South Africa Books

Having had the pleasure of meeting this compassionate and passionate man, it was such a blessing to read his words describing his growing years in a crazy world. It was inspiring and though much of the content was pretty gritty, there was a lot of beauty to be found. I'd recommend this to everyone!

_The Great Rift_ by Anthony Smith is a fast-reading, somewhat breezy, sometimes chatty but interesting book providing a general overview of the geology and natural history (and a little of the human history) of the Great Rift Valley of East Africa. Written to accompany a late 1980s PBS series, I believe the book stands pretty well on its own. I originally purchased the book for its beautiful color photographs of the region's impressive geology and gorgeous wildlife. I particularly liked some of the more obscure animals photographed, as in addition to the photogenic lion, leopard, zebra, and elephant more overlooked animals were portrayed, such as the mountain nyala (found only in Ethiopia, an antelope that was the last large mammal discovered in Africa), the bleeding-heart baboon (the largest non-great ape primate), several of the endemic lake fish of the region, notably the cichlids, and numerous birds such as the white-faced tree duck, goliath heron, and black and white-casqued hornbill.

Much of the book focused on what exactly the Great Rift is (more properly known as the Afro-Arabian Rift System). It is a massive system of faults, upthrusts, slips, and volcanic terrain that stretches from Turkey, through Israel, the Red Sea, across the Ethiopian highlands south through Tanzania and into Malawi. A secondary or Western Rift is found on the borderland between Zaire and its eastern neighbors of Uganda, Rwanda, Burundi, and Tanzania. It is at its heart a depression or trough of land created by a sinking of intermediate crustal rocks between two strike-slip faults, a gap created by plate tectonics, a failed attempt of a continental plate to split apart. The rifting (or zone of crustal extension) largely occurred south to north and varies widely in width, some areas only 40 kilometers from one side to another, other areas (often on the ground harder to recognize as being part of a rift system) are up to 400 kilometers apart. Though some areas of rifting are quite impressive, such as the big escarpments north of Manyara or east of Bogoria, rift walls can be as high as half a kilometer or as small as just a few centimeters; "the Great Rift is the grand total of all such faults, huge and minute" that occurred in the last 40 million years or so.

Though rift valleys are not unique to East Africa it is unusual in the sense that it can easily be seen, as most rifting occurs under the surface of the sea (and also rifting leads to a lowering of the surface, further leading to such geological structures being found only beneath the waves).

An impressive feature of the Great Rift is its volcanoes and volcanic terrain. Most volcanoes are extinct, such as several in the Virungas in eastern Zaire. Others are "merely biding their time," dormant, such as Kilimanjaro and Longonot. Still others are active and far from quiet, such as Nyamlagira and Nyirangongo of eastern Zaire. Though the Rift is currently in a quiet volcanic period and most volcanic activity is confined to three regions (Virunga, Afar, and Lengai), evidence of volcanic activity is everywhere. Much of the Rift Valley would be well below sea level, perhaps 1000 meters below, were it not for material deposited by volcanoes (in Kenya this layer is occasionally 3000 meters deep and on the Ethiopian plateau is over 4000 meters in depth). The great game plains of the Serengeti, a Connecticut-sized national park of over 13,000 square kilometers, home to over a million wildebeest, several hundred thousand zebra, hundreds of thousands of Thomson's and Grant's gazelles, as well as elephants, rhinos, lions, cheetah, and leopards, was made possible by volcanoes. The Serengeti plains are largely ash, blown from the eastern volcanic highlands. Much of this ash formed a tuff, comprised of grains so compactly bound together that tree roots find it difficult to get deep purchase and porous enough that its high calcium content is leached to lower levels, forming a layer of calcium carbonate, another impediment to tree roots yet allowing grasses to flourish. Essentially, the Rift created the volcanoes, the volcanoes created the ash, and the grasslands are a consequence of all that ash; the tremendous East African herds are a "splendid result" of the rifting process.

Practically every lake in eastern Africa lies within some section of the rift, the two notable exceptions being the feeders of the Nile, Lake Tana, in western Ethiopia, which begins the Blue Nile, and Lake Victoria, shared by Kenya, Uganda, and Tanzania, which starts the White Nile. Without the Rift Valley most of East Africa if not all of it would be bereft of lakes, which exist in a dizzying variety. Some shimmer with soda, intensely hostile to most plants and animals yet many of which are home to staggering numbers of two species of flamingos. Others are intermittent, wet and filled with life some years, in other years a barren plain of hardened mud. Still others are "blatantly deep," immense bodies of water like Lake Tanganyika, which is 650 kilometers long, 50 kilometers wide, in surface area 33,000 square kilometers (larger than Belgium), and 1470 meters deep. Many of these huge lakes are quite old and have huge numbers of endemic species; Lake Tanganyika has eight endemic fish genera (comprising 57% of its non-cichlid species), 98% of its cichlids are found there and nowhere else, while seven of its crab species, five of its 13 bivalve mollusks, 37 of its 60 gastropods, and 11 of its copepod are found exclusively there.

