Richard Steyn - Churchill and Smuts: The Friendship that Changed History
Churchill and Smuts
A Dual Biography of War, Power, and Geopolitical Alliance
Bibliographic Specifications
- Title: Churchill and Smuts: The Friendship that Changed History
- Author: Richard Steyn
- Publisher: Jonathan Ball Publishers, Johannesburg / Cape Town
- Publication Date: 2017
- ISBN-13: 9781868427994
- Edition Details: First Edition, Standard Issue
- Binding: Publisher's original heavy-gauge illustrated softcover wraps with French flaps (gatefold softcover)
- Physical Format: Octavo (8vo), 374 pages. Supplemented with archival maps, central glossy black-and-white photographic plates, and a comprehensive research bibliography.
- Language: English
Official Condition Report
- The Book: Very Good (VG)
- Exterior: This used collectible book is in beautiful condition. The illustrated softcover wrappers remain flat, square, and structurally robust. The spine is completely unbroken, crisp, and uncreased. Displays only minor, standard shelf friction at the corners and base from placement.
- Interior: Text block is solid, tight, and square. Content pages are clean, bright white, and free of annotations, highlighting, underlying, or previous owner's stamps.
- The Dust Jacket: Not Applicable (As Issued)
Synopsis & Historical Value
Published in 2017, Churchill and Smuts explores the complex, deeply influential fifty-year relationship between two of the twentieth century's most towering political figures.
Author Richard Steyn masterfully traces how these former adversaries—who first crossed paths when Winston Churchill was captured as a young war correspondent by Boer forces in 1899—forged an extraordinary geopolitical partnership. The biography delves into their collaboration through both World Wars, their shared role in forming the League of Nations, and their mutual ideological triumphs and blind spots regarding the British Empire. This collectible copy provides a vital window into the backroom diplomacy that reshaped global borders.
Author Profile: Richard Steyn
Richard Steyn is an acclaimed South African author, biographer, and veteran newsman who served as the long-time Editor of the Natal Witness and later as Editor-in-Chief of The Star. Known for his highly readable, objective historical narratives, Steyn has written several definitive biographies on South Africa’s foundational wartime figures, specialized in translating vast political archives into accessible, gripping human portraits.
