Review: The Lion and the Springbok
| Date | 01 June 2004 |
| Published date | 01 June 2004 |
| Author | Elizabeth Elbourne |
| DOI | 10.1177/002070200405900219 |
| Subject Matter | Review |
Reviews
kind
of
misguided
magnificence. In
his final
chapter,
Landau
recounts
a
visit
to
his
local
hairdresser,
where
his
request to
listen
to
a
presiden-
tial
debate
falls
on
deaf
ears
and
he
is
forced
to
endure
"the
ordinariness
of
AM
radio
music." "Music
is
the
best
way
to kill
time,"
the
hairdress-
er
cheerfully
tells
him.
"Yes,
killing
time
and
styling
hair,"
Landau
thinks, "what
a
way
to
live
until
one
dies!"
(p 162)
To
"an
internation-
ally
known
scholar"
of
Landau's
eminence,
the
life
of
the
hairdresser
must
indeed
seem
a
mundane
one.
Let
us
hope
that
she
does
not
buy
his
book
to cheer
herself
up,
because
although
The
Pre-Emptive
Empire
qualifies
as
an
excellent
example
of
the
Moore-Coulter
school
of
heavy-handed error
and
predictable
exaggeration,
it
is
an
immensely
unsatisfying
and irritating
read.
Dominic
Sandbrook/University
of
Sheffield
THE
LION
AND
THE
SPRINGBOK
Britain
and
South
Africa
since
the
Boer
War
Ronald
Hyam
and
Peter
Henshaw
Cambridge:
Cambridge
University
Press,
2003.
xv,
379
pp,
us$60.00
cloth
(ISBN
0-521-82453-2)
T
he
twentieth-century
relationship
between
Britain
and
South
Africa
was
complicated.
As
Ronald Hyam
and
Peter
Henshaw
demonstrate
in
their
detailed
2003
study,
The
Lion
and
the
Springbok:
Britain
and
South Africa
since
the
Boer
War,
the
relationship
at
the
level
of
high politics
was
marked
not
only
by
frequent
strain
but
also
by
moments
in
which
Britain
acted
as
a
key
ally
of
South
Africa.
The
most
prominent
instance
of
conflict
was
of
course
the
bloody
and
contro-
versial
South
African war
of
1899
to
1902,
between
Britain
and
the
mineral-rich
Afrikaner
republics
of
the
Transvaal
and
the
Orange
Free
State.
The
1910
Act
of
Union
between
the
Cape
Colony,
Natal,
the
Transvaal
and
the Orange
Free
State
was also
marked,
as
the
authors
convincingly
demonstrate,
by
British suspicion
of
Afrikaners, however
much
union
was
retrospectively
cast
as
a magnanimous
gesture
on
the
part
of
Britain.
On
the
contrary;
union
was
seen
by
many
Africans
as
a
profound
act
of
betrayal.
Controversy
also
dogged
other
issues,
includ-
ing
struggles
over
British
imperial
possession
of
the High
Commission
INTERNATIONAL
JOURNAL
Spring200
4465
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