Born in 1803, Sir James Brooke squeezed an inordinate amount of
adventure into his 65 years. From his exceedingly spoilt childhood
in India, via his unremarkable time as a boarder at King Edward VI
Grammar School in Norwich to his all too brief but action-packed
time in the army, we start to get an idea of the kind of man he
was. For Brooke, the importance of the right kind of boat could
never be underestimated and his early experiences of sailing gave
him a taste for escape and freedom. His desire to live life 'on the
margins of established order' soon connected with his growing
interest in the likes of Sir Stamford Raffles and that vast, exotic
world that thrived beyond the 'dangerously pestilential environment
of 19th-century England'. In his early 20s he set out on his first
voyage to the east, and before he was 40 he had become the governor
of Sarawak. Many pithy comments are attributed to this 'curious and
disquieting' character, a man for whom committees could best be
summed up by the way they 'kept minutes and wasted hours'. Here was
a man who was far from being a saint, and all the more fascinating
for it. His influence on that north-west corner of Borneo is still
very much in evidence today, and it's easy to see how Errol Flynn
was just dying to play the movie part. Nigel Barley's role as a
curator in the Ethnography Department of the British Museum has
already informed his previous publications, which have covered
subjects ranging from Sir Stamford Raffles to African pottery.
Here, he manages, with his erudite wit and withering humour, to
have Sir James Brooke virtually leap out at the reader from the
pages of this captivating study. (Kirkus UK)
Sir James Brooke was an extraordinary ‘eminent’ Victorian, whose life was the stuff of legend.His curious career began in 1841 when he was caught up in a war in Brunei which had started because a party of local Dayaks had refused to furl their umbrellas in the presence of the Sultan. Brooke was an opportunist who, with the Sultan’s backing, made war on the Dayaks tribespeople and eventually found himself ruling over Sarawak – a kingdom the size of England – as a result. How he achieved it is a romantic, sometimes horrifying story. Brooke is someone that George Macdonald Fraser would scarcely dare to invent. Errol Flynn wanted to play him in a movie, seventy years after his death and his dynasty is remembered throughout South-East Asia.
General
Is the information for this product incomplete, wrong or inappropriate?
Let us know about it.
Does this product have an incorrect or missing image?
Send us a new image.
Is this product missing categories?
Add more categories.
Review This Product
No reviews yet - be the first to create one!
Welcome to Loot.co.za!
Sign in / Register |Wishlists & Gift Vouchers |Help | Advanced search
