to grow into the dominant power across a vast swathe of southern Africa. Knight details military life and lists all known regiments and commanders. While this book satisfies a purist’s hunger for detail, it never fails to be informative and interesting for the more casual reader. I enjoyed it for the details that proved so useful to the writing of my own novel but I also admired it as an example of how to write a scholarly work without excluding the layman.

This was a controversial book when I was studying southern African history at university. What became known as Africanist historians were challenging the ability of white researchers to write objectively about Africa. Not least, they claimed the dominant narrative was almost entirely written from a white perspective in which Black actors were portrayed as little more than pawns. Omer-Cooper took as his subject those Black Africans, most especially those occupying what we know as South Africa. But he sparked another academic controversy. He described the Mfecane, the displacement of peoples sparked by the emergence of the Zulu state. His critics, most notably Julian Cobbing rejected this view. They pointed to the growing demand for slaves, largely driven by white traders and assisted by British military forces, as the true cause of the upheavals of the period. I was thrilled to follow the exchanges between these two historians in the journal articles of the time. It showed me how alive and passionate the study of the past could be. It made me into a historian! None of that would have happened without Omer-Cooper’s book!