The Boer War was a costly colonial conflict between the British Empire & the two independent Boer republics in South Africa. Pitting the superior armed might of British imperialism against two of the world`s tiniest rural states, it nevertheless took almost three years for the Boer forces to be defeated. The war saw the first use by the British of civilian concentration camps & the employment of a `scorched earth` policy against a European enemy, while the Boer amateur armies organised as commandos to try to hold out against defeat. Britain`s eventual victory laid the foundations of modern South Africa. Bill Nasson, Professor of History at the University of Stellenbosch, has fully revised & updated his earlier authoritative history of the conflict, taking account of the most recent scholarship & making use of Afrikaans sources as well as those in English. He places the Anglo-Boer War struggle of 1899-1902 in its historical context with other `small wars`, such as the more recent ones in Iraq & Afghanistan, making this an essential book not only for anyone interested in the Boer War, but also in imperial history more generally, & in Britain`s overseas colonial campaigns.