The Jew Who Would Be King: A True Story of Shipwreck, Survival, and Scandal in Victorian Africa with Adam Rovner (U California Press, 2025)
This vivid reconstruction of one man’s life reveals the harsh realities and moral ambiguities of colonial power.
The Jew Who Would Be King: A True Story of Shipwreck, Survival, and Scandal in Victorian Africa (U California Press, 2025) 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…
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