Bookshot #184: The Scramble for Africa
This big doorstopper of a book has been on my bookshelf since I don't know when. I'm pretty sure I inherited this one from my parents, so it probably sat on their bookshelf since I don't know when because I don't remember purchasing it despite the fact I have Pakenham's excellent book The Boer War (which I do remember purchasing.) And having made my way through all six hundred and eighty pages of it, I'm still not entirely sure what I think about this book. Let's start with the obvious: this was written in 1991 and it feels like it, too. I'm sure there have been more up-to-date assessments of the Scramble since then (at least I hope so) but when Pakenham pegs apartheid in South Africa as being the most poisonous legacy of the Scramble, it makes sense in the context of the immediate post-Cold War, pre-ending of Apartheid era in which he was writing. I, reading this in 2024, 33 years after Pakenham wrote the book would be more inclined to point the finge...