South Africa Books

Move over George Washington. You may be the father of the US, but the father of the New World Order developing before our eyes in the 21st century is Cecil Rhodes. Why? Because it was Rhodes who founded the secret society in 1891 and funded it with immense wealth from his South Africa gold and diamond mines. Rhodes stipulated that this secret society has but one object: "...the furtherance of the British Empire and the bringing of the whole uncivilised world under British rule, for the recovery of the United States, for making the Anglo-Saxon race but one Empire"! Additionally, Rhodes stated, "The society should inspire and even own portions of the press for the press rules the minds of men". And this, ladies and gentlemen is why we find us in the mess we are in today. Rhodes was so wealthy, he bought governments, bankers, media and universities. He made it happen as fully explained in the book, Don't Weep for Me, America: How Democracy in America Became the Prince (While We Slept). "Rhodes: The Race for Africa" is a good read on the mind of Cecil Rhodes. Additionally, it collaborates the secret society language most scholars pick up on when reading about Rhodes. Now you all know what forces are in motion and what the results will be: North American Union, remapping the Middle East, the building of a massive millitary to fight both Russia and China...

Mr. Rhodes knew a thing or two about a thing or two...

Cecil Rhodes, claims Antony Thomas, in a torturous attempt at historical comparison, shares the same qualities as Heinrich Himmler because both were taught by Jesuit priests. Really, now. While few people would ascribe any saintly qualities to Rhodes, statements like this do a disservice to serious students of history. As a result, Thomas' book is a mundane recitation of facts punctuated with generalized observations that come from nowhere and seem designed only to astonish.

The drama of Rhodes' life figured prominently in the story of the British Empire. Antony Thomas fails to capture this essence. The outsized historical character Cecil Rhodes deserves a less timid biographer (Robert Massie comes to mind) who understands the man and the majesty of times in which he lived.

Antony Thomas states up front that he is certainly no fan of Cecil Rhodes, and from that statement, the reader might expect to be treated to a real chop job. Instead, one gets a remarkably even-handed treatment of Rhodes. It would be easy simply to characterize Rhodes as evil, but to Thomas' credit, he does not take the easy way out. He is more than prepared to exam what can be best described as Rhodes' moral ambiguity.

I would not call Rhodes amoral in the strictist sense. He knew well enough when he was doing wrong to want to conceal his activities. Nor would I call him a ruthless pragmatist. His devotion to his friends was quite real, and in the case of Neville Pickering's death, Rhodes' all-consuming grief ultimately kept him from purchasing land that he knew was rich in gold. His personal feelings kept him from making a second, utterly massive, fortune in gold. That is hardly the action of pragmatist.

Trying to figure out what made Rhodes tick becomes trickier the more one examines his deeds. Even Thomas is vexed at times at how easily Rhodes moves from one alliance to another, and completely reverses his stands on issues such as native rights. By the time of his death, Rhodes was lionized throughout the British Empire as being in the vanguard of imperialists, but Thomas shows that for most of his career, he was strictly pursuing his own economic and political interests, and did not cloak himself in the gard of British Imperialism until it was absolutely necessary.

Thomas does not only focus on Rhodes. He demonstrates that most of the men that Rhodes dealt with could be, at times, just as morally ambiguous as he. Rhodes knew well that every man has his price, and demonstrated it again and again. Men in positions of power were irreconcilably opposed to Rhodes & his plans, at least until Rhodes made the right offer. The Victorians would had one believe that they were paragons of virtue and rectitude, but reading of Rhodes' dealings with them makes such a claim hardly believable.

At the end of his life, Rhodes began to appreciate that a man's legacy would not be measured in the wealth that he amassed or in the deals that he made. For Rhodes, that realization came too late. Most of his accomplishments are now hardly remembered, and the man himself is remembered now more with scorn and revulsion that awe and respect. Yet Rhodes was a remarkable man. Thomas makes the distinction between being a remarkable man and a great man, and in this finds the true tragedy of Rhodes' life: he had the talents to be a truly great man for all ages, but instead used these talents strictly to serve his own interests.

The book is quite easy to read, and is well-organized. To Thomas' credit, he does not report all the stories about Rhodes as gospel, and if the historical record is unclear on certain matters, he will say so. He also examines the conclusions made by other scholars on certain subjects and deals with this quite competently. I was pleasantly suprised, since he is not a historian by profession. I do note with interest that some events (such as the famous story of Rhodes dumping loads of diamonds into a bucket, just after Barney Barnato has purchased them) are reported by Thomas in the book as being stories which may or may not be true and cannot be verified by the historical record, but are presented in the "Masterpiece Theatre" production as being true. It is a good indication that in the book at least, Thomas is trying his best to be a responsible scholar.

This book is a great read for many reasons. On the one hand, it is well written and well argued. Thomas states his judgement on Rhodes in the beginning, which is a negative one, but then weighs what can and cannot be said about the man based on available evidence. He does not make sweeping statements of any kind. He also measures what past biographers have said against the evidence.

