Rope of Sand: The Rise and Fall of the Zulu Kingdom in the Nineteenth Century

Published by Jonathan Ball, 1995, softcover, illustrated, index, 517 pages, condition: as new.

Rope of Sand is John Labands magisterial account of the dramatic emergence and tragic decline of the Zulu kingdom in the nineteenth century. It is the culmination of fifteen years of research and fieldwork. 

One of the great untold stories of pre-colonial Africa at last receives a chronicle worthy of its significance. Revisit exotic Zululand, once the most powerful and sophisticated black state in Africa. See its rebellions by discontented subjects and ambitious princes, its intrusions by traders, missionaries, and land-hungry settlers. View the seeds of its downfall in the invasion by the Dutch Voortrekkers, and its defeat by the British at the height of their imperial power during a six-monthfull military campaignas well as ways the kingdom lives on in the dreams of the new South Africa. .