Duncan Clarke

Author & Publisher

—————————————————————————————————————

Zambesia

The Literary Safari

Zambesia, the hidden heart of Central Africa, was terra incognita for millennia, except for the San, its inhabitants for tens of thousands of years. Intrusions by peoples from the north followed from around two millennia ago.

The ‘discovery’ of this interior came after centuries of cartography in Old Europe and by Portuguese on the coast. Revealed as Monomotapa, this ‘unknown land’ emerged as Zambesia from the 1850s.

Moffat, Livingstone, Baines, and Selous opened Zambesia to the world after eons of illiteracy. It was Africa’s foremost ‘literary desert’ until Cecil Rhodes in 1890 forged an epic break from its feudal past.

Zambesia: The Literary Safari explains this shift, and how Stone Age to Iron Age history was uncovered. Literacy and literature flourished thereafter as intelligentsia brought the arts of civilisation to this unlettered world.

The ‘known’ in 1891 was fractional to that uncovered since, about its geography, landscapes, resources, peoples, histories, San ‘Rock Art’, material cultures, and subsistence modes de vie.

Zambesia was ‘revealed’ in books, journals, and thousands of published works by archaeologists and historians, to shape the most literate society in Africa.

               Published 14 August 2024 by Royal Sable Publishing, and on Amazon.

——————————————————————————————————————-

Cecil Rhodes’ Library

For one hundred and twenty seven years, a secreted Catalogue, listing Cecil Rhodes’ books, seen by privileged few, still unpublished, existed at Groote Schuur in Cape Town

Rarely visited in the last thirty years, hidden in plain sight, rarely exposed in over 50 biographies, ignored by critics, this literary trove offers revelatory insights into the mind, thoughts, aims and actions of this late Victorian Age’s most prominent figure.

Groote Schuur’s assemblage of 2,554 texts include Africana, history, biography, social science, literature, Federation, law, governance, geography, art, science, architecture, Classics (Ancient Greek, Latin, French), novella, and works of reference.

The most notable library in 19th century Africa, this collection shaped Rhodes’ thoughts, ideas, acts, and decisions in southern-central Africa. 

Rhodes is revealed as an adept bibliophile, literary connoisseur and itinerant nomadic who relied on literature and cartography for ideas, and thoughts in speeches, as Cape Colony premier, 1890-96, and founder of Rhodesia.

These endeavours brought literature to Zambesia, a literary desert devoid of alphabet, pen, writing, or books, from the San to the late 19th century when missionaries, hunters, explorers and traders entered the Great Plateau from the mid-1850s.  

The private library acquired and curated at Groote Schuur was bequeathed by Rhodes for posterity.

Cecil Rhodes’ Library is the first-ever and only expose of this unique trove that covers Cape to Cairo, and Classics from antiquity to 20th century avant-garde literature.

Cecil Rhodes never crafted an autobiography but scripted a vast ‘grey’ literature and was an avid collector of rare cartography on Africa and the world.

              Published in April 2024, by Royal Sable Publishing, and on Amazon.

 ————————————————————————————————————-

The Quiet Rhodesian

Silent Servant, 1909-1981

Royal Sable Publishing’s book The Quiet Rhodesian, published in October 2023 , is now available on Amazon in Kindle and Hardback worldwide.

It tells the story of the author’s father, Gerald Bryan Clarke (1909-1981), who was born in Gwelo, went to St George’s College in Bulawayo (1920-26), and joined the Treasury in 1927.

In time he enlisted in the 5th Southern Rhodesia Armoured Brigade in 1940, deployed to Kenya, Abyssinia, Egypt and Italy in World War II, and was at the liberation of Rome and Florence, before and after encountering action against the German tanks, snipers and military in northern Italy.

On return to Rhodesia, Gerald Clarke rejoined the Treasury, and in 1948 the Public Services Board, then Sir Godfrey Huggins cabinet office as under-secretary (1950-52) when he was appointed Cabinet Secretary and Secretary to the Prime Minister in 1953, thereby acting for Garfield Todd, Sir Edgar Whitehead, Winston Field and Ian Smith, until retirement in November 1970.

————————————————————————————————————-

Accidental Author

Fifty Years Writing, Africa and the World

Accidental Author tells the story of over 50 years of writing by Duncan Clarke about Africa and the world, from 1969 to date.

The book tells the tale of unforeseen twists in life and history that shaped the writer’s fifty years of texts scripted in multiple forms. Published by Royal Sable Publishing, is found on Amazon worldwide.

From an ordinary life growing up in Central Africa, turbulent times led to writing in academe, then as a one-man band, and when unemployable, later for survival, and when in time employed, and then out in the cold once more.

Mishaps, mistakes, and accidents in history marked this nomadic journey from a neophyte to writer, with texts scripted for private or public record, and corporate interests, while personalities met shaped works written, and the ‘unwritten word’, or parole, with an enormous ‘literature’ of published and unpublished works rendered in nonfiction.