On the other hand, the story itself is fascinating. Thomas delivers a convincing portrait of Rhodes, one that punctures the heroic image of the "Colossus of Africa" while still revealing the clever and opportunistic nature of the man. We learn that Rhodes was a sickly child, whose frailty drove him to Africa when he was a teenager. Personal frailty lasted his whole life--and killed him in 1902. Rhodes was not much of a student, though he was driven to go to Oxford to acquire the right credentials. Rhodes had greater ambitions than amassing wealth alone, but we are led to wonder how committed an imperialist and an English chauvinist he was, given his opportunism. Thomas also presents an engaging description of the people around Rhodes. One of the more interesting is that of Barney Barnato, a British Jew who came to South Africa and amassed a larger fortune than Rhodes ever did and who appeared to be a better businessman than Rhodes as well.

The larger story of South Africa is also integrated into the tale. The diamond and gold rushes are described with great detail, including the largely tragic conflicts with native Africans. There is also much detail about the conflicts between the English and Boers, and even the role of Great Power interests (mostly British).

A general sense of adventure and opportunity about South Africa seems to exude from the story throughout. One of the most interesting examples in the book is the story of the relations between white prospectors--including Rhodes and his colleagues--and the native chief Lobengula, whole ruled in the north over the Matabeleland. The description of the massive and fearsome Lobengula, his treasures, his soldiers, his brutality and his ultimate defeat and suicide offer some of the most gripping narrative in the book.

There are not that many weaknesses to the book. A minor one might be that the book could benefit from more maps. There are 2 maps of southern Africa in the beginning of the book, but a few more maps throughout the book detailing the places where key events occurred would have been helpful.

I reviewed this book for my gigh school class after hearing all the praise for it. I was fairly shocked by the unrealistic portrayal of diabetics, how the author irresponsibly portrays them as mentally ill. As for the story itself, it is not terrible, but very bland. The writing was another problem, the author felt that she should use a foriegn dialect without insight as to the meaning of what to me were nonsense words.
Overall I would steer clear of this book, especially if your thinking about a lesson with it, I'm not sure these other critics read the same book as I, if they did, I would have to wonder what substance they abused while reading it.

I thought this was a really fantastic book, the language, the plot and the characters were all very. . . alluring. Sarina's friend Boima supplies a series of dramatic stories throughout the book and Sarina's mother's diabetec probelems are extremely captivating, a must read for anyone who would love to have a change from the everyday world.

BEYOND THE MANGO TREE is a sparkling debut. Ms. Zemser is a unique and jazzy talent. I'm looking forward to more of her work.

Beyond the Mango Tree was an exciting four star book.It is about an American girl who moves to Liberia,in Africa because her dad is offered a job here.It was exciting because one night thieves came to her house and the guard was hit on the head and almost died and Sarina, the main character, was left alone.This book is also sad because even when Sarina doesn't do anything wrong her mother ties her to a tree and makes her stand in a dark muddy puddle. I have never read anything like this book before and recommend it to readers of all ages.

This is a wonderful story of friendship which crosses boundaries of class, race and gender. In spite of Sarina's momentary jealousy and suspicion, in the end she learns that love is important and transcends the boundaries her small world.

This novel written by John Briley, demonstrates the courage and struggle of Steve Biko, as well as other black citizens.
The story took place in South Africa during the Apartheid period. Black people were treated unfairly, and deserve no rights. This story also gives Biko's idea on equality to the readers.
The author describe vividly about black people's lives in South Africa. In the story' it show black people participating an underground speech made by Steve Biko. All the black people wish that they could be the same as the white people are, that's why they are there, though it's risky.
I am pleased with Biko' spirit. He demonstrates human's basic desire-freedom.
This novel is very easy to understand, and it's the best non-fiction novel I ever read. However, this novel is too predictable, so I give it 4 stars out of 5.

This novel written by John Briley, demonstrates the courage and struggle of Steve Biko, as well as other black citizens.
The story took place in South Africa during the Apartheid period. Black people were treated unfairly, and deserve no rights. This story also gives Biko's idea on equality to the readers.
The author describe vividly about black people's lives in South Africa. In the story' it show black people participating an underground speech made by Steve Biko. All the black people wish that they could be the same as the white people are, that's why they are there, though it's risky.
I am pleased with Biko' spirit. He demonstrates human's basic desire-freedom.
This novel is very easy to understand, and it's the best non-fiction novel I ever read. However, this novel is too predictable, so I give it 4 stars out of 5.

