Hawthorn S Hill

Poor old Zawanda is in a mess, its economy in meltdown, its people unable to give up their age-old tribal enmities. The news that Britain is to cut off the country?s foreign aid looks like the last straw, until Frederick Zawutu, the intelligent, Cambridge and Sandhurst-educated new president, hits on a daring scheme ? to embark on a game of bluff designed to make the West believe that this penniless Central African nation has somehow acquired a nuclear bomb. Everything goes to plan ? until the English arms dealer Zawutu has set up to unwittingly play the part of the ?supplier? proves to be a little too good at his job?Hawthorn?s Hill is a light-hearted, cleverly-constructed novel about modern Africa, the follies of diplomacy, tribal conflict and the foibles of race and sex.ÿ

One of humankind’s oldest companions, the hawthorn tree, is bound up in the memories of every recorded age and the plot lines of cultures all across the Northern Hemisphere. Hawthorn examines the little-recognized political, cultural, and natural history of this ancient spiky plant. Used for thousands of years in the impenetrable living fences that defined the landscapes of Europe, the hawthorn eventually helped feed the class antagonism that led to widespread social upheaval. In the American Midwest, hawthorn-inspired hedges on the prairies made nineteenth-century farming economically rewarding for the first time. Later, in Normandy, mazelike hedgerows bristling with these thorns nearly cost the Allies World War II. Bill Vaughn shines light on the full scope of the tree’s influence over human events. He also explores medicinal uses of the hawthorn, the use of its fruit in the world’s first wine, and the symbolic role its spikes and flowers played in pagan beliefs and Christian iconography. As entertaining as it is illuminating, this book is the first full appreciation of the hawthorn’s abundant connections with humanity.