Total Onslaught

The end of the Second World War may have heralded peace in Europe but conflicts in Southern Africa were about to begin. The imperial powers were weakened by the cost of war and a string of wars challenged colonial rule in countries such as Namibia, Angola and Rhodesia. Once independence was achieved, civil wars between rival factions unfamiliar with democratic principles resulted.

Liberation movements such as those in South Africa demanded self-rule and end to Apartheid. Tribal feuds, corruption and the ambitions of dictators led to more conflicts such as the protracted fighting in the Congo. These were wars that ran on until both sides were exhausted often only to be re-kindled after short periods of uneasy peace. The cost in human and material terms has been devastating and in too many cases remain so.

Economic development has been frustrated and the result is often poverty, abuse and genocide. The Author who knows Southern Africa as a native is superbly equipped to tell this fascinating if tragic record.

About the Author

Professor Paul Moorcraft has frontline experience reporting on over 40 years, literally from A-Z, Afghanistan to Zimbabwe, as a war correspondent for print, radio and TV. The former Sandhurst instructor has also served as an officer in the Middle East, Asia and Africa. He was Visiting Professor at Cardiff University and is currently Director of the Centre for Foreign Policy Analysis, London.

His published works in print with Pen and Sword Books include Axis of Evil (2005), The Rhodesian War (2011), Mugabe's War Machine (2011), The Total Destruction of the Tamil Tigers (2012), Omar al-Bashir and Africa's Longest War (2015), The Jihadist Threat (2015) - shortlisted for the British Army Military History Book of the Year, 2016 and Saving The West. He is also an award-winning novelist, and an author of works on crime, and mathematics. He lives near Guildford, Surrey