This novel written by John Briley, demonstrates the courage and struggle of Steve Biko, as well as other black citizens.
The story took place in South Africa during the Apartheid period. Black people were treated unfairly, and deserve no rights. This story also gives Biko's idea on equality to the readers.
The author describe vividly about black people's lives in South Africa. In the story' it show black people participating an underground speech made by Steve Biko. All the black people wish that they could be the same as the white people are, that's why they are there, though it's risky.
I am pleased with Biko' spirit. He demonstrates human's basic desire-freedom.
This novel is very easy to understand, and it's the best non-fiction novel I ever read. However, this novel is too predictable, so I give it 4 stars out of 5.

John Briley did a very good job on describing Biko's life, as well as the lives of other black citizens in South Africa during the Apartheid period.
The protagonist of this story is a newspaper editor, Donald Woods. He is the white man who agrees with Biko's idea, which is that, all the black people and white people live together peacefully and deserve equal rights. However, tragically, the police killed Biko. After that, Woods get him into trouble, because he is investigating on Biko's death.

This story is a sad story, but it shows the spirit of those who sacrifice for freedom in South Africa. This story is very predictable, so I give it 4 stars out of 5.

This is the book which tells us the story of a black banned south african, who thinks black should get free, and insists not using violence, but words. By chance he meets a reporter named Donald Woods and they ge to be friends.

But as their friendship develops so does the south african wihes to catch him. Finally he's caught and the editor banned. But he'll strugle to get freedom and publish a book about these black leader.

Sad but true and exciting story of the late seventies, definetely recommendable.

Vijay Prashad's book "The Darker Nations" is a mix between modern history, political pamphlet and political economic analysis. Subtitled "A People's History of the Third World", it should not be thought of as a history of this part of the world as such, but as a history of the concept of the 'Third World' and its political implications.

Prashad's main thesis is that the Third World project was a national liberation project, generally progressive and secular, born out of anti-colonialism and popular mass mobilization to achieve independence for formerly colonized nations. Prashad describes the various institutions and movements all over the world involved in this, their respective leaders and backgrounds, and why they succeeded or failed (mostly the latter). He puts many well known institutions and developments in the Third World into this context, from OPEC to the 'Asian Tigers', which gives new insight into familiar phenomena, while at the same time chronicling the often unfortunately short history of the defeat of mass leftist movements in the underdeveloped world.

The general gist here is that whereas the initial national liberation governments were varied in their class background and aims, they all came from mass mobilizations against imperialism and as such were imbued with a developmental, egalitarian and nationalist-secular ethos. However, the combined force of the world market and the neo-colonialist states (essentially the entire First World) defeated these movements and funded and enabled reactionary movements in these Third World nations, leading to the destruction of the left in many places where it was formerly strong, such as Indonesia and Sudan. The now familiar story of IMF 'structural adjustment', unfair terms of trade, regressive policies on the part of local elites and bourgeoisie supported (sometimes myopically) by First World governments, and the selfish approaches of supposed defenders of international socialism like the USSR and China combine to tell the tale of why the Third World project failed.

The book is evocative, strong and well-written. One could make two objections to it: the first being that while Prashad is understandably enthousiastic about the initial idea of left-wing, secular anti-imperialism in the Third World, one might say he tends to portray it as more viable and as better than it was, and the second being the related charge that Prashad is often much better at describing how a given movement failed than why this happened. The book could definitely have benefited from a more in-depth political economic approach, explaining why exactly Third World attempts at egalitarian development failed from Tanzania to Indonesia, and how the reactionary forces managed and still manage to have the support to stay in power; a good example of this is the chapter on Singapore, which explains the regressive nature of the Singaporean elite state (as well as those of Taiwan and South Korea), but it does not explain very well why they nonetheless had much more success at development than African or Latin American left-wing governments did.

On the other hand, the actual political chronicling and the 'snapshots' of the various nations and their political histories in terms of anti-imperialist development are very good, and Prashad is an engaged and compelling author. Recommended as an addition to more specific political economic studies of the Third World.

This book is an ambitious effort to chart the fortunes of the political project of unifying the postcolonial world into 'the third world'. It is not, however, a 'people's' history, either in the senses of charting the demographic transformations of ordinary people (literacy, urbanization, etc) or anthropologically describing how they understood the dramatic events (revolutions, counterrevolutions, development experiments, etc) unfolding. It is almost exclusively concerned with the major leaders and some of the intellectuals and artists who shaped the consciousness of the period. Indeed, even if it was not titled 'people's history', I think it could be faulted by being a little vague about 'the people'. In any case, the book is basically divided into three parts. The first section, 'Quest', considers some themes (economics, nationalism, gender, etc) through the optic of major conferences. The second, 'pitfalls', highlights places that epitomize themes like military coups and socialism from above. The third section, 'Assassinations' describes the demise of the third world as a subject as a result of neoliberalism, the IMF, the rise of East Asia, and religious fundamentalism. In all sections, Prashad tends to move between the focus of the chapter and historical geographical events that are far afield and occur before and after the moment in question. The effect can be a little vertiginous. Certainly he deserves credit for attempting such an expansive work, and his knowledge about the time period appears to be vast. However, I found his organization a little too tidy, and his political perspective restricted by his focus on state leaders. Particularly since he regards the UN as something of an instrument for third world advancement (an interesting contrast with Perry Anderson, who claims its just a front for the US), why does he disregard the international conferences held under its auspices in the last fifteen years regarding the environment, women, and racism? Although attended by people from countries in the North as well as the South, at these forums it is probably fair to say that Southern perspectives tended to prevail and throw the North on the defensive. And why is not a word breathed about the World Social Forum? Is it because he regards NGOs (also almost completely absent from his book) as instruments of Northern domination, or because he regards social movements as insignificant compared to states? The absence of any discussion of these issues seems almost sectarian, as does his fairly crude analysis of religion (focused on Saudi-backed Wahhabi Islam--the Iranian revolution is practically unmentioned). Finally, he doesn't seem to have noticed, as have some other writers, that a number of third world states have begun to recover from neoliberalism and seem to be gradually reasserting themselves.

