This unique account of the "uneasy special relationship" between Britain and South Africa surveys all political, economic, cultural, and geostrategic aspects. Starting from the bruising experience of the South African Boer War, Ronald Hyam and Peter Henshaw trace the countries' deteriorating relationship through a series of crises to South Africa's departure from the Commonwealth in 1961 and subsequent return, post-apartheid, in 1994.

Product Description: The Lion and the Springbok presents an account of the dynamics and divergences of the 'uneasy special relationship' of Britain and South Africa.

The first edition of this book represented a pioneering attempt to provide a new synthesis and a full-scale revision of the history of the British empire between 1815 and 1914 in its heyday and the period of the beginnings of its decline. In this new and substantially revised edition Ronald Hyam draws deeply on the accumulated specialized studies and the latest work, as well as on his own research, to present a comprehensive and up-to-date chronological narrative, together with a more theoretical and reflective concluding chapter, thus giving an overview of British policy and action, and covering both the areas of formal control (India and Africa) and those of informal influence (China and America). The British empire is seen in a wider perspective as part of the history of global expansion and of face relations. Strategy, diplomacy, religion, economics and racial attitudes are all considered in depth, but the imperial significance of a wide range of less obvious topics is also considered, including relations with the USA, sport, sex and freemasonry.

This study of British imperial history has been aimed at those who are interested in exploring the underlying realities of British expansion on the world stage. This book deals specifically with sex and its effect on the Empire. The book discusses the differences between the private lives and public responsibilities of the men who ran the Empire. It examines the issues of marriage, celibacy and women, Victorian sexuality and sexual opportunity. It covers the variety of communities in the Empire - plantations, trading posts, mining compounds, convict settlements, mission stations and settler communities - and discusses sexual life in India with emphasis on promiscuity and the resulting levels of venereal disease in the Indian Army. The book also discusses the problems resulting from polygamy, the relationship between poverty and prostitution and the issue of white slavery. It examines the change in sexual attitudes during the Edwardian era and cites specific cases, tragedies and scandals, including the Silberrad case, the Crewe circular and the "Purity Campaign", resulting from sexual encounters. Finally, the author draws conclusions from the articles and essays included in the book and relates the issues of race, sex and the Empire, finally concluding that in his opinion a return to Victorian sexual values is the last thing the world needs.