FUELLING THE EMPIRE: SOUTH AFRICA'S GOLD AND THE ROAD TO WAR

For more than a century following its discovery, South Africa held little interest for the imperial powers of Europe. When gold was discovered there toward the end of the nineteenth century, the territory suddenly became one of the most hotly contested pieces of real estate in the world. Fuelling the Empire tells the story of the South African gold rush, the vast political and economic forces it set in motion, and the devastating military conflict to which it gave riseâ??the Boer War, the first large-scale human tragedy of the twentieth century.

John J. Stephens studied political science and law at the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg. In 1970, as a member of the United Party, the then official parliamentary opposition, he was elected to the South African parliament to represent his home constituency of Florida. At age 24, he was the youngest MP in South African history up to that time. Politics and history have remained his passion throughout his life. He was Transvaal leader of the New Republic party through the 1980s in which capacity he worked on the development of constitutional reform in collaboration with the Inkatha Freedom Party.
Through his family history, John is intimately connected with the events described in the book. In 1870, at age 16, his patrilineal great-grandfather immigrated to South Africa from Manchester to seek his fortune in Kimberley, but found a Boer wife instead. John's grandfathers, both bitter-enders, fought the British as members of the Boer commandos. His patrilineal grandmother and her children were internees of a British concentration camp, all of them fortunately surviving with only the scars of bitter me mories. His father was born after the war.
John now works in the fields of finance and managerial training and consultancy. He is a non-practicing advocate of the Supreme Court of South Africa.