In 1927, two hundred delegates from thirty-seven states and regions gathered in Brussels and formed the League Against Imperialism. In doing so they gave an institutional voice to the hopes, dreams, and aspirations of the vast majority of the people in the world who eventually found their countries sandwiched between the "first" world of the United States and the "second" world of the Soviet Union. Not wanting to align with either empire, from that meeting onward the "third world" (a word coined in 1952 by Albert Sauvy) became a prolonged international project and not just a place of misery. The setting was fraught with irony, for Belgium was then led by King Leopold II, whose shameless pillage of the Congo had few peers. In this history of the majority of the world's peoples, Vijay Prashad traces their elusive quest, its problems and pitfalls, and the causes and consequences of its failure.

Prashad's organization takes one on a global tour; each one of his eighteen chapter titles is a major city of the third world project. In Part 1 he considers the quest (Paris, Brussels, Bandung, Cairo, Buenos Aires, Tehran, Belgrade, and Havana); in Part 2 the pitfalls (Algiers, La Paz, Bali, Tawang, Caracas, and Arusha); then in Part 3 the "assassinations" of the project (New Delhi, Kingston, Singapore, Mecca). The third world sought three goals, he says: political independence and self-rule; peaceful co-existence and non-violent international relations; and using the United Nations as the means to push its agenda, all in contrast to the militarism, economic dominance, and ostensible superiority of the American and Soviet spheres. Along the way Prashad tackles most every aspect of this struggle, including education, bureaucratism, land reform, suffrage, religion, revolutionary violence, foreign aid, transnational corporations, the "villigization" of millions of people, the debt crisis, natural resources, and women's discrimination.

The third world project failed badly for many complex reasons. After freeing themselves from the shackles of imperial overlords, countries tended to centralize power in the state instead of establishing effective social democracies, stifled dissent, ignored rule of law, plundered national treasure, and set up military regimes ruled by dictator-thugs ("Nothing good comes from a military dictatorship."). The predator first world continued their economic plunder thanks to the threat of overwhelming military, political, and economic means (globalization, the IMF, etc.). And thus the "catastrophic demise" of the third world project. Crushing debt and widening income gaps between rich and poor nations are only the most obvious signs that most people in the world remain marginalized by their own states and exploited by the first world. But at least they now have a history of their struggle, thanks to Prashad.

The Third World is a Cold War term, meaning mostly former nations that were ruled by Europeans and won their political independence in the decades after the second world war. That's how most people understand it anyway. It started off as a term of empowerment and hope by the leaders of the newly independent countries in the 1950s, after years of trying to bind the colonized into a single cause. These leaders saw that the First capitalist world and the Second Soviet-bloc world needed the Third world for its resources, people, and support in the global cold war, and they did not want to be pawns anymore.

The Third World Project started in the 1955 at the Bandung Asian-African Conference, when the Nonaligned Movement was founded (NAM) in opposition to the 1st and 2nd Worlds. From here, the Third World was split by internal divisions, attacks by the West and Eastern blocs, and finally outright destruction of the "Third World" by economic policies pushed by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the United States, as well as political and military attacks by the USA and its allies. In "The Darker Nations: A People's History of the Third World" by Vijay Prashad, the history of this push for unity, the contradictions of the class of leaders in trying to build this better Third world, the splits within the movement, and the final assassination of the Third World Project.

The book switches between different locations and different situations. Prashad points out that there was a strange contradiction in the work of building a Third World. The ruling class of the decolonized countries supported the new rulers, in many places, who wanted to stand up for themselves. But at the same time, as time went on, they also supported all-powerful dictators and neo-liberal economics that lead to the resources of the country being drained out like vampires (leading to continuation of places which have some of the richest resources of the world and some of the poorest people, like in Congo.) Projects like OPEC started as the "darker nations" tried to control their own politics, though it soon disintegrated into just rulers enriching themselves. In the end, they worked better with ruling classes of the 1st world than the people of their own countries.



