Many people will, I guess, want to learn specifically about the Anglo/Zulu battles of Rorkes Drift and Isandlwana and this is where I started off. However I feel many will want to know far more about the Zulu history and the story of the British in South Africa during the nineteenth century and even earlier, particularly the Natal area. This very intensely reasearched book gives all of this information and very much more. It is beautifully written and is an eminently readable account of a quite complicated time in British and South African history. Additionally and very importantly, the book, although written by an Englishman does not show the bias towards the author's country many books often do. This is a captivating story and a history lesson all rolled into one. Many other books have been written about parts or all of this subject, some in fact by this author, but nothing I have found previously gives such an encompassing account of all the facts in the way this book does.