Milner: Last of the Empire Builders

Title: Milner
Subtitle: Last of the Empire Builders
Author: Richard Steyn
Publisher: Jonathan Ball Publishers
Johannesburg, South Africa 2022
ISBN 9781776191789 / ISBN 978-1-77-619178-9
Softcover, 15 x 23 cm, 380 pages, several b/w images

About: Milner - Last of the Empire Builders

Lord Alfred Milner (1854-1925) was born as the son of the doctor and later lecturer for English at the University of Tübingen in South West Germany, Charles Milner, whose parents had emigrated to Germany, and the daughter of a British general. Alfred Milner was a brilliant public servant of the late Victorian era. He was also one of Britain’s most famous or notorious empire builders who left an indelible imprint on the history of South Africa. Carefully chosen by Colonial Secretary Joseph Chamberlain to bring President Paul Kruger’s obstreperous Boers to heel, Alfred Milner was primarily, though not solely, responsible for the Anglo-Boer War, a conflict that proved to be the beginning of the end of the British Empire.

For three years after the war, a determined Alfred Milner set out to reconstruct the country, leaving behind a group of young administrators who contributed significantly to the unification of South Africa, but also resentment among Afrikaners for their mentor’s language and education policies. Back in England, Alfred Milner involved himself via the House of Lords in all the great issues of British politics, while continuing to promote the ends of Empire through the activities of the Round Table movement.

In Milner: Last of the Empire Builders, Richard Steyn argues that Alfred Milner’s reputation should not be defined by his eight years’ service in South Africa alone. Chosen for his famed administrative abilities as Britain’s War Secretary, Alfred Milner did much to shape the Allied victory in the First World War. If his personal qualities and beliefs made him the wrong man to send to South Africa, where he failed to accomplish the over-ambitious goals he set himself, he was the right man in a far greater international conflict.

Richard Steyn, born 1944 in Cape Town, is the author of several bestselling books, including Churchill & Smuts: The Friendship and Louis Botha: A Man Apart. He edited the Natal Witness in Pietermaritzburg from 1975 to 1990, was a Nieman Fellow at Harvard University and editor in chief of The Star from 1990 to 1995. He served as Standard Bank’s Director of Corporate Affairs and Communications from 1996 to 2001, before returning to writing, book reviewing and publishing.

Content: Milner - Last of the Empire Builders

Another Soul
People of the Great Sand Face
Are Your Eyes Nicely Open?
In the Beginning
Voices Across the Sand
Backwards and Forwards in Time
The Old Way
And the Children
The Early Race
In the Light of the Day
The Softening of the Sun
Eyes Nicely Open
Olden-Day Ostriches
A Long Story
Animal to Human
Fire in our Heart
Talking Bones
Earthgift
Winter Moon
Blood Holds the Memory
That We Live
The Spider's Message
The Tall One
The Tree of Life
Passing of Days
One Day
Another Day
A Healing Man
Hunter Predator
When Boys Become Men
Dance the Healing Dance
Coming into Wholeness
Resolution
The Cutting Moon
Woman
Day of the Rain Animals
After the Storm
All Creatures
The Old Man
Wisdom Of The World
Mystery Truths
A Human Trinity
Spoken Words
God's Children
Exodus
All Circles Close
Brothers and Sisters
The Last Great Dance
Across the Threshold
The Consecration Of Humanity
Bushman Winter
/Gwikwe Conversations And Clicks
Clicks - A Description Of How To Make The Six Primary Clicks
List Of People