Prashad goes to each place, from Singapore, to Indonesia and Suharto, to Baghdad, and explores the rise and fall of the Third World. Today, he ends, the Third World is dead. However, an international movement, free of imposed movements from above or directly by the elites of the government, has arisen and the world is changing to oppose the US. The book is an interesting look at an attempt by the leaders of former colonized places to fight back, though it can be a little disorienting traveling across so many places so fast (which is probably what trying to organize all those places to act together would have been like.) How the First World was able to destroy this movement is a pretty good lesson of history for any person to know.

This book gets high marks for its sheer wealth of information, though it's not a casual reading experience. Here Vijay Prashad has continued the spirit of Howard Zinn's classic "A People's History of the United States," and this book is a strong inaugural release in what will hopefully be a continuing series. Here Prashad constructs the "Third World" as a Cold War term for all the disadvantaged nations that were caught in the crossfire between the First and Second Worlds, and were usually abused as pawns in the era's strictly bilateral games of geopolitics and development. Specifically, most of Prashad's work concerns the Non-Aligned Movement of nations that tried to resist taking sides in the bilateral Cold War, and attempted to build a coalition of nations that could stand as a viable entity with its own ideologies and political strategies. Prashad provides a wealth of little-known information on the nations and leaders that attempted to build this movement, and the political and economic realities faced by the peoples and societies that were being used and left behind by the superpowers.

Those familiar with Zinn's book will recognize the travails of the passionate historian who can't figure out how to synthesize vast quantities of historical knowledge. The first half of this book is tough to digest, consisting of an interminable laundry list of names and events with little over-arching analysis, giving the impression that Prashad is trying to describe every single thing that happened during the Cold War era outside of the US, Europe, and USSR. Occasional snippets of theory also seem forced and awkward, such as Prashad's examinations of unnatural borders or the behavior of military dictators. Fortunately, the book improves in the second half, as Prashad manages to develop his previously disconnected bits of history and theory into a strong overall analysis of how the superpowers "assassinated" (in his rather hyperbolic term) the Third World movement and its promises of social and economic progress, through globalization, conquest, and corporatism. Most importantly, Prashad does not refrain from criticizing the Third World nations too, as many of them have compounded their own misery by reverting to old styles of inequality and dictatorship. While this book has some real readability issues, and Prashad can sometimes be faulted for steering historical data toward his own theories, the reader is rewarded with a great amount of knowledge on peoples and leaders who have been forgotten in the histories of winners. [~doomsdayer520~]

Just returned from a 2 week trip to South Africa - this book was very helpful in finding places to stay, things to do, how to keep safe, etc. I took "The Eyewitness Guide" with me too, but that book was not very helpful.

I would also recommend you talk to someone who has been there and make sure you have local contacts. This is a crazy but beautiful country. Have a wonderful trip!

I have been to South Africa before and am heading back and needed more information and this book is very thorough and helpful.

An excellent reference book for anyone visiting Southern Africa. We only found a few minor errors but the recommendations on where to go and what to see were very useful.

We're looking forward to going again and will certainly take this book along. We didn't have enough time to see it all.

I travel extensively and am a fan of Frommer's guides which I generally find to have a nice assortment of options in varying price ranges. The volume on South Africa however, was a great disappointment. If Frommer's were to be believed, you had to pay $200 and up for a decent hotel room. Fortunately I have often traveled in South Africa, enjoyed its reasonably priced accomodations, and knew such prices were nonsense. I stayed in Cape Town, Johannesburg, Durban and other top destinations in season for less than half that much. The guide also overlooked destinations a bit off the beaten path and proved of so little use to me that I didn't bother to pack it home with me. I strongly suggest the Eyewitness guide instead or just surf the web for tons of great information from the South African Tourism Board.

We visited South Africa for 20 days in July 2000, driving from Cape Town to Kruger. Before we left we sat down at a large book store and reviewed all their South African travel books. This one looked the best and proved to be very useful, particularly for accomodations. Some of the prices had changed but the standards and services were exactly as described. This is a great book for travellers who are above the backpacker/budget level but not up to "Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous."

A very slow read and pretty depressing. Vocabulary difficult - maybe common in South Africa.

Great historical depiction of the Apartide in South Africa. Beautifully written; it reads as a historical memoir. Plot not that engaging. Very interesting protagonist point of view. By the end of the book, the question of 'accurate' memory lingers.

One of the lessons to be learned from The Persistence of Memory is that a photographic memory does not necessarily tell the larger truth. The short and perfectly recollected moments in the life of Paul Sweetbread (the protagonist with perfect recall) add up to a whole that is somehow less than the sum of its parts. Sweetbread is unconvincing and unreliable as a narrator precisely because his grip on the details is so startlingly clear.

Cameras lie, Eprile tells us. The propaganda corps of the South African army stage scenes where soldiers play football with local children. Judicious cropping is all that is needed to make the perfect observer into one that cannot be trusted. The comparison with Sweetbread as witness is inevitable.

