Gladstone, Gordon and the Sudan Wars

Gladstone, Gordon and the Sudan Wars PDF Author: Fergus Nicoll
Publisher: Pen and Sword
ISBN: 147382253X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 256

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Book Description
General Gordons death in Khartoum on 26 January 1885 and the fall of the besieged city to the forces of the Mahdi was a crucial episode in British imperial history. It was deeply controversial at the time, and it still is today. Gordon has routinely been depicted as the hero of the story, in contrast to Prime Minister Gladstone who is often portrayed as the villain of the piece, responsible for a policy of drift in Sudan.Fergus Nicolls radical reappraisal, which is based on eyewitness accounts and previously unpublished archive material, refutes the conventional image of both men. Presenting an inside view of Gladstones thinking and decision-making, Nicoll gives the prime minister credit for his steadfast insistence that Britain should have minimal engagement in and zero responsibility for Sudan. Gordon, who succumbed to a lasting mania that skewed his decision-making and undermined his military capacity, is cast in a more sceptical light. This fascinating insight into British policy in Africa exposes the inner workings of government, the influence of the press and public opinion and the power of a book to change a government.Each stage in the rapid sequence of events is reconsidered Gladstones steely determination to avoid involvement, Gordons partial evacuation of Khartoum, the siege, the despatch of the relief expedition that arrived too late, the abandonment of Sudan, and the subsequent political battle over responsibility. The personal cost to both men was great: Gordon lost his life and Gladstone saw his reputation gravely tarnished.

Gladstone, Gordon and the Sudan Wars

Gladstone, Gordon and the Sudan Wars PDF Author: Fergus Nicoll
Publisher: Pen and Sword
ISBN: 147382253X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 256

Get Book Here

Book Description
General Gordons death in Khartoum on 26 January 1885 and the fall of the besieged city to the forces of the Mahdi was a crucial episode in British imperial history. It was deeply controversial at the time, and it still is today. Gordon has routinely been depicted as the hero of the story, in contrast to Prime Minister Gladstone who is often portrayed as the villain of the piece, responsible for a policy of drift in Sudan.Fergus Nicolls radical reappraisal, which is based on eyewitness accounts and previously unpublished archive material, refutes the conventional image of both men. Presenting an inside view of Gladstones thinking and decision-making, Nicoll gives the prime minister credit for his steadfast insistence that Britain should have minimal engagement in and zero responsibility for Sudan. Gordon, who succumbed to a lasting mania that skewed his decision-making and undermined his military capacity, is cast in a more sceptical light. This fascinating insight into British policy in Africa exposes the inner workings of government, the influence of the press and public opinion and the power of a book to change a government.Each stage in the rapid sequence of events is reconsidered Gladstones steely determination to avoid involvement, Gordons partial evacuation of Khartoum, the siege, the despatch of the relief expedition that arrived too late, the abandonment of Sudan, and the subsequent political battle over responsibility. The personal cost to both men was great: Gordon lost his life and Gladstone saw his reputation gravely tarnished.

Gladstone, Gordon and the Sudan Wars

Gladstone, Gordon and the Sudan Wars PDF Author: Fergus Nicoll
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Great Britain
Languages : en
Pages : 422

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Book Description
General Gordon's death in Khartoum on 26 January 1885 - and the fall of the besieged city to the forces of the Mahdi - was a crucial episode in British imperial history. It was deeply controversial at the time, and it still is today. Gordon has routinely been depicted as the hero of the story, in contrast to Prime Minister Gladstone who is often portrayed as the villain of the piece, responsible for a 'policy of drift' in Sudan.Fergus Nicoll's radical reappraisal, which is based on eyewitness accounts and previously unpublished archive material, refutes the conventional image of both men. Pres.

