Cecil Rhodes

by André Maurois

1953 Macmillan HARDCOVER, 144pp, 12mo.

Hardcover

Published January 1, 1968

About the author

André Maurois, born Emile Salomon Wilhelm Herzog, was a French author. André Maurois was a pseudonym that became his legal name in 1947.

During World War I he joined the French army and served as an interpreter and later a liaison officer to the British army. His first novel, Les silences du colonel Bramble, was a witty but socially realistic account of that experience. It was an immediate success in France. It was translated and also became popular in the United Kingdom and other English-speaking countries as The Silence of Colonel Bramble. Many of his other works have also been translated into English (mainly by Hamish Miles (1894–1937)), as they often dealt with British people or topics, such as his biographies of Disraeli, Byron, and Shelley.

During 1938 Maurois was elected to the prestigious Académie française. Maurois was encouraged and assisted in seeking this post by Marshal Philippe Pétain, and he made a point of acknowleging with thanks his debt to Pétain in his 1941 autobiography, Call no man happy - though by the time of writing, their paths had sharply diverged, Pétain having become Head of State of the Nazi-collaborationist Vichy France.

During World War II he served in the French army and the Free French Forces.

He died during 1967 after a long career as an author of novels, biographies, histories, children's books and science fiction stories. He is buried in the Neuilly-sur-Seine community cemetery near Paris.

Reviews

[Trey · Rating 5 out of 5]

A short, but detailed and great biography of man I knew little about besides the predisposed bias that anyone has about such a controversial figure. But after reading this, I found myself corrected to the character of Cecil Rhodes. Rhodes was an anomaly of a human. A man highly motivated to gain more, but not for the sake of money and what it buys, but the power and influence of change it gives. He was a man of purpose, not vain. A better man at 17 than most of us at 40. He was unattractive from the material and vain. He was a man of change. His goal was to create a better, safer world. Fueled also by his nationalist, imperial English spirit, he strove to make a better life for those who came after him. And even though he was so proud to be English, he truly lived the Boer and Native population of Africa, and they loved him back. Whenever peace was an option, even if it put him in an extreme situation of danger, he would choose it. Even when he looked insane for doing so. When the Boer wars broke out he was heartbroken, he had strove for nothing but unity. He didn’t have any romantic relationships, no kids, nothing. He died funding scholarships to not only people in the anglo-sphere, but in rival Germany too, as to promote unity. He died building a better world. A man rarely talked about and when so, in bad taste. Such appropriation is vile and horribly incorrect. Cecil Rhodes was not an evil man. Motivated by nothing except his desire for peace, prosperity and flourishing for his country and all peoples. Cecil is a figure that all men should strive to resemble. 10/10 book.

[Dane Mortensen · Rating 3 out of 5]

Works well as a short overview of the life of Cecil Rhodes's obviously not an in-depth analysis, but a fun little book.