{"title":"Bill Nasson","description":null,"products":[{"product_id":"britannia-s-empire-book-bill-nasson-9780752429588","title":"Britannia's Empire","description":"More than Shakespeare, more than the invention of the railway, more than fair play, it was Empire which made Britain into Great Britain. By the early twentieth century, that Empire covered around a quarter of the earth's surface, and embraced more than a quarter of its inhabitants, a mass of over five hundred million people. From its maritime origins in exploration, plunder, trade and war to the scuttling of the Raj, the Empire was always shot through with paradox. In India, the Raj was the splendour of elephant processions and the gallantry of tiger shoots, just as Africa was the glory of mission Christianity and agricultural progress.  British India was also the agony of famine, massacre and labouring misery, just as Africa was also slavery and land seizures. The Empire was both a triumphal cavalcade of governors and commissioners, and a sceptical tributary of humanitarians who believed in the emancipation of colonial peoples. It was always a challenging blend of greed and morality, intervention and callous neglect, liberal virtue and high-handed autocracy. At times, it was a source of strength and prestige, at times a burden and a dilemma. Untidy, even messy, *Great Britain's Empire *survived on its contradictions, to go down in history as the largest and greatest European empire of the modern era.  This narrative account seeks to provide a balanced historical understanding of the extraordinary diversity of the British Empire, explaining its realities while avoiding either nostalgia or polemical condemnation. Written by an acclaimed South African historian raised under the discriminatory system of Apartheid (itself a vestige of European colonialism), this is a major new historical narrative of the British Empire from an entirely fresh perspective.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":49504677888273,"sku":"GOR002153371","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ LIKE_NEW \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":49557980217617,"sku":"GOR010695880","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":49646314160401,"sku":"GOR005854465","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ WELL_READ \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":50972148007185,"sku":"GOR013033538","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/0752429582.jpg?v=1750818047"},{"product_id":"boer-war-book-bill-nasson-9780752460222","title":"The Boer War","description":"The Boer War was a costly colonial conflict between the British Empire and the two independent Boer republics in South Africa. Pitting the superior armed might of British imperialism against two of the world’s tiniest rural states, it nevertheless took almost three years for the Boer forces to be defeated. The war saw the first use by the British of civilian concentration camps and the employment of a ‘scorched earth’ policy against a European enemy, while the Boer amateur armies organised as commandos to try to hold out against defeat. Britain’s eventual victory laid the foundations of modern South Africa. Bill Nasson, Professor of History at the University of Stellenbosch, has fully revised and updated his earlier authoritative history of the conflict, taking account of the most recent scholarship and making use of Afrikaans sources as well as those in English. He places the Anglo-Boer War struggle of 1899–1902 in its historical context with other ‘small wars’, such as the more recent ones in Iraq and Afghanistan, making this an essential book not only for anyone interested in the Boer War, but also in imperial history more generally, and in Britain’s overseas colonial campaigns.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":49519394488593,"sku":"GOR008886466","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":49574100926737,"sku":"GOR005721115","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"GB \/ WELL_READ \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":49649355194641,"sku":"GOR007490234","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ LIKE_NEW \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":50577370841361,"sku":"GOR013009875","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/0752460226.jpg?v=1751443610"},{"product_id":"south-african-war-1899-1902-book-bill-nasson-9780340614273","title":"The South African War, 1899-1902","description":"The South African War or Anglo-Boer War of 1899-1902 was a major colonial war which finally rounded off the British conquest of Southern Africa. While ultimate British victory was scarcely in doubt, the unsettling experience of having to field an imperial army of 450,000 troops to break two of the world's tiniest agrarian states gave imperial society much to reflect upon, both during and after the conflict. To the Boer 'bitter-enders' the outcome of the war was never anything other than humiliation. Yet the defeat of Boer interests was less evident. Although many of the black population became involved in the conflict, white supremacy remained intact; and the successes of the Boers in the field as well as the trials and tribulations of their families in defeat, restoked a nationalist Afrikaner identity, which would go on to become a key element in the policy of apartheid. Only now, a hundred years later, are some of the more baleful legacies of the war being addressed. Nasson's new history is a crisp, up-to-date account not only of the military struggle but also of the  whole web of miscalculations and shattered illusions that surrounded it, spreading far beyond the  battlefields.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":49531769389329,"sku":"GOR005696122","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"GB \/ WELL_READ \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":49629406888209,"sku":"GOR013691690","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"GB \/ LIKE_NEW \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":50100346519825,"sku":"GOR010394862","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":50976671400209,"sku":"GOR007386529","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ WELL_READ \/ SBYB","offer_id":51328794132753,"sku":"CIN0340614277A","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/0340614277.jpg?v=1751439835"},{"product_id":"britannia-s-empire-book-bill-nasson-9780752438085","title":"Britannia's Empire","description":"Untidy, even messy, Great Britain's Empire survived on its contradictions, to go down in history as the largest and greatest European empire of the modern era. Explaining its realities, this narrative account seeks to provide a balanced historical understanding of the extraordinary diversity of the British Empire.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":49599896060177,"sku":"GOR004941020","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/0752438085.jpg?v=1767356926"},{"product_id":"abraham-esau-s-war-book-bill-nasson-9780521530590","title":"Abraham Esau's War","description":"The South African War 1899-1902 is no longer treated as 'a white man's war' by historians. Black South Africans were drawn into service by both sides, and the war affected the black communities in a variety of complex ways. Dr Nasson has written a closely focused regional study of the conflict in the Cape Colony, describing the dramatic participation of black people in the conduct of the war, and their subsequent exclusion from the fruits of peace. (The Abraham Esau, of the title, a patriotic coloured artisan, was murdered by Boer guerrillas.) Dr Nasson sets the conflict in the context of Cape political culture and social life at the turn of the century. This is a major contribution to South African and Imperial history.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":52135462928657,"sku":"NLS9780521530590","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"US \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":53358108213521,"sku":"NIN9780521530590","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/9780521530590.jpg?v=1757549185"}],"url":"https:\/\/www.worldofbooks.com\/en-gb\/collections\/author-books-by-bill-nasson.oembed","provider":"World of Books ","version":"1.0","type":"link"}