The Dervish Wars

The Dervish Wars PDF Author: Robin Neillands
Publisher: John Murray
ISBN: 9780719556319
Category : Egypt
Languages : en
Pages : 230

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Book Description


The First Jihad

The First Jihad PDF Author: Daniel Allen Butler
Publisher: Casemate
ISBN: 193514961X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 263

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Book Description
A “well-researched” account of the nineteenth-century Sudanese cleric who led a bloody holy war, from a New York Times-bestselling author (Publishers Weekly). Before bin Laden, al-Zarqawi, or Ayatollah Khomeini, there was the Mahdi—the “Expected One”—who raised the Arabs in pan-tribal revolt against infidels and apostates in Sudan. Born on the Nile in 1844, Muhammed Ahmed grew into a devout, charismatic young man, whose visage was said to have always featured the placid hint of a smile. He developed a ferocious resentment, however, against the corrupt Ottoman Turks, their Egyptian lackeys, and finally, the Europeans who he felt held the Arab people in subjugation. In 1880, he raised the banner of holy war, and thousands of warriors flocked to his side. The Egyptians dispatched a punitive expedition to the Sudan, but the Mahdist forces destroyed it. In 1883, Col. William Hicks gathered a larger army of nearly ten thousand men. Trapped by the tribesmen in a gorge at El Obeid, it was massacred to a man. Three months later, another British-led force met disaster at El Teb. This was followed by the infamous conflict at Khartoum, during which a treacherous native—or patriot, depending upon one’s point of view—let the Madhist forces into the city, resulting in the horrifying death of Gen. Charles “Chinese” Gordon at the hands of jihadists. In today’s world, the Mahdi’s words have been repeated almost verbatim by the jihadists who have attacked New York, Washington, Madrid, and London, and continue to wage war from the Hindu Kush to the Mediterranean. Along with Saladin, the Mahdi stands as an Islamic icon who launched his own successful crusade against the West. This deeply researched work reminds us that the “clash of civilizations” that supposedly came upon us in September 2001 in fact began much earlier, and “lays important tracks into the study of terror, fundamentalism and the early clash between Islam and Christianity” (Publishers Weekly).

Science and the Founding Fathers

Science and the Founding Fathers PDF Author: I. Bernard Cohen
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
ISBN: 9780393315103
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 378

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Book Description
Thomas Jefferson was the only president who could read and understand Newton's Principia. Benjamin Franklin is credited with establishing the science of electricity. John Adams had the finest education in science that the new country could provide, including "Pnewmaticks, Hydrostaticks, Mechanicks, Staticks, Opticks." James Madison, chief architect of the Constitution, peppered his Federalist Papers with references to physics, chemistry, and the life sciences. For these men science was an integral part of life--including political life. This is the story of their scientific education and of how they employed that knowledge in shaping the political issues of the day, incorporating scientific reasoning into the Constitution.

Empire and Jihad

Empire and Jihad PDF Author: Neil Faulkner
Publisher: Yale University Press
ISBN: 030025878X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 463

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Book Description
A panoramic, provocative account of the clash between British imperialism and Arab jihadism in Africa between 1870 and 1920 The Ottoman Sultan called for a "Great Jihad" against the Entente powers at the start of the First World War. He was building on half a century of conflict between British colonialism and the people of the Middle East and North Africa. Resistance to Western violence increasingly took the form of radical Islamic insurgency. Ranging from the forests of Central Africa to the deserts of Egypt, Sudan, and Somaliland, Neil Faulkner explores a fatal collision between two forms of oppression, one rooted in the ancient slave trade, the other in modern "coolie" capitalism. He reveals the complex interactions between anti-slavery humanitarianism, British hostility to embryonic Arab nationalism, "war on terror" moral panics, and Islamist revolt. Far from being an enduring remnant of the medieval past, or an essential expression of Muslim identity, Faulkner argues that "Holy War" was a reactionary response to the violence of modern imperialism.

Omar Al-Bashir and Africa's Longest War

Omar Al-Bashir and Africa's Longest War PDF Author: Paul Moorcraft
Publisher: Pen and Sword
ISBN: 1473828236
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 274

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Book Description
President Omar al-Bashir is Africa's and arguably Arabia's most controversial leader. In power since 1989, he is the first sitting head of state to be issued with an arrest warrant, for war crimes, by International Criminal Court.??He has been a central personality in Islamic and African politics, as well as a love-to-hate figure for the US in the 'war on terror'.??For military history readers, Al-Bashir is a field marshal who has fought possibly the world's longest conflict. Modern Sudan has been embroiled in war since 1955.??No proper biography has been written on him before. Nor has there been a comprehensive military history of Sudan. The book briefly covers the military background until independence. Then it dissects the long north-south civil war until Bashir's Islamist military coup in 1989. Thereafter it narrates the wars in the east, south, west (in Darfur), International political and military intervention is also factored in.??The author draws on in-depth one-on-one interviews with Bashir himself and his family and close political, military and intelligence colleagues.

