Britannia's Empire

Bill Nasson was born and raised in South Africa under the Apartheid regime. At the end of the 1960s he was excluded on grounds of government racial classification from studying at South Africa's main universities but won a series of prestigious scholarships to study in the UK. He gained his doctorate at the University of Cambridge and returned to South Africa during the final era of white minority rule. In 1997 he became Professor of History at South Africa's premier University of Cape Town. He has held visiting appointments and fellowships at Yale University and the University of Cambridge. His other books include the critically acclaimed The South African War ('A magnificent, subtle and memorable book' The Independent.