GREATER SOUTH AFRICA - PLANS FOR A BETTER WORLD: THE SPEECHES OF J. C. SMUTS (SIGNED)

Hardcover Quarto, special deluxe binding edition, bound in blue leather boards and has 191 pages. Decorative gilt design on the front cover with gilt titles to the spine, all edges gilt.

Head and heal are a bit bumped, some rubbing along the edges and also has some marks/scratches on the front and back boards.

The book contains 17 chapters and 18 black and white illustrations, a bit of foxing can be seen on a few pages towards the front of the book.

Signed by J. C, Smuts on the half title page, with a card inscribed and signed by Isie K. Smuts fixed onto the front pastedown.

Overall, the book is well-bounded and in good condition. 

Field Marshal Jan Christiaan Smuts, OM, CH, ED, PC, KC, FRS (24 May 1870 – 11 September 1950) was a prominent South African and British Commonwealth statesman, military leader and philosopher. In addition to holding various cabinet posts, he served as prime minister of the Union of South Africa from 1919 until 1924 and from 1939 until 1948.

Although Smuts had originally advocated racial segregation and opposed the enfranchisement of black Africans, his views changed and he backed the Fagan Commission's findings that complete segregation was impossible. Smuts subsequently lost the 1948 election to hard-liner Afrikaners who created apartheid.

He continued to work for reconciliation and emphasised the British Commonwealth’s positive role until his death in 1950. He led a Boer Commando in the Second Boer War for the Transvaal. During the First World War, he led the armies of South Africa against Germany, capturing German South-West Africa and commanding the British Army in East Africa.

From 1917 to 1919, he was also one of the members of the British Imperial War Cabinet and he was instrumental in the founding of what became the Royal Air Force (RAF). He became a field marshal in the British Army in 1941, and served in the Imperial War Cabinet under Winston Churchill. He was the only man to sign both of the peace treaties ending the First and Second World Wars.