Product Description

Using first hand accounts and diaries of participants, this work describes the growth of the Mahdist movement and the devotion and discipline of the Dervish troops. Set against them, with stoic endurance, were British Egyptian and Sudanese soldiers.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #927718 in Books
• Published on: 2000-08
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 235 pages

Customer Reviews

Fantastic subject, appallingly written.
The names are enough on their own to arouse interest - the wastes andscorching heat of the Sudan, the fanaticism of the Mahdi and his devotees,the truculence of Garnet Wolseley, General Gordon, and Kitchener. Thesettings - Khartoum, Cairo, Omdurman. The bloody battles of mixedBritish, Egyptian, and Sudanese soldiers against the terrifying Dervisheswho welcomed death in the name of their beliefs. It's all enough to makea book practically write itself. So how come Philip Warner's "Dervish"gets it so wrong? It all comes down to writing ability, and the need toconstruct the narrative in a way at once both uncluttered and informative. When an author gets it right it works perfectly, as in for exampleHibbert's "The Great Mutiny". But when an author gets it wrong, as PhilipWarner does here, the result is unspeakably dreadful. There's no sense ofcontinuity or chronology. Rich historical characters like Valentine Bakerare portrayed in lifeless and limp prose. Frequently the book reads likea badly-written child's textbook. The big battles - Abu Klea, El Teb,Omdurman - are described in a hopelessly incompetent fashion, driftinglazily over the details and rendering such defining moments of the bookembarassingly pathetic. I cannot see an audience for a book as poorlyconstructed, organised, and written as this. Hardcore military strategybuffs will be let down, as will more general students of the period. Andbeginners, like me, will be helplessly confused - not by the detail (thereisn't any) - but by the astoundingly confused and hotchpotch rendering ofthe events. After reading the entire book, I still feel that ByronFarwell's three chapters on the Sudan in his excellent "Queen Victoria'sLittle Wars" are so much more informative and helpful than Warner's sadlittle tome. Shame on Wordsworth for reprinting such garbage, and shameon Philip Warner for making one of the nineteenth-century's mostfascinating subjects so tedious and flat.