I can think of very few metaphors that would work better for the process of truth and reconciliation in South Africa. It is a brilliant idea for a book, and one that seems to fit perfectly with the situation that it is describing.

The flaw in the book is that it seems to try to do too much above and beyond developing this central idea. The Persistence of Memory is also a coming of age story, and also has a lot to do with the response of Paul as a human (and not a camera) to what he sees in Namibia. There is a lot of material, and unfortunately the beautifully written individual scenes do not seem to gel very effectively into a larger whole. As a reading experience, I found it disjointed and ultimately unsympathetic.

It might sound strange to sum up a review by saying that while I admire the book immensely, I am not certain how widely I would recommend it. I certainly think that it would be of interest to people who have read a lot in the literature of South Africa. I can also tell you that it makes a satisfactory book for a book club. We had a lot to talk about after it was finished.

It is at least an impressive effort. Eprile is a writer to watch for the future.

Read it for yourself to decide what you think.

South Africa from 1968 - 2000 is revealed in all its cultural variety and internal stresses through the life story of Paul Sweetbread, an overweight Jewish boy who is an outsider to everyone. Neither a Boer nor an Englishman, he is also not really a Jew, since his family has never been observant, leaving him without any common roots that connect him to his Caucasian countrymen. A person with a photographic memory, he is, from the outset, a victim of his memory. Because he can quote from his schoolbooks exactly, teachers think he cheats; his fellow students torment him.

As he sets the scene and creates a fully drawn personality for Paul, the author recreates his early school and home life, his relationships with black servants, and his family history, including the death of his father. The action intensifies when Paul, having finished school in 1987, joins the South African Defense Force for two years, instead of going to college. South Africa is nervously protecting its borders against what it believes are communist insurgents, while also facing threats from within. Apartheid has been challenged, the British and Boers are at odds, and African nationalism is growing.

Paul's wartime experiences, recreated in stunning detail, further develop his character as he observes Captain Lyddie, "The perfect specimen of South African manhood," engaging in racial brutality, described in passages of great power which embed themselves in Paul's perfect memory and in the reader's. The battle for survival of South Africa and the changes which will be necessary as the country changes from white to black rule are ever at the forefront of the novel. Paul's empathy for the Bushmen, whom the SADF uses as trackers, is palpable, while his fear, engendered during a photo assignment in a black township, reflects his awareness of the dangers from within.

Thoughtful and challenging but filled with wry humor, Eprile's novel presents events from Paul Sweetbread's life slowly, sometimes deliberately omitting important information in order to maintain suspense and let the reader come to know Paul through his life and actions, rather than through background information. He creates a sympathetic picture of an extremely sensitive young man who finds himself in impossible situations which mark him for life. His philosophical musings near the end of the book about memory and metaphor raise important questions about society and national "memory," how a country constructs its memories of the past in order to make it acceptable, and careful readers will savor the language and sheer intelligence of Eprile's observations. Mary Whipple

After reading several books by J.M. Coetzee, I was more or less prepared for the conditions and incidents portrayed by Mr. Eprile. However, the experience here is that of a person maturing in the closing years of apartheid, rather than the older characters in Mr. Coetzee's works. The result is a view into the vulnerability of a young person trying to adapt to a collapsing racist society, the lack of alternatives for living a morally fulfilling life. Perhaps it's this lack of structure in the experience that leads to a shortage of structure in the novel. While some of the parts are intensely interesting, and all are worth reading, most can be read without reference to the others. The lead character's gift of memory is a unifying factor, but really not vital to most of the events. The writing is outstanding, though it might benefit from cutting, and the work is entertaining despite the grim subject at its center.

i cannot praise this book highly enough for the wonderful and powerful picture of south africa it draws. she manages to capture the essence of life on a south african farm, the people in the rural community, both farmers and labourers, the land itself, master servant relations, the apartheid era, the truth and reconciliation era, the experience of being an expat and returning to africa, drought, young boys on military service, and on and on. some of the scenes she creates are so very true to life, they hit me in the gut. the servants being forgotten by the roadside the day of funeral and waiting for hours in the sun, still expecting and hoping to be picked up by one of the baas's friends, driving around farm roads at night looking for animals, the careless gun accident, the freedom fighter hiding in the donga and being taken food by a fearful young black woman, fugard gets it all right somehow. if you want to experience south africa in all its beauty and strength and tragedy and pain, this is a great book to read.

I have spent much time in Africa, some of it on the banks of the Limpopo where much of this story takes place. Others have summarized the plot. I urge people to read this book for its insight into Africa, its poignant study of apartheid from both sides of skin color but also from the myriad sides of the emotions and feelings of those who were there. It is also a book about regret, mistakes, going home and not wanting to and about the way we all move towards dust. The treatment of love, physical, emotional, love of people, horses, dogs, animals and place are brilliantly rendered. I could smell the bush of Africa in these pages and feel the way in which the characters read each others emotions, not through the words spoken, but through faces, bodies and movement. A tour de force - well done Lisa.

