The drama of Rorke’s Drift appealed to me.
Growing up I was fascinated by…
When I was a kid, the American Civil War was a big interest – but when I saw Zulu (1964), the Michael Caine film about the Battle of Rorke’s Drift, that really sparked my imagination, and I wanted more. The problem I had at the time was that it was unique: the only film about the Anglo-Zulu War! It wasn’t until I started reading history on quite a serious basis that I moved away from the American Civil War and into Zulu history.
My favourite period or conflict…
I’m especially interested in the 19th-century Zulu kingdom, particularly the 1879 Anglo-Zulu War and the battles of Rorke’s Drift and Isandlwana. A lot of colonial wars are just a bit depressing, because you know the major power is going to win them – but actually the Zulus gave the British a bloody nose at Isandlwana, and they put up a pretty good fight for their independence against the greatest empire in the world at the time.
