Flint ‘Cecil Rhodes’ - Review

Flint, J. Cecil Rhodes. Little, Brown & Co, 1974.

I found this biography of Rhodes in Oxfam and, being quite short, I thought it worth a read.

Published in 1974 the book is the work of an American historian and gives every appearance of being a disinterested account of Rhodes, about whom I know next to nothing.

Apart from some of the sections about Rhodes setting up some of his companies, the biography is an interesting and illuminating work.

Rhodes founded companies with bizarre structures so as to make the shareholders believe that (a) they would be in control of a given company; and (b) that great fortunes awaited them. In fact, Rhodes often used structures that meant that the crucial rights were owned by him outside the company structure. Additionally, shareholder voting rights were of little importance in these companies. As a consequence, his explanations of how these structures worked is hard to understand.

Notwithstanding this point, the book is an excellent biography.

Flint, J. Cecil Rhodes. Little, Brown & Co, 1974.

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