At the end of the 19th century, the great European empires are the most powerful nations in the history of mankind. To fuel their growing industrial economies, they expand into Africa, settling, buying, and outright seizing whatever land they can.

In Britain, men like Cecil Rhodes dream of a united British African Empire extending “from Cape to Cairo.” In France, explorers like Jean-Baptiste Marchand aim to beat Britain to the punch, creating their own continent-spanning empire from Senegal to Djibouti. Meanwhile, in South Africa, the independent Boer republics are fighting their own battle against British imperialism.

WARNING: Some strong racial language.

 

TABLE OF CONTENTS:

Chapter One: Flashback - The English Civil War – 00:04:08

Chapter Two: Why Else Was Victorian-Era Britain So Powerful? – 00:40:42

Chapter Three: The British Empire Enters Africa – 00:50:02

Chapter Four: The Rhodes Colossus – 01:28:53

Chapter Five: France Before the Scramble – 02:12:13

Chapter Six: The French Scramble for West Africa – 02:28:38

Chapter Seven: The Fashoda Incident – 02:50:57

Chapter Eight: Italy, Portugal, Spain, and Belgium – 03:13:09

Chapter Nine: A Brief History of Bismarck's Germany – 03:31:52

Chapter Ten: The Berlin Conference, Belgian Neutrality, and Germany's African Empire – 04:00:36

Chapter Eleven: The Second Boer War – 04:23:40

Chapter Twelve: The Siege of Kimberley – 04:41:20

Chapter Thirteen: The Empire Strikes Back – 05:08:04

Chapter Fourteen: Guerilla War in the Transvaal – 05:27:49

Chapter Fifteen: The End of the Scramble – 06:03:39

 

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Episode transcript (90% accurate, includes bibliography): https://docs.google.com/document/d/e/2PACX-1vR5yy3nbsD9_n8ySLibMMtDJpWQgGqTdwT6jq9MtHFYjwL5VgPUaiwOtNn6GnQm8aPsd1WYXm7g3hnC/pub/

Complete list of Season Two sources: https://bit.ly/418JbI6/

 

Music courtesy of: https://www.youtube.com/@publicdomainclassicalmusic3961/

 

SOURCES:

Ackroyd, Peter - The History of England, Volume III: Civil War

Barraclough, Geoffrey (ed.) - Harper Collins Atlas of World History

Benjamin, Thomas (ed.) - Encyclopedia of Western Colonialism Since 1450

Brendon, Piers - The Decline and Fall of the British Empire, 1781-1997

Christiansen, Eric - The Northern Crusades

Churchill, Randolph S. - Winston S. Churchill, Volume I: Youth, 1874-1900

Churchill, Winston - A History of the English-Speaking Peoples, Volume II: The New World

Davidson, Apollon - Cecil Rhodes and His Time

Davies, Norman - Vanished Kingdoms: The Rise and Fall of States and Nations

D’Este, Carlo - Warlord: A Life of Churchill at War, 1874-1945

Erickson, Edward J. - A Global History of Relocation in Counterinsurgency Warfare

Farwell, Byron - The Great Anglo-Boer War

Fremont-Barnes, Gregory - The Boer War, 1899-1902

Gilbert, Martin - Churchill and the Jews

Hobsbawm, Eric - Industry and Empire: From 1750 to the Present Day

Holmes, Richard - The Little Field Marshal: A Life of Sir John French

Horne, Allistair - La Belle France: A Short History

Jenkins, Roy - Churchill: A Biography

Lewis, David Levering - The Race to Fashoda: European Colonialism and African Resistance in the Scramble for Africa

Lockhart, J.G., Cecil Rhodes

Manchester, William - The Last Lion: Winston Spencer Churchill, Visions of Glory, 1874-1932

Maylam, Paul - The Cult of Rhodes: Remembering an Imperialist in Africa

Nasson, Bill - The War for South Africa: The Anglo-Boer War 1899-1902

Overy, Richard - A History of War in 100 Battles

Overy, Richard (ed.) - The Times Complete History of the World

Pakenham, Thomas (1982) - The Boer War

Pakenham, Thomas (1991) - The Scramble for Africa: The White Man's Conquest of the Dark Continent from 1876 to 1912

Prochaska, David - Making Algeria French: Colonialism in Bône, 1870-1920

Quigley, Carroll - The Anglo-American Establishment

Rhodes, Cecil - Confession of Faith

Roberts, Andrew - Churchill: Walking With Destiny

Rotberg, Robert I.; Shore, Miles F. - The Founder: Cecil Rhodes and the Pursuit of Power

Schama, Simon - A History of Britain, Volume II: The British Wars 1603-1776

Seward, Desmond - The Monks of War: The Military Religious Orders

Smith, Leonard V. - French Colonialism: From the Ancien Régime to the Present

Stanley, Henry Morton - The Congo and the Founding of Its Free State: A Story of Work and Exploration, Volume I

Steinberg, Jonathan - Bismarck: A Life

Stone, Norman - Europe Transformed, 1878-1919

Taylor, A.J.P. - Germany’s First Bid for Colonies, 1884-1885: A Move in Bismarck’s European Policy

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