Thomas Pakenham

For centuries, English country gentlemen had collected exotic pictures for their saloons and rare books for their libraries. By the end of the seventeenth century, they had begun to collect trees. Within the space of a few years, hundreds of new specimen trees enriched the British landscape, and demand was high for the most splendid imports: maples and tulip trees from the American colonies, cypresses and cedars from Europe and Lebanon, and oriental plane from Greece and Turkey, with its romantic associations with Plato''s Academy.How did these extraordinary trees make their way to the gardens of Britain and Ireland? Who were the scholars and daredevils who combed the new and old worlds in search of green treasure? What crimes did they commit, and what price did they pay to bring the world''s charismatic megaflora to the gardens of home?In this exuberant history, Thomas Pakenham reveals the marvellous tales of adventure, discovery, rivalry, and passion that created the modern British landscape.

The war declared by the Boers on 11 October 1899 gave the British, as Kipling said, ''no end of a lesson''. The public expected it to be over by Christmas, but it proved to be the longest (two and three-quarter years), the costliest (over L200 million), the bloodiest (at least 22,000 British, 25,000 Boer and 12,000 African lives) and the most humiliating war that Britain fought between 1815 and 1914.Thomas Pakenham''s was the first full-scale documentary history of the war to be attempted since 1910. His narrative is based on first-hand and largely unpublished sources, from British and South African archives to the private papers, letters and diaries of the protagonists and soldiers of both sides, and the tape-recorded memories of over fifty survivors. Out of this historical goldmine, Thomas Pakenham has constructed a narrative as vivid and fast-moving as a novel, and throws new light on the blunders and personal feuds of the British generals. He writes movingly of the plight of the 100,000 black Africans who served both armies, and explains the final political victory of the Boers - how they lost the war but won the peace - with far-reaching consequences for Europe and South Africa.