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Type of bind: Paperback
Dewey Decimal Number: 355.0092
EAN num: 9780850524963
ISBN number: 0850524962
Label: Pen & Sword Paperbacks
Manufacturer: Pen & Sword Paperbacks
Quantity: 1
Page Count: 180
Printing Date: 1996-08
Publishing house: Pen & Sword Paperbacks
Sale Popularity Level: 2495935
Studio: Pen & Sword Paperbacks
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Rated by buyers -
This fascinating little book tells the life of Valentine Baker, once British General but exiled into the service of the Turkish and Egyptian governments. The story of Baker's family (his brother Samual was a famous African explorer) and his own personal travails is told against a backdrop of life in the British Army from the Crimea to Khartoum. Readers of other works on the individual battles will the find the whole story told here with a unique sense of continuity. The various adventures of British forces in the Crimea, Turkey and Egypt were not unrelated events but part of a foreign policy as complex and tortured as our own today.
Baker's own personal story is also fascinating, and his interaction with other famous figures of the time (the Prince of Wales, General Wolseley, Gordon, Gladstone, etc.) shows them in a very revealing light. Their relationship with Baker reveals their personal side, something lacking in most history books.
The only unfortunate thing about the book is that the author does not identify her relationship with the Baker family. One assumes she is somehow related to the subject of the book, based on it's dedication to her husband "Valentine Edward Baker". It would help to put the tale in perspective if we knew a bit more about her point of view.
Rated by buyers -
the authour appears to be a distant relative of the subject of this book. I gave the book four stars, not because of any real "depth" to the biography, but solely because of the relative dearth of biographies of this ill-served man, Valentine Baker. for a general outline of valentine baker's life, this is a good read. however, one hopes that someone will do some serious research into the man's life and write the definitive biography of a sad, unsung hero of the late 1800s.
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