Could you survive a life of poverty, gruelling toil, a war in a distant barren wilderness, fast-moving sharpshooting farmers' bullets and dangerous diseases?

Joe Rutherford, a young shipbuilder from industrial northeast England, is unusual among his peers. He's an avid reader and inspirational storyteller about the 1899 Boer War between the British Empire and the Afrikaans Boer farmers in Southern Africa. Soon, despite the opposition of their loved ones, he and his friends join the British Army and set out on a great adventure. They soon encounter the harsh and terrifying reality of war, with its atrocities and the desperation of holding on to friendships, relationships and romance in the light of what may be a shortened life ahead of them. For the British Empire, the stakes were the vast resources of diamonds, gold and copper in South Africa. For the Boers, they would fight fiercely for their farmland and freedom.
Unsure of what may happen from one day to the next, the lifelong friends cling tightly to each other, learning that only they, and perhaps luck, can avoid the Boer bullets, disease, sabotage, and keep each other safe. Joe's relationship with a nurse from home blossoms, and she follows him around South Africa and on to India. How long will Joe endure in these perilous times of the British Empire?

This is the first book of four about the lives of ordinary working-class soldiers and wealthier, more famous politicians, commanders and personalities like Winston Churchill, Deneys Reitz, Herbert Kitchener, Jan Smuts and Emily Hobhouse, thrown together and relying on each other in hazardous twentieth-century times of war and economic gains.

Michael Bergen was born in England and grew up in Canada, though he has lived in Europe and South Africa for most of his adult life, and it was here that The Rutherford Chronicles first sprang to life.

History was always Michael's first love and sparked an interest in his own family heritage. This led, following meticulous research, directly to his writing of The Rutherford Chronicles, a series of four books based on the lives of his ancestors, their friends and families and the broader world in the turbulent years of the early to mid 20th century, and culminating in the final novel, based on his own experiences during the Cold War of the second half of that century.

The Rutherford Chronicles follow the lives of ordinary people thrust into extraordinary circumstances, and events controlled by their much better known and more powerful contemporaries on all sides of the conflicts, many of whom are referenced within the pages of the books.

Part 1, Empire Discovered, begins during the Second Anglo-Boer War in South Africa and continues into British India. Reedsy reviewer Pixie Emsley says "An absorbing and unusual look at the Anglo Boer War, one of Britain's costliest in terms of money and men, as well as women and children."

Part 2, Empire and War, takes place in the trenches and German POW camps in WWI. Reedsy reviewer Pixie Emsley says "A revealing insight into Britain's involvement in World War I told from the viewpoint of a prisoner of war, with all the horrors of war."

Part 3, Empire and Tyranny, is about the interwar years following WWI, including the tragic times of the Great Depression. It is also the story of WWII through the eyes of a soldier of the Royal Canadian Artillery in England, Scotland and Italy and his marriage with a Rutherford daughter.

The last book, Part 4, Empires Lost, follows events during the Cold War, based on Michael's own experiences during the later half of the 20th century.