Beyond the Reach of Empire: Wolseley''s Failed Campaign to Save Gordon and Khartoum

About Mike Snook

COLONEL MIKE SNOOK MBE PhD was commissioned into the Royal Regiment of Wales (24th/41st Foot) in 1984 and stayed on for the next 30 years. He served in the Northern Ireland Troubles for more than six years earning a Queen's Commendation and an operational MBE along the way. Three times a company commander and a graduate of the Staff College at Camberley he also served in Germany Hong Kong Bosnia and Kenya. He was Chief of Staff British Forces Afghanistan and completed two tours on loan to the South African military. He has been a senior anti-terrorist intelligence officer co-opted with police Special Branch and was subsequently the Chief Instructor of the Tactical Intelligence Branch Defence College of Intelligence where he directed pre-deployment training for Iraq and Afghanistan. He was also the head of the Education & Training branch at the Defence Academy College of Management & Technology. In 2009 he arrived in Khartoum as Chief J3 Ops with the UN Mission in the Sudan (UNMIS) at which time he conceived a doctrine for the Protection of Civilians' (POC) before proceeding to launch the mission's first meaningful POC operations; deployments that helped to close down a vicious inter-tribal conflict. He lived beside the Blue Nile used his days off to visit the battlefields described in the book and spent his mid-tour leave conducting research in Cairo. Colonel Mike is a recognised authority on the military history of the Victorian era has led numerous battlefield tours for the Army and is the author of seven acclaimed books including How Can Man Die Better Like Wolves on the Fold and Into the Jaws of Death. Beyond the Reach of Empire was launched at the Hay Literary Festival in 2013. Perhaps unsurprisingly his doctorate (Cranfield University 2014) is in military history. Older wiser and slightly tired he is still writing owns and manages a small business is pleased to have returned home to Wales at last!