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An African Trading Empire: The Story of Susman Brothers & Wulfsohn, 1901-2005. By Hugh Macmillan. London: I.B. Tauris, 2005. Pp. xii, 492; 16 illustrations. $74.95.
In An African Trading Empire Hugh Macmillan presents a detailed history of a family business, commenced in western Northern Rhodesia at the turn of the twentieth century, that would eventually spread throughout much of southern Africa. He is sure to point out that a "dry recital of company history might give the misleading impression that the Susmans and their partners were operating in a conventional business environment" (p. 160). Their endeavor in 1932 to erect the Nkana hotel in the Copperbelt town of the same name in colonial Zambia underscores some of the routine difficulties that such businessmen faced. "Puff adders were very numerous, including some specimens of the gaboon adder type. Spitting cobras were common and occasionally green mambas made their appearance.... Rarely a night passed without hearing the roaring of lions in the distance and the subdued cough of prowling leopards in closer proximity" (p. 160).
Obstacles of wildlife and seasonally impassable terrain, racial dynamics, the role of Lithuanian and Russian Jews in a largely Protestant British colonial order, and the shifting political terrain in southern Africa all figure into this extended history. However, the main and overriding theme that drives discussion above all others is trade, and the myriad investments undertaken...