In The Great Democracies, Winston Churchill makes his case for the unique and fundamental role the English-speaking people played in bringing economic progress and political freedom to the world at large. As a work of history, this volume covers the period from the end of the Napoleonic Wars in 1815 to the end of the South African or Boer War in 1902. Churchill had a first-person view on some of these events having participated in the charge of the 21st Lancers at Omdurman and reporting on the Boer War for the Morning Post.