This timely book fills a lacuna in the extensive literature on Churchill's life and times. It covers his long relationship with Africa during the most important period in Anglo-African history, from nineteenth-century imperial rule to independence and the emergence of modern Africa. Churchill first went to Africa during the British re-conquest of Sudan in 1898 and would spend almost the next sixty years dealing with Africa as soldier, journalist, government minister, and finally prime minister. Churchill's story is one of transition from the height of late-Victorian British imperialism to the acceptance of African nationalism in the middle years of the twentieth century. He helped to shape British colonial policy in Africa from the first decade of the twentieth century through the Second World War and colonial Kenya's Mau Mau crisis of the 1950s. Few British leaders were as closely involved with Africa as was Churchill.

The first comprehensive history of the 1921 Cairo Conference which reveals its enduring impact on the modern Middle East Called by Winston Churchill in 1921, the Cairo Conference set out to redraw the map of the Middle East in the wake of the First World War and the collapse of the Ottoman Empire. The summit established the states of Iraq and Jordan as part of the Sherifian Solution and confirmed the establishment of a Jewish homeland in Palestine-the future state of Israel. No other conference had such an enduring impact on the region. C. Brad Faught demonstrates how the conference, although dominated by the British with limited local participation, was an ambitious, if ultimately unsuccessful, attempt to move the Middle East into the world of modern nationalism. Faught reveals that many officials, including T. E. Lawrence and Gertrude Bell, were driven by the determination for state building in the area to succeed. Their prejudices, combined with their abilities, would profoundly alter the Middle East for decades to come.

Horatio Herbert Kitchener, Earl Kitchener of Khartoum (1850-1916) is one of the most important figures in the history of the British Empire. Beginning as Royal Engineer in the 1870s he would end his career over forty years later as Secretary of State for War - the iconic figure of World War I recruitment posters. In between he became both the most famous British soldier in the world during the peak period of European imperialism, and a celebrated and sometimes controversial pro-consul and administrator. At his death in 1916 he had literally become the 'face' of the British war effort. This new biography offers a timely and modern evaluation of a still disputed and complex military man of empire.

The British Empire, especially in its late-Victorian heyday, spanned the world and linked a quarter of world's population to Britain through a shared, official, allegiance to the Crown. In the long history of empires the British imperial state was among the most powerful ever and a major global player. "A New A-Z of Empire" catches the current burgeoning interest in empires and covers over 400 years of British imperial history from the founding of the East India Company in 1600, to the 'First' and 'Second' British Empires, the time of 'High Empire' following the War of American Independence, the unprecedented expansion of the 'Scramble' for Africa, the development of Dominion Status and the history - often turbulent - of decolonization and the growth of Commonwealth. The 400-plus entries include a rich panoply of individuals, territories, treaties, politics, the law, diplomacy, war and peace, administration, business and commerce, exploration, literature, art, literature and scholarship. Readers will find a mine of fascinating factual information, in concise form, with expert historical assessment, cross-referencing between entries and suggestions for further reading. The valuable time-line is essential to pick through the long period of complex history and links to key web resources are provided. "A New A-Z of Empire" is an indispensable tool for the scholar and student, and for the general reader interested in the rich history of the British Empire: a story of obscure foundation leading to dominance over a huge swathe of the globe, now represented by mere pinpricks on the world map.

Charles George Gordon was the preeminent military hero of the late-Victorian British Empire. A lifetime officer in the Royal Engineers, he served in several theaters of war and imperial contest, most notably China and the Sudan. His last assignment took him back to the dusty Sudanese capital, Khartoum, where he supervised the overmatched Anglo-Egyptian garrison's evacuation in the face of imminent attack by Islamic extremists. He was killed there in January 1885, just two days before a British relief expedition arrived.In this new biography of General Gordon, C. Brad Faught looks afresh at the life of one of the most famous Victorian military men. Although a later age would come to reject Gordon's record and the values by which he lived, he has remained an enduring figure in the British Empire's late-nineteenth-century heyday and an important means by which to examine its contemporary issues: abolitionism, territorial conquest, and the rule of dependent peoples. Faught traces Gordon's life from his childhood in England and Corfu to his youth and training as an engineer at the Royal Military Academy in Woolwich and his subsequent military and proconsular service in the Crimea, eastern Europe, China, India, Mauritius, South Africa, and the Sudan. Throughout his varied career Gordon was guided by his staunch, conventional Christian faith-despite his critics' best efforts to suggest otherwise-and remained devoted to the best features of imperial rule. Whether as a key opponent of the Arab slave trade or a leader of troops in battle, Gordon was usually successful in his undertakings but always controversial. This biography gives an up-to-date rendering of an important British imperial figurewhose demise at the hands of a Muslim extremist is both resonant and potentially instructive for the era in which we live today.

In the long history of the British Empire there are few stories as singular as that of Margery Perham. From the moment she first set foot on African soil in 1921, to her death over sixty years later, Perham was focused on the ways and means of Britain's administration of its African domains. She acquired an unrivalled expertise in all aspects of this branch of empire: its systems of governance and those who administered them; its economic impact; its geo-strategic implications and its effect on Africans, including their sense of nationalism and attitudes towards the end of empire. She spent a long and varied career exploring the continent as a traveller, academic, prolific author, and high-level government policy adviser. In later years, Dame Margery Perham, as she became in 1965, was Britain's best-known voice on the end of empire and African independence. In this new biography, the first of its kind and based primarily on Perham's extensive private papers, C. Brad Faught tells her life story in all its richness while throwing fresh light on Britain's twentieth-century imperial experience.