The ‘Sagrenti War’ of 1874, a British-led invasion of Asante, was a devastating blow to the kingdom, resulting in the death and displacement of thousands, the burning of numerous towns and villages, and the (brief) occupation and destruction of the Asante capital of Kumasi itself. Within a year the Asantehene Kofi Kakari was removed from office, and the unity of the kingdom was threatened by a series of rebellions. But the war also cemented the military career of Sir Garnet Wolseley, who organized and commanded the invading British and African forces, as well as those of a number of subordinate officers who served in the expedition. The war was covered extensively in the British press, and a plethora of books appeared in succeeding years written by members of the expedition and news correspondents. Professor Ian Beckett and the Army Record Society here offer Wolseley's own diary, previously unpublished, and some of his correspondence during the campaign. These provide fascinating insights into Wolseley's evolving perspective on the war, on the purpose and problems of organizing a military foray into a part of Africa, and against a foe about which little was known in advance. A few of Wolseley's official dispatches and exchanges with his superiors in London (Kimberley, Cardwell, the Duke of Cambridge) are included, as are some communications with his subordinates in West Africa and private letters to his wife and mother. But as interesting as these documents are for British military history, they add little to our knowledge of the history of Asante and the Gold Coast.

Professor Beckett's introduction offers a brief background to the war, an overview of Wolseley's life, and a discussion of the nature of the documents and editorial methods. His analysis of the war's origin makes use of the work of historians of Asante (Boahen, Wilks, McCaskie, etc.), but remains rooted in an older historiography that sees the peoples of the Gold Coast organized into ‘tribal groups’ and Asante's wars with the southern Akan districts as little more than raids (p. 3). While he acknowledges (p. 5) that the Anglo-Asante Treaty of 1831 may not in the Asante view have constituted a yielding of sovereignty over the southern Akan districts it had previously conquered, Professor Beckett nonetheless adopts the 1873 British government's view that the Prah River marked the ‘boundary’ of the Asante kingdom (p. 11). Thus the prior Asante military reoccupation of the southern Akan districts justified Wolseley's subsequent retaliatory invasion, clearly meant to teach Asante a lesson. The book's intended readers would appear to be those with a primary interest in British imperial and military history.

The dairy and other documents are presented chronologically from August 1873 to April 1874 and organized thematically into chapters with titles such as ‘Plans’, ‘Assessment’, ‘Advance’, ‘Success’, and so forth. Annotation is extensive and offers an excellent guide to a variety of archival sources pertinent to the history of the war. Individuals whose names appear in the documents are further identified in the endnotes, with most detail unsurprisingly offered regarding the careers of British officers. Asante and Fante notables are also identified briefly, as are Asante and Gold Coast place names, but the book does not provide a modern map nor does the editor attempt to associate place names – especially the towns, rivers, and streams of the interior – with their modern equivalents, despite this being quite feasible. The work is in general carefully proofed, but a few typos remain, and there is one egregious error regarding document 131 (pp. 339–40), one of Wolseley's private letters to Kimberley: it is given the date of 15 January 1874, but its contents and place make clear that it was written in December.

Wolseley's diary reveals a Victorian gentleman-soldier possessed of a crude though unsurprising racism towards Africans, which he shared with contemporary British observers of the war. Wolseley's (and his government's) overriding goal was to strike a sharp blow at Asante (not to destroy it) and return quickly to the coast; he was greatly concerned for the health of his British soldiers, and with good reason. He had a thoroughgoing contempt for his Fante, Assin, and Akyem allies, whom he regularly branded as ‘cowards’, unworthy of the sacrifices of his British soldiers. The Asante, on the other hand, while cruel and deceitful, were nonetheless to be admired for their courage in battle and remarkable military skills, well adapted to ‘bush fighting’. Indeed he urged his forces to adopt several Asante field tactics, including the use of locally made cutlasses for clearing brush and methods for constructing temporary shelter in the field. Though the diary does not substantially advance our understanding of the Sagrenti War, it does offer an interesting footnote to it.