The Colonialist: The Vision of Cecil Rhodes [Hardcover]

Mining magnate, politician, and imperialist, Cecil Rhodes had a larger-than-life impact on the development of Southern Africa and the extension of British imperial power. This critical biography of Rhodes elaborates his life and times, showing how his racist politics impacted mining, industry, transportation, warfare, and society, while discussing his controversial and enduring legacies.This is the first comprehensive biography of Cecil Rhodes in a generation. This critical work elaborates the life and times of Rhodes, showing how his racist politics impacted mining, industry, transportation, warfare, and society, while discussing how his controversial policies fueled a lasting white-dominated colonial society and had an enduring influence on modern South Africa.Cecil John Rhodes became one of the most influential people in the history of the British Empire. He made a fortune in South Africa by leading the world's most important diamond mining company, De Beers, as well as a gold-mining concern called Consolidated Gold Fields. While he was a busy entrepreneur, he was also a member of the Cape Colony's legislature and served as prime minister from 1890 to 1896, a key period for the development of racial discrimination. His British South Africa Company was given a charter to govern what is today Zambia and Zimbabwe. His most famous legacy is the Rhodes Trust, which funds the Rhodes Scholarships at Oxford University.A complex figure, admired and detested in his own time, Rhodes dreamt to unite Southern Africa's colonies and republics into one state, dominated by white settlers, with labor provided by Black people who were constrained and pressured by discriminatory laws. He built his wealth on the backs of African migrant laborers, for whom he had little regard. His British South Africa Company was accused of fraud. And in 1895 and 1896, he famously encouraged a failed plot to overthrow the independent Boer republic in the Transvaal. Rhodes' coup helpelS›