I found this to be quite interesting as an examination of the history of both southern Africa and Rhodes the man. The author covered Rhodes' entire life, birth to death in great detail and, seemingly, little bias. The main author provided excellent specifics on the hard times and the good times for a young man out to get on in the world. The co-author is a psychologist, which is both a positive and a negative. I could have done without so much of the "he did this because his mother was too close" silliness. Of course, that is what psychiatrists do. It is easy to skip over the shrink talk, leaving a fasciinating and illuminating story. I strongly recommend this book to anyone who delights in thorough history. The author managed to provide information from many archival sources.

As always, the maps in the Kindle version were worthless. It would be wise to buy maps of southern Africa to be able to follow the journeys.

This was quite a scholarly work, as the author did exhaustive research on Rhodes from existing and from neglected sources. As such, the book comes off as ponderous at times. Although I am an avid reader, I must admit I read the 854 page treatment of Rhodes over the course of seven months. But I am glad I did. The larger-than-life Rhodes is a charismatic and complicated character who greatly influenced the history of the British empire. His influence continues today in the form of his Rhodes scholarships.

A very long and critical modern biography of Rhodes. The author choose to leave absolutely no detail of his life untold at great length. Most annoying is a pseudo-psycology approach of Rhodes as a product of intense love for his mother and a less than great relationship with his father. If you can get by all that, reading this will give you something of a contemporary understanding of the colonization of southern Africa and the relationship of Brits and Boers before and during the Anglo-Dutch war.

Compelling read! Great history on Southern Africa. Might have been half the length though without impacting the quality of the book.

The Cecil Rhodes who sailed for Durban in 1870 hardly seemed destined for success. He showed no exceptional academic talent or capacity for leadership. He appeared doomed to live a comfortably affluent, if ineffectual, life back home in England. By his death in March 1902, at age 48, Rhodes had founded a large country and a global diamond industry (through which he owned 90% of the diamond market), served as prime minister of the Cape Colony, developed intimate relationships with Kaiser Wilhelm II and Queen Victoria, founded an Oxford scholarship fund, and fomented the Boer War. And yet he had hardly begun to fulfill his dreams.

In unraveling his mysterious subject, Robert Rotberg gives credit for Rhodes's grand "transformation of his surroundings" not so much to any extraordinary gifts or advantages but to his "long-term vision and immediate practicality," and just being in the right place (e.g. diamond fields) at the right time. If Rhodes exists in popular legend today as ruthless and unprincipled in his thirst for money and conquest, he also, Rotberg dares to propose, believed he served the best interests of the British Empire and Africa.

Mr. Rotberg chose to write a psychoanalytic biography of Rhodes, meaning he wrote it in tandem with Mr. Shore, a psychiatrist, who pastes textbook jargon and Freudian evaluations of Rhodes throughout--which creates nearly intolerable brown-outs in an otherwise brilliant, imagistic narrative. In choosing such a manner of reanimating a character like Rhodes over the literary method, Mr. Rotberg underestimates his abilities. His unprecedented access to letters and sources untouched by previous biographers, however, makes his book the first full, and thus indispensable, account of this mysterious and multifarious man.

What makes this biography so unique is that it is, in fact, very well researched. The book if full of direct quotations from intimate correspondences and the like. As an avid reader and researcher of sub-Saharan history, this book is a treasure-trove of wonderful snippits of reactions to pivotal moments in Rhodes' life. That said, there are two shortcomings to this book: 1) The book is sprinkled with psychology babble from a contributer, other than Rotberg that really detracts, rather than enhance the read; and 2) the book can be repetitive, i.e. the same quotations - while great - are used over again, as are basic facts. In sum, the book is nevertheless a valuable contribution to the study of Rhodes and to the history of the southern African region.

Great Book at a great price ! Satisfied !

Horribly written book. I read 1 chapter and abandoned it on an airplane. Boring hero worship. Verbose.

An insightful, highly readable account of a complex, visionary character who shaped Southern Africa.

This, at over 800 pages is a very long book. It is best when describing events, at its worst when attempting psychological analysis of its subject. The author annoyingly refers to many characters in Rhodes' life without saying who they are or explaining their role. However you are unlikely to find a more thoroughly researched biography, and it gives a good understanding of the man and his motives, even if it never really brings him to life.