Hardcover, yam orange cloth cover, the text on the spine in gold-coloured ink, entitled "The Washing of the Spears - The Rise and Fall of the Zulu Nation", by Donald R. Morris, copyrighted by the author in 1965, this edition published by Book Club Associates of London in 1972 by arrangement with Jonathan Cape Limited, printed in Great Britain by Lowe and Brydone (Printers) Limited of London. As stated on the dust jacket: "The definitive account of a bloody and tragic event: the rise of the Zulu nation under the great ruler Shaka, and its fall under Cetshwayo in the Zulu War of 1879. For over a century after the European landing at Cape Town in the seventeenth century, the Boers advanced unopposed into the vast interior of Africa, encountering only scattered bands of Hottentots and Bushmen. They met, fought and defeated Bantu tribes in the Kaffir Wars, but it was not until 1824 that European came face to face with the expanding power of the Zulus - then the most formidable nation in black Africa. That confrontation ignited a prolonged struggle, which culminated in a bitter war, the last despairing effort of African to stem the tide of white civilization. The Zulus challenged the might of Victorian England, and armed only with their assegais, their rawhide shields and their courage, they began inflicting upon the British the worst defeat a modern army has ever suffered at the hands of men without guns. The record of their war is studded with tals of unparalleled drama: the Battle of Isandhlwana, where the Zulu impis wiped out the major British Column; Rorke's Drift, where a handful of British troops beat out thousands of attacking Zulu warriors (and won eleven Victoria Crosses); the death of the Prince Imperial of France, the son of Napoleon III. "The Washing of the Spears" is much more than the story of the Zulu War. The author traces the careers of Bantu, Boer and Briton; of the great Zulu kings who founded and ruled the nation; of the Boer leaders who led their people into the wilderness in the Great Trek; of such Englishmen as Sit Theophilus Shepstone, who went into Zululand to crown Cetshwayo; of Bishop John William Colenso, excommunicated for heresy, who waged a lone battle to save the Zulu nation he had befriended; of John Dunn, who remembered 49 Zulu wives and 117 children in his will, and who ruled over a Zulu kingdom in the name of Queen Victoria." It begins with a Table of Contents, followed by a Foreword by the author (dated July 20, 1964 at Forest Home, North Carolina) and a Preface. The book is divided into two parts: Part One with five chapters: Prologue, The Bantu, The Rise of the Zulu Nation, Dingane, Mpande; and Part Two with fourteen chapters: Confederation, The Coming of the War, Preparations, Invasion, Isandhlwana, The Defense of Rorke's Drift, The Flanking Columns, Aftermath, The Left Flank Column, The Second Invasion, The Prince Imperial, Ulundi, The Captain and the Kings Depart, Epilogue. It concludes with Notes on Zulu Orthography, a List of Sources, an eight page Bibliography and a fifteen page Index. The book contains 658 pages of text, printed in black ink in a thick newsprint stock, with 32 pages of black and white photographs, 16 inserted between pages 320 and 321 and 16 inserted between pages 416 and 417, on a coated white paper stock, with maps of South Africa and Zululand on the inside front and back covers respectively, measuring 153 mm (w) x 235 mm (h) x 40 mm (d). It has experienced scuffing and denting on the cover, along with foxing and nips along the edges of the pages, some inner pages exhibiting soiling, the dust jacket with edge wear and minor tears that have been repaired. Fine.
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