We all picture Shaka as a lean, mean, assegai-wielding warrior-king, the military genius who founded the Zulu nation. In fact, we don't actually know when he was born, what he looked like, or exactly when he died. Almost every other story you've heard is probably either wrong or contested.

This biography draws on the last two decades of historical research to reassess the eyewitness accounts and use newly available oral traditions. The picture that emerges is astonishingly different from the popular stereotype.

By Dan Wylie