In Lisa Fugard's debut novel, SKINNER'S DRIFT, a prodigal daughter returns to her father's farm in Africa for the first time in ten years. Eva van Rensburg fled not only the farm, but her country and her relationship with her father after her mother was accidentally shot and killed. For Eva, South Africa is a place of contradictions, and she must confront them and her relationship to her family and her history as her father's health fails and she is called home.

Skinner's Drift is Martin van Rensburg's farm along the Limpopo River, which forms the border with Botswana. The Afrikaner van Rensburg settles his English wife and their daughter there and begins to carve a life in the dusty hills. Eva feels isolated by her mother's Englishness and later by her father's intensity and violence. Martin is a man fiercely proud of his heritage and his land, humbled only by the stutter that slows his tongue. His wife Lorraine loves the farm at first but comes to resent its hold on her husband and the harsh conditions of life there. Eva and her father share a special bond until one night a hunt turns disastrous. She spends the rest of her time on Skinner's Drift trying to atone for her father's crime and eventually, when her mother dies, leaving her father, the farm, and South Africa for America.

When Eva returns, at her aunt's request, she believes she is coming home to bury her father. The political and social changes that had begun before she left have transformed South Africa into a place unfamiliar to her in some ways. It is 1997 and apartheid is over, but the damage on the culture and people remains. Still, the landscape and many of the faces welcome Eva home. When she finally visits Skinner's Drift she finds Lefu, an African farmhand employed by her father, still working the land and the bond she shares with him is still strong. However, he has learned of the secret she has been keeping all these years about what happened that night while hunting with her father, and he has shared it with his grandson Mpho.

Can Eva come to terms with her past, with her identity, and with the realities of her homeland? Can she forgive her father and herself? Will she begin to understand the depths of her mother's loneliness? Fugard's lovely novel centers on these questions. Although her literary devices are expected (flashbacks, diary entries, family secrets), they don't feel stale or contrived. Fugard's style is fresh and readable, and her characters are frustratingly real. The isolation and tension as well as the natural beauty of Skinner's Drift come alive with the author's descriptions.

Eva is not always an easy character to like. Her sadness and pain are obstacles, and she comes across as smug or uncaring at times. But this is in keeping with Fugard's realism, a realism not untouched by poetry and a romantic streak. By far the most notable characters are Lefu and his family, his daughter Nkele, and her son Mpho. They are an interesting parallel and contrast to the van Rensburgs.

SKINNER'S DRIFT is dramatic and immensely readable. While not wholly original in content, Fugard's style saves the book from being ordinary. Eva's shame and her confusion about home and identity are wonderfully set against the fraught background of South Africa in the 1980s. Fugard nicely captures the tensions of her very real setting as well as those inside her fictional characters.

--- Reviewed by Sarah Rachel Egelman

I enjoyed this book from the first page - terrific writing, character descriptions and totally engrossing. I especially liked the way the author went back and forth in time and gave the reading reflections from the narrator.

This book is very disappointing. The writing is not particularly good, only some of the characters are credible and the plot is weak. The ending is terribly disappointing - it just seemed to stop when she ran out of ideas. Don't bother. There are much better books to read.

Both Abiyoyo books are filled with drama and kept my 3.5 year old rapt with attention. Now 5 he tells these stories beautifully (and dramatically), the quality of the bindings and illustrations is great -- great classic!

I've been reading Abiyoyo to preschool children for years. They always love the power that comes from overcoming the giant. But they always ask what happened to Abiyoyo. I usually tell them he went to get a manicure, pedicure and a haircut - and for a trip to the dentist! Now, with Abiyoyo Returns we have a wonderful new story to tell. And the children are quick to notice that the father in the new book is the boy all grown up! They especially like the page where the little girl is washing the giant's stinking feet.

I just got this book in addition to the original Abiyoyo and wasn't sure about it at first. The new story and graphics are just as good as the first. Another great addition to any book collection.

I LOVED Abiyoyo and read it a lot to the kids I babysit. The new one is cute, but it loses a lot of the fun, magic, and moral of the first one. I was very disapointed.

Pete Seeger's famous song "Abiyoyo" is a family favorite of ours, so I was intrigued to happen upon his "Abiyoyo Returns." For anyone unfamiliar with the story, Abiyoyo is a fearsome giant who eats people when he's hungry and is generally destructive and scary.

In this tale, warmly illustrated by Michael Hays, Abiyoyo is summoned up to help move a boulder so that the local townsfolk can build a dam. But the magic wand used to call Abiyoyo up breaks, and there is no way to get Abiyoyo to disappear again. There is a Pandora's Box element to the tale, and the wisdom of elders is deftly interwoven with bright ideas contributed by the children in the village.

