Howard Hensman

Howard Hensman was a British journalist and author who died in 1916. Library and catalog records consistently identify him as the author of The Afghan War of 1879-80 and A History of Rhodesia.

His best-known work grew out of his time as a special correspondent for the Allahabad Pioneer. Contemporary catalog descriptions note that he was the only journalist to accompany the Anglo-Indian Kurram Valley Field Force during part of the Second Anglo-Afghan War, which gave his account an unusually direct, on-the-ground perspective.

That firsthand experience helps explain why his writing still attracts readers interested in military history and the literature of empire. While biographical details about his personal life are hard to confirm from the sources found here, his surviving books show him as a careful observer of campaigns, politics, and colonial expansion in South Asia and southern Africa.