In The Colonialist, William Kelleher Storey delivers a deeply researched and unsparing biography of Cecil Rhodes, the powerful and polarizing architect of British imperialism in southern Africa. Rather than glorify or vilify without nuance, Storey presents a layered portrait of a man whose vast wealth—amassed through diamond monopolies and strategic land grabs—allowed him to shape colonial policy and politics to devastating effect. From his early ventures in Kimberley’s diamond fields to his tenure as prime minister of the Cape Colony, Rhodes emerges as a figure driven by racial supremacy and imperial ambition. Storey is explicit about Rhodes’s bigotry, yet he also places it within the broader imperial context of the late 19th century, allowing readers to grapple with both the individual and the system he represented.
Storey’s biography arrives at a moment when Rhodes's legacy has become a lightning rod for debates about colonialism, historical memory, and public monuments. Since the explosive launch of the “Rhodes Must Fall” movement in 2015—sparked by the symbolic act of dousing his statue with human waste at the University of Cape Town—protesters have called for the removal of Rhodes’s likenesses across the world, including at Oxford’s Oriel College. These campaigns view Rhodes not merely as a historical figure, but as an enduring symbol of racial injustice and imperial violence. At the same time, Storey doesn’t ignore the irony that some of the movement’s most vocal participants have been Rhodes Scholars—beneficiaries of the prestigious international scholarship program established through his will. Rhodes’s philanthropic legacy, including his endowments to the University of Cape Town and Oriel College, as well as the founding of the Rhodes Scholarships, was meant to cement his place in posterity. Yet even these gestures, meant to promote leadership and global connection, are now reexamined in light of the deep inequities and exclusions that financed them. The Colonialist compellingly shows that reckoning with Rhodes is not just about tearing down statues, but confronting the enduring systems of privilege he helped build.