Book
An Ice-Cream War
East Africa, 1914. British and German settlers who have lived as neighbours are abruptly turned into enemies when the First World War reaches the colonies. Families on both sides of the border find plantations, marriages and ambitions overtaken by a campaign fought across difficult terrain by European officers, African soldiers and carriers.
As the conflict drags on, patriotism gives way to exhaustion, incompetence and absurdity. Boyd follows civilians and soldiers whose private rivalries are magnified by a war that seems remote from the slaughter in Europe yet proves equally destructive to those caught inside it. The novel’s black comedy exposes the vanity of imperial warfare while showing the East African campaign as a real struggle with lasting human costs.
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