Isandwana1879 The sources Re-Examined

Has anyone got this book?

It's by F.W.D Jackson

Yes I have the book, but haven't had time to read it yet.
It's more of a booklet containing 64 pages.
Hopefully someone else can give more detail on the content.

Jackson's "The Sources Re examined" was originally published over 3 issues of the Journal for Army Historical Research in 1965. It formed the basis for Jackson's "Hill of the Sphinx". The three parts were later published together in booklet form by the museum at Brecon. Hill of the Sphinx is widely regarded as the best publication ever produced on Isandhlwana, but it is now very difficult to find. I do not know of any copies on sale anywhere at the moment. So, if you do not have Hill of the Sphinx then the booklet is the best you are going to do, or finding the original three editions of the JAHR from 1965.

Steve

I got my copy of 'Hill of the Sphinx' off ebay some years ago, and not all that long back I advised one of our newer members that there was a copy on the ebay site, if I remember correctly, I think he got it.

So it is well worth checking on ebay to see if one crops up, failing that, you could look on ABe books to see if there are any on there, or Amazon UK.

In my opinion it is one of the best books on iSandlwana and is a 'must have' for anyone who is interested in the AZW.

Agreed..if those interested dont find what they want straight
away, just be patient!. its all still out there, the JAHR, can
still be picked up at reasonable prices. in the picture, the odd
looking one on the left is a privately published copy of the
JAHR with all three articles presented. it says on the cover in
pencil ' Jacksons copy ' but i took that with a very large siberian
salt mine. as said, keep on searching, you will get there.

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Review By : Ian Knight
Hill of the Sphinx by FWD Jackson. Westerners’ Publications Limited (90, Babbacombe Road, Bromley, BR1 3LS), 83 pages, paperback, £10.00 (2004) Available from all good bookshops. Almost lost among the rush of books on the Anglo Zulu War is another study of Isandlwana published recently, David Jackson’s The Hill of the Sphinx. In 1965, Jackson published a series of articles on the battle in the Journal of the Society of Army Historical Research, which were to have a devastating effect on the historiography of the battle. Working entirely from primary sources, Jackson constructed a view which differed radically from the one first set out in the War Office’s official history, and which had been later taken up and elaborated by popular historians. Jackson’s incisive research was the first to question the conventional view of British dispositions during the battle, and to overturn such old chestnuts as the theory that the 24th Regiment ran out of ammunition at the height of the battle.

He went on to expound his views in an important debate with Donald R. Morris in the pages of this Journal, and in a contribution to the VMS’ Anglo Zulu War centenary publication, There Will Be An Awful Row At Home About This. As such, his work has heavily influenced most subsequent studies – including, incidentally, Ian Becketts and my own. This new publication is a revised and enlarged re-working of those original 1965 articles, presented in an A4 soft-cover format. It is illustrated with some new maps – greatly improved from the ones originally published – and numerous illustrations, including colour views of the battlefields (which, taken in 1979, already look dated, showing far less Zulu settlement, and not a tourist lodge in sight!). Well aware of the problems which ‘arise through quasi-history … fake documents and … the invention of details’, Jackson confines himself to primary sources, and while this may give his account less dash to the general reader than many popular studies, his style reveals occasional flashes of ironic humour (‘my grandfather … was commissioned a year after the Zulu War into the … Loyal Lincoln Volunteers. They did have one man from Lincolnshire …’) and many myths melt away under his relentless and perceptive analysis. If there are faults, they are largely those of omission; Jackson’s principle focus is on the officers and men of the 1/24th Regiment, and it is through them that this account largely unfolds. It might have been nice to see the something of John Laband’s work on the Zulu army in 1879 reflected here, or of Paul Thompson’s study of the black auxiliary troops who fought for the British. Moreover, since he is concerned only with the events at Isandlwana, the author’s sketches of background and peripheral characters are necessarily sparse. Nevertheless, it is a measure of the weight of Jackson’s work that the huge amount of energy expended since 1965 in investigating the battle – including the discovery of previously unknown Zulu accounts, and a preliminary archaeological survey of the battlefield – have validated his view rather than challenged it.

The author quotes Capt. Molyneux – Chelmsford’s ADC, who was on sick-leave in England at the time of the battle – as saying that ‘the subject of Isandlwana has been talked and written about much more by those who knew nothing about it than by those who were in the country’, a comment which one cannot help but ponder ruefully 125 years later. This book, however, remains an essential read for anyone with a serious interest in the battle.

Mr M. Cooper wrote:

I got my copy of 'Hill of the Sphinx' off ebay some years ago, and not all that long back I advised one of our newer members that there was a copy on the ebay site, if I remember correctly, I think he got it.

So it is well worth checking on ebay to see if one crops up, failing that, you could look on ABe books to see if there are any on there, or Amazon UK.

In my opinion it is one of the best books on iSandlwana and is a 'must have' for anyone who is  interested in the AZW.

Hi Martin,

I was that new member, you advised me about it back in 2013, a couple of months ago, I managed to get hold of a second copy from Amazon for another member (Martini Henry) they are definitely getting harder to find, my advice, if you see one, grab it.

Just in case I never thanked you for telling me about the Hill of the Sphinx on ebay........THANK YOU.

Hello mate, you are more than welcome my friend, just glad that you got it, and hope that you enjoyed the book.