Book Review: The Washing of the Spears by Donald Morris

The Washing of the Spears
The Rise and Fall of the Zulu Nation
by Donald R. Morris
p. 1965
Simon and Schuster


    So last bit about the Zulus and South African history.  Have you ever scanned through the programs they show on the History Channel and wondered History means "War" as far as television cable channels are concerned?  I've often wondered about why history means "history of battles" to many people, and I think that's because people in the military have always been history buffs, and that shaped the market for books about history.  Me, I don't give a fuck about military history.  Who gives a shit?  War may be useful sometimes, but it is always a pointless waste of life. (or it ain't a real war.)  Here's a tip, if you buy a history book, and it turns out to be a military history book, skim that shit.  Skim the fuck out of it, or you'll spend a week of your life learning about the background of soldiers who fought in wars, the difficulty of fighting wars in strange locations.

    Even though the sub head of this book is "the rise and fall of the zulu nation" it's about as accurate as calling a book about the battles of the Civil War  "The Rise and Fall of the Confederacy."

   Military history is worse then useless, it's actually evil because it makes military types think that they can predict what is going to happen in a future war.  And they are always wrong, and people end up dying because of shitty history books.

     The Zulu's were defeated after the initial invasion was wiped off the face of the earth.  Honestly, the description of the Zulu warriors annihilating gun toting red coats was the absolute high point of the book.  Reading a book like this, the only thought I have is, "Gee, maybe the black South Africans should spring a genocide on the Whites left in South Africa and see how THEY like it."  The Anglo Zulu war, the war that resulted in the deaths of thousands of Zulus and Europeans, was totally unprovoked.  It was a war of extermination, fought for no reason, except to subjugate the Zulu nation.  You know, Whites brought their racist bullshit to Africa, and maybe turn about is fair play.