The National Army Museum Book of the Zulu War - Reviews - Book Review

Contemporary Review, July, 2003

The National Army Museum Book of the Zulu War. Ian Knight. Sidgwick & Jackson. [pound sterling]30.00. 294 pages. ISBN 0-283-07327-6. Of all the colonial wars fought in Queen Victoria's reign, the Zulu War of 1879 is the most remembered. In the 1870s it did not attract nearly as much attention. What attention it did attract was due in part to the death of Napoleon m's son and heir who was serving with the British Army.

In more recent years it was due to the popularity of the 1964 film, Zulu, and to the fame of the Zulu warrior. As colonial wars went it was not as important as the Second Afghan War (1878-80), the wars in the Sudan in the 1890s and the Boer War (1899-1902). Yet the Zulu War was important. The defeat suffered at Isandlwana showed that one could not assume military superiority over natives. The ultimate victory paved the way for Anglo-Dutch domination of Southern Africa. The author of this comprehensive study is an expert not just on this particular battle but on Zulu history. Here he makes use of the vast archival resources of the National Army Museum to give us what must be a definitive history of the War. Although the paucity of Zulu sources inevitably makes the book see things from a British point of view, these same British sources allow the author to 'flesh out' his story, thereby giving us a rich, colourful and often firsthand account.