South Africa Books

Jo Anne Richards has a superb knack of describing not only the climate of Apartheid, but also the colours, textures, and other sensory perceptions of the times. