This book investigates the story of 600 Black men from across North America and the Caribbean, who, in 1917, went to war in a labour unit, No. 2 Construction Battalion. Regarded then by senior Command as morally infectious, a century later they have become central actors in a powerful cultural myth, celebrated in folk tales, poetry, drama and text. Black Soldiers in a White Man’s War examines critically that mythical narrative. Based on service records of the 600 volunteers and 35 courts-martial in the unit, it probes the lives of these soldiers, who laboured in the forests of France during 1917 and 1918. Black Soldiers in a White Man’s War will shock some, but, for the majority of readers, it will present a fresh, vibrant portrait of a group of young Black men, who at a time of international crisis volunteered to fight the King’s enemies. It will also open readers to experiences these men faced as they returned to a post-war racist society.

This book focuses upon the wartime experiences of black people, and to examine the war in the context of a complex and rapidly changing colonial society increasingly shaped, but not yet transformed, by mining capital.

"Sol Plaatje's Mafeking Diary is a document of enduring importance and fascination. The product of a young black South African court interpreter, just turned 23 years old when he started writing, it opens an entirely new vista on the famous Siege of Mafeking. By shedding light on the part played by the African population of the town, Plaatje explodes the myth, maintained by belligerents, and long perpetuated by both historians and the popular imagination, this this was a white man's affair. One of the great epics of British imperial history, and perhaps the best remembered episode of the Anglo-Boer war of 1899-1902, is presented from a wholly novel perspective. "At the same time, the diary provides an intriguing insight into the character of a young man who was to play a key role in South African political and literary history during the first three decades of this century. It reveals much of the perceptions and motives that shaped his own attitudes and intellectual development and, indeed, those of an early generation of African leaders who sought to build a society which did not determine the place of its citizens by the colour of their skin. The diary therefore illuminates the origins of a struggle which continues to this day." -- John L. Comaroff (ed.) in his preface

During World War I, thousands of rural southern men, black and white, refused to serve in the military. Some failed to register for the draft, while others deserted after being inducted. In the countryside, armed bands of deserters defied local authorities; capturing them required the dispatch of federal troops into three southern states. Jeanette Keith traces southern draft resistance to several sources, including whites' long-term political opposition to militarism, southern blacks' reluctance to serve a nation that refused to respect their rights, the peace witness of southern churches, and, above all, anger at class bias in federal conscription policies. Keith shows how draft dodgers' success in avoiding service resulted from the failure of southern states to create effective mechanisms for identifying and classifying individuals. Lacking local-level data on draft evaders, the federal government used agencies of surveillance both to find reluctant conscripts and to squelch antiwar dissent in rural areas. Drawing upon rarely used local draft board reports, Selective Service archives, Bureau of Investigation reports, and southern political leaders' constituent files, Keith offers new insights into rural southern politics and society as well as the growing power of the nation-state in early twentieth-century America.

In December 1941 the Japanese invaded Burma. For the British, the longest land campaign of the Second World War had begun. 100,000 African soldiers were taken from Britain’s colonies to fight the Japanese in the Burmese jungles. They performed heroically in one of the most brutal theatres of war, yet their contribution has been largely ignored. Isaac Fadoyebo was one of those ‘Burma Boys’. At the age of sixteen he ran away from his Nigerian village to join the British Army. Sent to Burma, he was attacked and left for dead in the jungle by the Japanese. Sheltered by courageous local rice farmers, Isaac spent nine months in hiding before his eventual rescue. He returned to Nigeria a hero, but his story was soon forgotten. Barnaby Phillips travelled to Nigeria and Burma in search of Isaac, the family who saved his life, and the legacy of an Empire. Another Man’s War is Isaac’s story.

Sir It is understood that you have armed Bastards, Fingoes and Baralongs against us - in this you have committed an enormous act of wickedness...reconsider the matter, even if it cost you the loss of Mafeking... disarm your blacks and thereby act the part of a white man in a white man's war. Signed General Cronje 29th October 1899 General Cronje's orders are clear; take Mafeking and drive the British out of Africa but Colonel Baden-Powell, Mafeking's commanding officer, is no ordinary soldier and his defence of the town will be no ordinary fight. Themba Jabulani is a victim of a white man's war. A war where there are strange rules. A war where innocents will be sacrificed and heroes will be made. Jabulani is one of the innocents, struggling to survive with his wife and young child. Cronje's letter signals the start of the Boer War and a siege that will last seven months, claiming an unknown number of lives. A White Man's War is a story that takes place during that siege, the Siege of Mafeking. The defenders of Mafeking were commanded by an unconventional man who played to win, regardless of the cost. Robert Stephenson Smyth Baden-Powell, B-P to his friends was an experienced soldier and a ruthless maverick. The Boer War and Mafeking in particular would make him more famous than his godfather, the railway engineer he was named after. It would make him a Baron and change the way future wars would be conducted. Ignoring conventional principles of war, B-P invented new ways to defend the town. Outnumbered and outgunned, his men would thwart the Boers time and again. Mafeking was a strange gentleman's war punctuated by truces, cricket matches and ferocious fighting. The price for holding Mafeking would be enormous but it wouldn't be the Christian white people who would pay the largest share, it would be the natives, the innocent bystanders caught up in the white man's fight for South Africa. A White Man's War is a story of a siege, regarded by some as a great adventure but by others as a human tragedy. B-P would learn from Mafeking and go on to found the greatest youth movement the world had ever seen while others, less fortunate like Themba Jabulani, would suffer a very different fate.