Eminent Victorians

Eminent Victorians PDF Author: Lytton Strachey
Publisher: BoD – Books on Demand
ISBN: 9359324418
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 224

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Book Description
"Eminent Victorians" is a seminal work of biography and social commentary published by British writer and critic Lytton Strachey. By offering four unique portrayals of notable Victorian people, the book challenges the standard approach to biography. Cardinal Manning, Florence Nightingale, Dr. Thomas Arnold, and General Charles Gordon are among Strachey's subjects. Strachey takes a sarcastic and critical perspective to their lives, rather than offering hagiographic narratives. He examines their shortcomings, paradoxes, and character complexity, presenting the human side of these great figures. Strachey's style is funny and astute, providing readers with a new perspective on these great figures. When it was initially released, the book's satirical tone and unorthodox biographical format generated quite a stir. Strachey's presentation of these illustrious Victorians as flawed and deficient questioned the conventional veneration for the era's heroes and heroines. "Eminent Victorians" is more than just a biography compilation; it's a critique of the Victorian society and beliefs that these figures embodied. Strachey's work was influential in altering the biography genre and encouraging a more nuanced and critical assessment of historical characters.

The Victorian Soldier in Africa

The Victorian Soldier in Africa PDF Author: Edward Spiers
Publisher: Manchester University Press
ISBN: 9780719061219
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 228

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Book Description
This book re-examines the campaign experience of British soldiers in Africa during the period 1874-1902. It uses using a range of sources, such as letters and diaries, to allow soldiers to 'speak form themselves' about their experience of colonial.

Three Empires on the Nile

Three Empires on the Nile PDF Author: Dominic Green
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 0743298950
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 353

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Book Description
A secular regime is toppled by Western intervention, but an Islamic backlash turns the liberators into occupiers. Caught between interventionists at home and fundamentalists abroad, a prime minister flounders as his ministers betray him, alliances fall apart, and a runaway general makes policy in the field. As the media accuse Western soldiers of barbarity and a region slides into chaos, the armies of God clash on an ancient river and an accidental empire arises. This is not the Middle East of the early twenty-first century. It is Africa in the late nineteenth century, when the river Nile became the setting for an extraordinary collision between Europeans, Arabs, and Africans. A human and religious drama, the conflict defined the modern relationship between the West and the Islamic world. The story is not only essential for understanding the modern clash of civilizations but is also a gripping, epic, tragic adventure. Three Empires on the Nile tells of the rise of the first modern Islamic state and its fateful encounter with the British Empire of Queen Victoria. Ever since the self-proclaimed Islamic messiah known as the Mahdi gathered an army in the Sudan and besieged and captured Khartoum under its British overlord Charles Gordon, the dream of a new caliphate has haunted modern Islamists. Today, Shiite insurgents call themselves the Mahdi Army, and Sudan remains one of the great fault lines of battle between Muslims and Christians, blacks and Arabs. The nineteenth-century origins of it all were even more dramatic and strange than today's headlines. In the hands of Dominic Green, the story of the Nile's three empires is an epic in the tradition of Kipling, the bard of empire, and Winston Churchill, who fought in the final destruction of the Mahdi's army. It is a sweeping and very modern tale of God and globalization, slavers and strategists, missionaries and messianists. A pro-Western regime collapses from its own corruption, a jihad threatens the global economy, a liberation movement degenerates into a tyrannical cult, military intervention goes wrong, and a temporary occupation lasts for decades. In the rise and fall of empires, we see a parable for our own times and a reminder that, while American military involvement in the Islamic world is the beginning of a new era for America, it is only the latest chapter in an older story for the people of the region.