The Jew Who Would Be King: A True Story of Shipwreck, Survival, and Scandal in Victorian Africa

"Brings the nineteenth century to life, with its attendant disease, violence, and colonial machinations.”-Jewish Book Council “In Rovner's deeply researched biography, the adventurer's swashbuckling memoirs are. . . . a crowbar of sorts, used to pry open a window onto an era of possibility, prejudice and burgeoning colonial avarice.”-NPRThis vivid reconstruction of one man’s life reveals the harsh realities and moral ambiguities of colonial power. The Jew Who Would Be King tells the story of Nathaniel Isaacs-a nineteenth-century British Jew who helped establish the Zulu kingdom only to become a ruthless warlord and slaveholder.Isaacs’ thrilling journey begins with his shipwreck on the shores of Zululand and proceeds to ports across West Africa, including Freetown, Sierra Leone.There, tasked by the colonial governor to end the local slave trade, Isaacs brokered deals that reinforced his own power. Adam Rovner's meticulous archival research in England, Sierra Leone, South Africa, and St.