Cecil John Rhodes made a fortune from diamonds and gold, became
prime minister of the Cape, and had a country named after him, but his
ambitions were far greater than that. When he was still in his twenties, after
a meeting with General Gordon of Khartoum, Rhodes set up a Secret Society with
the aim of establishing a new world order. The society, disciplined on
Jesuit-style rules, became Rhodes’s lifelong obsession, and after his death it
lived on and grew under the leadership of his executor, Lord Alfred Milner.
The society played a key role in the governance of Britain during
the Great War and the peace terms to end it, and it was linked to appeasement
initiatives involving Hitler, the Duke of Windsor and Mrs Simpson before World
War II. Echoes of the Secret Society survive in different guises to this day,
including the Royal Institute of International Affairs (Chatham House) and the
Rhodes Scholarships.
In The Secret Society, Robin Brown unpacks this astonishing and
largely unknown history. He brings Rhodes, his companions and his successors to
life by drawing from diaries and letters, and sheds new light on Rhodes’s
homosexuality. Ranging from the diamond mines of Kimberley to the halls of
power in Westminster, and peopled with characters such as General Gordon, Leander
Starr Jameson, W.T. Stead, Olive Schreiner, the Princess Radziwill, Joseph
Chamberlain and David Lloyd George, this book is a page-turner that will make
you see the world, both past and present, in a different light.
https://www.amazon.es/dp/B016WAW374/ref=dp-kindle-redirect?_encoding=UTF8&btkr=1
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