Jan Christian Smuts; the conscience of a South African

Laminated pictorial dustwrapper, scuffed, pp. xii + 284, a few plates. Long gift inscription on the front free endpaper, edges slightly soiled. 'An academic - even a visionary - by nature, he felt impelled to demonstrate that he was a man of action. Cosmopolitan in his political awareness, he constantly sought refuge in South Africa. A scientific humanist by choice, he was a Christian by conviction. This book examines how Smuts struggled with these dilemmas. It looks at his involvement in moves to unite the Boers and British of South Africa, to strenghten the links which bound together the member-states of the old British Commonwealth, to build a worldwide version of that Commonwealth by means of a League of Nations organization. This was the realm of ideas in which Smuts was most successful, as consultant to Louis Botha at home, to Lloyd George and Winston Churchill amongst British prime ministers and to Woodrow Wilson on the still wider stage.'.