| Synopsis: |
After a meeting with General Gordon of Khartoum in South Africa in 1881, Cecil John Rhodes set up a secret society, with the aim of establishing a new world order. The society, disciplined on Jesuit-style lines, 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 in the controversial 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. Ranging from the diamond mines of Kimberley to the halls of power in Westminster, and peopled with characters such as Olive Schreiner, the Princess Radziwill, Kaiser Wilhelm 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." |