Shaka Zulu

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During his life, he scandalized Victorians by showing that the Bible could not be accepted as the literal word of God. While Napoleon was conquering and being conquered in Europe, there arose in the eastern provinces of South Africa an even more successful soldier and politician. In the 15th century, the Zulu were a small clan of Nguni people descended from Zulu kaMalandela, a common ancestor who founded the royal line. Dr Wylie described his book, Myth of Iron: Shaka in History, as an anti-biography because the material for a trustworthy biography did not exist.

He was fair but harsh and ruled in compassion and incorparated conquered tribes into the Zulu nation.Omer-Cooper took as his subject those Black Africans, most especially those occupying what we know as South Africa.

It is unlike those works vilifying Shaka as a monstrous tyrant directly and indirectly responsible for a trail of death across almost a third of Africa. According to tradition, Shaka was conceived during an act of what began as ukuhlobonga, a form of sexual foreplay without penetration allowed to unmarried couples, also known as "the fun of the roads" (ama hlay endlela), during which the lovers were "carried away" Due to persecution as a result of his illegitimacy, Shaka spent his childhood in his mother's settlements where he was initiated into an ibutho lempi (fighting unit).The first book, Shaka Rising, A Legend of the Warrior Prince opens with Shaka Zulu’s formative years. They pointed to the growing demand for slaves, largely driven by white traders and assisted by British military forces, as the true cause of the upheavals of the period.

I highly recommend this book, especially to people interested in history and learning about a culture. Nowadays it would probably be written in a more dramatic, less scholarly fashion but it is informative, readable and his observations and comments are generally backed up where necessary by other reliable commentators.As is the case with any oral history, there is likely a significant degree of fantasy thrown in for effect. Historians often compare Shaka to European nation-builders including Napoleon, Bismark, and Garibaldi.