Publisher's Synopsis
The underlying theme of this book is to contrast the reality of Commonwealth history in the last 150 years against the populist versions promoted by prominent historians and celebrities. People like Jeremy Paxman, Robert Pest on, Jeremy Clarkson, Tony Benn, Felix Kapuscinski, Fiona Bruce and Simon Schama. Their works have been widely accepted, and are far from the truth as Graham Tottle found it in 60 years of experience in state of the art computing and as an IT consultant to the UN's FAO Food and Agricultural Organisation, the World Bank and U.K.'s DFID. Graham worked in 22 countries around the world from North Korea to the West Indies, often at the coalface, often in dangerous times. He describes in-depth and with humour many key disciplines ranging from A to Z, from agriculture to zoology. And he finds the experts sadly wanting. The book is a serious work of history, but immensely readable and it exploits the tremendously effective capacity for e-books to use pictures and graphics to cement their text. Your author is an Anglo Scot whose forebears were seafarers from Orkneyl He is a Cambridge trained historian and computer scientist, Fellow of the British Computer Society. The cartoon shows him under surveillance as a consultant to the Director in Saddam Hussein's Ministry of Planning at the first Gulf War. There he was later a hostage until he escaped at the third attempt. His views on the UK's Chilcott enquiry into the Iraq war are persuasive - it was a necessary and triumphant victory, rescuing for example 300,000 bloody minded swamp arabs from elimination. Followed by a disastrous peace. He met similar dangers in hotspots like the war zone of the Sudan and in Uganda. He shows that, contrary to current views, the Empire and Commonwealth has had on balance an immensely beneficial effect worldwide, in civilising life and improving its quality for all its peoples. In passing he explains what were 'ball chitties'. And how the Princess flying boats managed to land safely on waters so crystal clear that pilots could not see the surface. And how malaria might have been eradicated world wide. Just like that!
