Zulu Rising

By Ian Knight,

Book cover of Zulu Rising: The Epic Story of iSandlwana and Rorke's Drift

Book description

The battle of iSandlwana was the single most destructive incident in the 150-year history of the British colonisation of South Africa. In one bloody day over 800 British troops, 500 of their allies and at least 2000 Zulus were killed in a staggering defeat for the British empire. The consequences…

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Why read it?

3 authors picked Zulu Rising as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?

Ian Knight is another mind in love with the gritty and colorful era of British colonialism. His book is surely the best and most comprehensive account of Lord Chelmsford’s ill-fated sortie into Zululand that led to one of Britain’s greatest military defeats.

In this age of the red coats with their white belts and Pith Helmets, and the famed Martini & Henry Rifle, Knight tells the story of the opening moves of the Zulu war from the perspectives of all the major officers and leaders on both sides.

This is one of those books that ends up heavily underlined in…

Many popular accounts of Isandlwana and Rorke’s Drift have been published since the 1960s but, if I had to choose just one, then it has to be Ian Knight’s account. A frequent visitor (and guide) to the war’s battlefields, all of Knight’s accumulated knowledge of the events at Isandlwana and Rorke’s Drift was poured into this fine study. He writes well, particularly illuminating the characters of the main British and Zulu protagonists and the experiences of men in battle, as well as examining the continuing controversies surrounding the British defeat at Isandlwana.   

From Ian's list on Zulus and the Zulu War.

Knight, a British historian, has spent his career studying and writing about the Anglo-Zulu War and is the author of the award-winning National Army Museum Book of the Zulu War. No one is more intimately familiar with the sources on this conflict, and especially the epic battles of Isandlwana and Rorke’s Drift.  His book offers a compelling narrative of these battles from both an indigenous and western perspective.

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