Cecil Rhodes

by Princess Catherine Radziwill

Cecil John Rhodes (1853 - 1902) was a Britishborn South African businessman, mining magnate, and a politician. He was the founder of the diamond company De Beers, which today controls 60% of the world's diamonds and at one time, 90%. In the last years of his life, Rhodes was stalked by a Polish princess named Catherine Radziwill (1858-1941), born Rzewuska, married into a noble Polish- Lithuanian dynasty called Radziwill. Radziwill falsely claimed to people that she was engaged to Rhodes, or that they were having an affair. She asked him to marry her, but Rhodes refused. She eventually got revenge by falsely accusing him of loan fraud. He had to go to trial and testify against her accusation. He died shortly after the trial in 1902. She wrote a biography of Rhodes called Cecil Man and Empire-Maker which was published in 1918. Her accusations were eventually proven false.

Genres: Biography, History

340 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1918

Reviews

[Nyna · Rating 1 out of 5]

On the tails of reading of Diamonds, Gold, and War: The British, the Boers, and the Making of South Africa, I read this book, Cecil Rhodes: Man and Empire-Maker by my favorite little gossip girl, Princess Catherine Radziwill. This time, her writing missed the mark. She is obviously painting Rhodes in unflattering terms with innuendo and damning flattery, while dancing around direct criticism by blaming any of his faults on those around him. In “Diamonds, Gold, and War. . .,” an entire chapter was devoted to her romantic pursuit of Rhodes, then her forging of documents to escape her bills. There is not a whisper of any of that in her own book. Even her reporting of the prisoner camps and concentration camps, contains misinformation. At one point, she lists the provisions provided to the prisoners on a daily basis, including: 1¼ lb. bread; 1 lb. meat; 3 oz. sugar; ½ lb. vegetables; and ¼ lb. jam or 6 oz. of vegetables in lieu. She then insists that it can reasonably be assumed that the concentration camps received similar quantities of food, and yet 27,927 people died in those camps, 22,074 of them children under age 16. If I hadn’t just read the other book, I would have had a difficult time knowing who the people she talks about were. All and all, it is a real failure of a book.

[Ron Me]

Not a history nor a biography, the author says it is a book of recollections, apparently of someone who knew Rhodes fairly well. He appears to have been a prototype fascist, seeking power and closely aligned with capital, but he was a little too English to make it as big as, say, Franco. For which thank goodness.

[Karen]

Cecil John Rhodes (1853 - 1902) was a British-born South African businessman, mining magnate, and a politician. He was the founder of the diamond company De Beers, which today controls 60% of the world's diamonds and at one time, 90%. #biography #memoir

[Mike Wigal · Rating 2 out of 5]

Drivel.