Paul Kruger - His Life and Times: John Fisher

Kruger rose from a herdsman to a farmer, then became a local commando leader - and deprived of almost any formal education, became President of the Boer Republic who, at the turn of the last century, was the first to dent the prestige of the hitherto all-powerful British Empire. Inevitably he lost the Boer War, but the Boer commanders inflicted humiliating defeats on the British forces, winning the sympathy of multitudes of Europeans in the process.