Though a fairly short book at 224 pages counting the index and devoting many pages to photographs, many topics are covered, including the threats to the region's lakes, the great potential of the Rift's geothermal energy, the unique wildlife of the Ethiopian highlands, Red Sea marine life, and accounts of some of the first scientists to explore the region, notably John Walter Gregory, known to the locals as Mpokwa or "loaded pockets."

Aquí tenemos una colección importante de declaraciones por Nelson Mandela, dirigente de la lucha en contra el sistema racista del apartheid en Sudáfrica. Incluye los textos de sus intervenciones antes tribunales del estado del apartheid, cuando el fue enjuiciado y encarcelado con cadena perpetua por su participación en la lucha.

Mandela habla de la historia de opresión y explotación en Sudáfrica y de las protestas de las masas revindicando sus derechos. Presenta la perspectiva del Congreso Nacional Africano de una nación democrático y no racial. Mandela también denuncia la violencia desatada por el gobierno apartheid, y detalla las masivas Campañas de Desafío contra las leyes apartheid, los paros nacionales y la decisión de lanzar una lucha armada.

¡Un libro de inspiración e educación política para todos nosotros hoy en día!

One of the best Madge Swindells' books!!! It's been exciting trying to solve the book's mistery and then discovering where I was wrong and where I was right... while reading the book!! The charachters are wonderful... even the bad ones!!! The book it's also interesting because it makes you understand, through a novel, what are the problems in the New post apartheid South Africa. It made me want to look for more information about this very troubled country.

As a South African living in Europe with a similar and yet in many ways different background, I am able to identify with Mr Jacobson's sensitive account of his search for his family roots in Lithuania. The construction of the work itself is a masterpiece: first his perception of Lithuania from South Africa, then his childhood in South Africa and then the encounter with Lithuania, where he finds nothing concrete and yet conveys the atmosphere of what he finds so movingly. The touching letter to his grandfather and his dream at the end are full of feeling and yet not in the least sentimental. This book has deeply impressed me and given me a wonderfully tragic picture of Lithuania.

This book has managed to portray the most accurate review of South African High Schools. The pictures displayed throughout this informative book are the best to describe and show the spendour of fantastic South African Schools.

"If asked to imagine Africa, most Americans will conjure images of "National Geographic"-style wildlife and rural exotica, or the horrific scenes of violence and despair that seem the extent of the press coverage. Few will think of Africa's thriving cities, and fewer still of how long some have existed. Distinguished social historian Coquery-Vidrovitch offers a broad, accessible overview of African urban history to rectify such neglect, taking the pulse of ancient and more recent cities from Awdaghust to Great Zimbabwe. Readers are introducted to fabled centers of Islamic learning like Timbuktu in Mali, holy Christian cities like Axum in Ethiopia, storied royal capitals like Mbanza-Kongo in Angola, and dynamic ports like Kilwa in Tanzania that encouraged trade for millennia. The great cities of Ghana and Nigeria are presented in all their complexity, as are early European enclaves like Saint Louis and Gor'D'ee in Senegal. Architecture and built environments are considered, as are the impacts on African urbanism of trans-Atlantic and Indian Ocean slavery, Islam and trans-Saharan trade, European capitalism, and the rise of cultural synthesis. THIS EXCELLENT BOOK BELONGS IN EVERY PUBLIC, HIGH SCHOOL, AND UNIVERSITY LIBRARY. Summing up: Essential. All levels."
-A.F. Roberts, UCLA, for Choice Magazine

This is, without a doubt, the most painstakingly researched book on this topic I have ever read. The author obviously knows this subject inside and out, and has invested a tremendous amount of time checking and cross-referencing his facts. Considering certain details that this book uncovers and makes public for the first time, it is no wonder that it created such an uproar in South Africa among Nelson Mandela's followers. For anyone who desires an honest look into the truth about communism in South Africa, you need not look any further than this book. It is a factual treasure chest.

Having spent 3 1/2 years living and working in an African village and trying to understand the S.A. government's rationale for its indifference to the plight of the 70% of its population living in rural villages, Professor Terreblanche offers a clear understanding of the history of the nation which has led it to where it is today. His book will certainly not please everyone, but he provides copious evidence to support his position. I have read 5 different histories of South Africa, Terreblanche's book is by far the best.

After spending three weeks in South Africa this summer, I realized the real effects Apartheid had on the country. After reading this book, I could envision the entire process of the rise & fall of their government as it happened, and the events that occurred in between. This book is a denfinite good read for anyone learning about or knowledgeable of South African history. Like all political cartoons, it puts current events in a language we can all understand, and helps us realize what's really going on. (Clifford Galiher, 13)