First Published in 1998

The aim of this book is to examine the origins and conduct of colonial warfare in Africa in the late nineteenth century, as far as possible from the perspectives both of the European invaders and the African resisters, and in the process to demonstrate the impact, both immediate and long-term, of these wars upon the societies, political structures and military theory and practice of both victors and vanquished.

Vandervort has written this book with the student and general reader in mind; scholarly apparatus has been kept to a minimum.

The book which follows takes as its point of departure the belief that we have now reached a point in our understanding of the military history of the partition of Africa where it is possible to begin to draw some meaningful general conclusions.