Kids will get a special kick out of the idea that the young heroine--who looks to be maybe eight or ten years old--comes up with the idea that will allow the townspeople to peacefully co-exist with Abiyoyo, while still getting their dam built and the boulder removed.

This book is about Mamphelafs political life. Personal aspects of her life are rarely told unless they pertain to her activism or illustrate inequality. Individuals are rarely mentioned; those that are, are rarely mentioned more than once.

Donft read this book if you want an old-fashioned story with interesting characters who interact to create entertaining plots.

Read this book to learn about the battle of a black woman against patriarchal apartheid. Read about her gsuperwomanh strengths and the sacrifices she made for the movement.

Across Boundaries is an excellent book focussing on a mother's struggle to want a job and to be a mother at the same time. Even thogh this book was written by a woman from Africa it still pertains to many American mothers who struggle over the same problem. This book did not only focus on the mother aspect, but also on the fact that a woman wanted to help the condition of other woman also.

Across Boundaries was an excellent book about a women's struggle to be amother and have a career. As said in the book "Recognising thatyou are a member of the global village is essential to lifting you above the narrow nationalistic interests and concerns of your own country (222)." Mamphela's life was a pursuit for women to rise above the boundaries and the story was very detailed, and well written! END

Across Boundaries by Mamphela Ramphele is a fascinating autobiography about the extraordinary journey of a South African woman leader. From historical events to her personal experiences, Ramphele describes these events and struggles with dignity. Throughout her endeavors as a young child and continued to her adulthood, she is committed and determined to succeed and to make a difference. An honest testimony that shows her fears and courage. This is an excellent book and it will keep you reading for this one woman's strength is amazing. Through moderate to difficult times and tribulations Mamphela Ramphele keeps a remarkable and uplifting attitude that helps bring new light to unfortunate situations.

I found Mamphela Ramphele's autobiography very interesting and amazing. The struggles she went through during her life absolutely amazed me! She is one of the strongest women I have ever heard of. I enjoyed reading about her fight for rights, her relationship with Steve Biko, and how she balanced all of her activities. I found it very interesting that she did not put motherhood as a priority in her life as many other women do. I enjoyed reading "Across Boundaries" and I thought Mamphela did a good job of telling the true story of her life.

This book has a great idea, which is to use maps to show how climate change is expected to affect various areas. The big flaw is that it lumps the entire United States together, rather than showing the changes expected in each region. Surely, climate change will have very different effects on Arizona, Maine, and Oregon. How about doing a book specific to the US?

Written to be a textbook, this book is a good introductory primer into the physical science behind global warming. There are also graphs and discussions on what each country is doing financially (by GDP) to help solve the problem and which countries emit carbon and at what rate. It utilizes an extensive amount of graphs and maps, which makes it very easy to visualize the various topics presented.

I am using this currently as a supplemental text book in a community college class in global warming and have found it to be wonderful. It is not, as some other reviewers have seemed to imply, the end all book on the subject and does not delve into extreme detail into any on particular aspect of global warming. In fact, at a mere 128 pages, I cannot see it as more than a light treatment of the subject. What is does is supplement other textbooks which contain more discussion and less visualization.

This would be a good book for those interested in global warming but that have a hard time visualizing the issues. Combined with other, more detailed books, this would provide excellent information. This would also be recommended as text for us in a high school or college introductory environmental science class.

This is an excellent book for those wishing to study the issue of climate change from a geographical standpoint. The maps are excellent - they show exactly where evidence is being found to support global warming, what aeas of the world will be most impacted by global warming, and which nations have committed resources to slowing carbon emissions.

It is a visual guide to global warming, giving a very graphic perspective of the earth as a whole. The scientific explanations of the interacting systems of global winds, ocean currents, atmospheric gasses, and how they are being affected by human alterations, are particularly easy to understand because of the clear diagrams and colorful maps.

As an instructor of physical geography, I find this to be an excellent book for the non-scientist to undertand the physical processes and the science of global warming. The detailed yet easy-to-understand maps and diagrams add another dimension to an often dry and theoretical topic.

This book enters the fray with a good overview relative to alternative energy as the answer - but, in my opinion, fails to embrace the "source" of today's dilemma. To precipitate a change in climate - we need a sea-change in the overall interaction of humanity with water. To achieve this, it would be wise for each of us to become conscious of how our daily decisions impact the world within our reach. What products we buy, how we use energy, the examples we set, what we say to others, how we help ease the burden of other life forms we come into contact with - all have an impact on water and the future of life in our biosphere. And, it is the condition of water within our biosphere that will determine the success or failure of our civilization.

My title says it all! This book is easy to read, pleasant to the eyes with its use of color and visuals, and food for the mind. At last, someone has taken pity on individuals who hear about climate change problems, but have not had the facts about it. I think this book is useful for everyone, and can be used in church, school, and living room settings.

Jay S. Southwick