Kitchener: Architect of Victory, Artisan of Peace

Best known as the brutal muscle behind Britain's late 19th-century participation in the ""Scramble for Africa,"" whereby European powers vied with one another to divide the continent, Kitchener (1850-1916) and his tactics--which included concentration camps and massive scorched-earth policies in the Sudan and during the Boer War--have not fared so well over time. British biographer Pollock (Wilberforce; etc.) uses a trove of family papers, the Royal Archives, contemporary letters and other accounts to rehabilitate his subject painstakingly, painting the victory at Sudan's Omdurman (1898), the peace settlement with the Boers in South Africa (1902), the reform of the Indian Army and other conquests as rightly making him Britain's most respected general at the start of WWI. Pollock shows Kitchener predicting the costly length of the war and remarking that only an impartial peace conference would avoid future war in Europe. Kitchener drowned in June 1916 when a British cruiser struck a German mine and sank en route to Russia, so his participation was cut short. Pollock uses his sources adroitly to bring to life the personal strengths and weaknesses of Britain's then-most-admired general, which is this book's main contribution. Illustrations not seen by PW. (Mar.) Forecast: The first third of this near-hagiography was published in the U.K. in 1998, and was extensively reviewed. This expanded, simultaneous publication may generate further interest across the pond, but few beyond buffs and specialists will seek it out over here. Nevertheless, it is the only Kitchener biography currently in print in the U.S., and its extensive primary research may contribute to library sales.