The outcome was the founding of a firm, its monies based on texts written and sold, and as an advisor, scripting strategy briefings and in conference parole, that played its part in the global oil game. Advisory work engaged over one hundred institutions in Africa, Asia, Europe, The Americas, and Russia.

————————————————————————————————————-

The Last Rhodesians

Society Adrift

The Last Rhodesians: Society Adrift was published in March 2022, and is found on Amazon in Softback and Kindle, and distributed in South Africa by Protea Books.

The book provides an extensive and in-depth text on Rhodesian origins in history, its cultures, identity and literature as well as the civil war, serial exoduses that took place over the last fifty years and destiny lived by Rhodesians, as well as the left behind and aftermath encountered in the House of Stone.

—————————————————————————————————————

Rhodes’ Ghost

The Conquest of Zambesia

The ‘historical autobiography’, Rhodes’ Ghost: The Conquest of Zambesia, published in 2020 by Royal Sable Publishing is available on Amazon.

The book tells the inner tale of Cecil Rhodes and time in Africa, 1879-1902, notably in regard to thoughts and actions, involvement in the Jameson Raid and the founding of Rhodesia.

—————————————————————————————————————

Three Decades in the Long Grass

The Story of Global Pacific & Partners

As Founder and Chairman of Global Pacific & Partners, 1978-2016, the author wrote Three Decades in the Long Grass, 2014, with Babette van Gessel, to tell the 37-year long story of the firm, one that created foundation research, advisory practice worldwide, strategy briefings on world oil and all continents, and an allied conference suite inside Africa, Asia, Latin America, America, Europe, Australasia and the MidEast, plus news networks and private Clubs (PetroAfricanus one) on Six Continents, and technologies within the world oil industry.

—————————————————————————————————————

Other Published Books

Other books by the author include Africa: Crude Continent (2010), and Africa’s Future: Darkness to Destiny, 2012.

Earlier wass The Battle for Barrels: Peak Oil Myths & World Oil Futures, in 2007, and Empires of Oil: Corporate Oil in Barbarian Worlds, 2007.

All four books were published by Profile Books in London.

In addition, the author scripted numerous advisories for over 100 corporate and state oil industry entities, plus several unpublished works on Africa’s oil industry, as well as on Asia, Latin America, MidEast and corporate strategy in world oil and energy.

—————————————————————————————————————

Books by the author on Rhodesia / Zimbabwe, and Southern Africa, were published in the 1974-80 era: Domestic Workers in Rhodesia: The Economics of Masters and Servants (1974); Contract Workers and Underdevelopment in Rhodesia (1974); Unemployment and Economic Structure in Rhodesia (1976); The Economics of African Old Age Subsistence in Rhodesia (1977); The Distribution of Income and Wealth in Rhodesia (1977); Agricultural and Plantation Workers in Rhodesia (1977); Foreign Companies and International Investment in Zimbabwe, 1980.

——————————————————————————————————————

T he Grandfather

Rhodesian Saga, 1897-1941

Francis Joseph Sheil O’ Cleary Clarke’s handwritten diary tells the tale of a man at the centre of several notable events in Southern Africa and Rhodesia.

It was originally published in 2015 as Grandfather’s Diary, edited by the author.

The original text was released as an Occasional Paper by the History Society of Zimbabwe. Its availability outside Harare is limited and so another enhanced version was scripted for Amazon worldwide, and is to come out in early 2025.

Francis Joseph Sheil O’ Cleary Clarke

In 1895 the grandfather met Cecil Rhodes’ brother, Colonel Frank Rhodes in Cape Town; was involved with the secretive Dr Woolf, who organised Jameson Raid logistics, 1896; acquired the black stallion ridden by Dr Leaner Starr Jameson on the raid; met firefights with Boer commandoes; guarded Paul Kruger’s captured nephew; evadrf Boers to reach Johannesburg by foot after Jameson’s  raiders surrendered at Doornkop; trekked by ox-wagon to Bulawayo, 1897, took coffee on the stoep with Kruger on the way; and then clashed with Ndebele warriors post-rebellion in Matabeleland, 1897.

Joining the Native Department in Bulawayo,  he guarded the frontier for Rhodesian forces during the Boer War, 1899-1901, was at Cecil Rhodes’ funeral, 1902, and spent working years as Magistrate in Gwelo, Umtali, Fort Victoria, Enkeldoorn, Gatooma, Hartley, and Salisbury - as a civil servant in government for 33 years.

This revised version of The Grandfather: Rhodesian Saga, 1897-1941 is scheduled to appear in 2025.

It will include several additions to the original Diary of 2015: with Prologue, Epilogue, and Appendices on Chronology 1870-1941, and Irish-Rhodesian Origins, Bibliography 1895-1941.

In Parts I-VIII, with 17 Chapters, 11 Illustrations and Maps.

The Grandfather will be published in Softback in 2025, at around 260 pages, and with Kindle edition, both found on Amazon.