‘My ‘special relationship’ with Cecil Rhodes dates back to the late 1940s, when, as a small child growing up in Cape Town, I would be taken by my grandparents to the botanical gardens in the city centre to spend a few reverential moments before the statue of Cecil Rhodes.’

So begins Anthony Thomas in a personal but objective account of a modern tragedy. Today the only monuments to the man are the scholarships awarded at Oxford University that bear his name and a civic centre in Bishop’s Stortford, the place of his birth.

Thomas was prompted to work on his eight-part BBC documentary by African events in 1980, when the new nation of Zimbabwe was formed out of Southern Rhodesia, sixteen years after Zambia had reverted to its new name from Northern Rhodesia. The show aired in the months after Nelson Mandela, to whom the book is dedicated, was elected President of South Africa.

Thomas outlines a life of a man who drew Britain into her most bloody conflict in the years between Waterloo and the First World War.

Having arrived in South Africa in his teenage years as a cotton farmer, Cecil Rhodes soon founded a set of diamond mines by exploiting the discovery of natural resources.

In 1880 Rhodes created De Beers, a company which monopolised the global diamond market. He followed this by profiting from the natural resources in gold, realising that South Africa had to sell their labour to its colonialists.

After a brief period studying at Oxford, where he suffered a heart attack, he returned to Southern Africa and dealt with illegal diamond buying, falling share prices, smallpox, sabotage and matters of business. Communication was improved with the introduction of telegraph facilities, which relayed messages around South Africa and back to England.

While in England Rhodes had been heavily influenced by new political thought, and stood for Parliament, establishing himself in Cape Town as Prime Minister of the region.

He also appointed intermediaries in the manner of a skilled diplomat and politician, whose lives Thomas also details.

There was also the infamous time when his own man, Jameson, launched his own raid on locals. Rhodes had originally set about dealing peacefully and in war with chiefs, rulers and Portuguese claimants of African land.

Controversially, Rhodes had set in motion most of the elements which led to the apartheid regimes of the twentieth century, passing laws restricting voting rights and education to segregate the people. This clouds judgement on his brilliant career, which came to an end at the time of the Boer War, aged 48, in 1902.

Praise for Antony Thomas:

“This is a true story of our times, and all times, splendidly told” - Nadine Gordimer, Nobel Laureate

"Informative, lively ... fascinating" - James Smethurst, CHICAGO TRIBUNE

"A book of substance, which ought to be widely read" - Ronald Segal, THE OBSERVER

"Intelligent, detailed, well-researched and credibly nuanced” - John Carlin, THE INDEPENDENT

"A biography I really would recommend" - Tony Palmer, BBC RADIO THREE

Anthony Thomas was brought up in South Africa and graduated from Cambridge University. He has achieved international recognition through his television documentaries and dramas.