What was Cecil Rhodes like as a young man?
Well, we’re very lucky because we’ve got a whole series of letters that he wrote to his home, and there must be few historical characters that one can get as close to at that early age. And he’s a quite remarkable young man. [H]is descriptions of Africa, frankly, are more artistic and intuitive and creative than the great Antony Trollope managed when he toured Africa…six years later. Rhodes had an intuitive feeling for the people of Africa. None of the later racism was there in evidence. We have wonderful descriptions of him spending whole nights in African Kraals. He…observed every detail. How things functioned. [Y]ou could see the early signs of his kind of technical excellence. He was always badgering people at home for the latest information he could get on cotton planting, on seeds, on gins and so forth. So here we have a young man of enormous charm, of enormous liberalism and openness. Communicating with his family with these loving, chatting letters. And it’s hard to think t
Well, we’re very lucky because we’ve got a whole series of letters that he wrote to his home, and there must be few historical characters that one can get as close to at that early age. And he’s a quite remarkable young man. [H]is descriptions of Africa, frankly, are more artistic and intuitive and creative than the great Antony Trollope managed when he toured Africa…six years later. Rhodes had an intuitive feeling for the people of Africa. None of the later racism was there in evidence. We have wonderful descriptions of him spending whole nights in African Kraals. He…observed every detail. How things functioned. [Y]ou could see the early signs of his kind of technical excellence. He was always badgering people at home for the latest information he could get on cotton planting, on seeds, on gins and so forth. So here we have a young man of enormous charm, of enormous liberalism and openness. Communicating with his family with these loving, chatting letters. And it’s hard to think t
