The River War

From Library Journal
Churchill wrote this account of the campaign at Omdurman in Arabia in 1899 when he was still soldiering for the queen. It was his first major historical work and is still considered one of his most riveting.Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.


Book Description
Here Sir Winston S. Churchill -- the same man who would go on to lead the free world through its darkest hours during the second world war -- tells the tale of the Anglo-Egyptian reconquest of the Sudan. It isn't just an account of the battles and the politics; it's the story of the destiny of the people of the region: Churchill with his powerful insight tells the the war changed the fates of England, Egypt, and the Arabian peoples in northeast Africa.


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Yet he who had not seen the desert or felt the sun heavily on his shoulders would hardly admire the fertility of the riparian scrub. Unnourishing reeds and grasses grow rank and coarse from the water's edge. The dark, rotten soil between the tussocks is cracked and granulated by the drying up of the annual flood. The character of the vegetation is inhospitable. Thorn-bushes, bristling like hedgehogs and thriving arrogantly, everywhere predominate and with their prickly tangles obstruct or forbid the path. Only the palms by the brink are kindly, and men journeying along the Nile must look often towards their bushy tops, where among the spreading foliage the red and yellow glint of date clusters proclaims the ripening of a generous crop, and protests that Nature is not always mischievous and cruel.


From the Publisher
10 1.5-hour cassettes


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Riding in Kitchener's calvary was a young subaltern, Winston Churchill, who had come to write as well as fight. Even at a young age Churchill exuded authority, and this book, which made him famous, has become a classic.


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