Sir George Grey was a colossal colonial figure who stood astride the nineteenth century like few others. He was one of the most gifted, visionary, power-addicted, ruthless yet also, tragically and paradoxically, the most humanitarian of the Victorian rulers of Britain's Southern Hemisphere. It is too easy, however, to write Grey off as the ultimate colonising imperialist. It is more satisfying to assess fully and accurately the true nature and motivations of the man and his impact on the fledgling politics of the new nations he helped shape. Sir George Grey: Inside the Mind of a Terrible and Fatal Man explores and explains the contradiction of a man who dramatically and decisively fashioned modern New Zealand, Australia and South Africa, as well as the Pacific, and whose deep spirit of revolt against the British ruling class ended his Colonial Service career and saw him siding with non-elite settlers and their radical democracies for the remainder of his life. Published on the 200th anniversary of Sir George Grey's birth, this is a unique biography, one that assesses Grey's place within the history of political thought, all the while attempting to recover his 'mind'.
It is a fascinating investigation into a side of Grey rarely seen before.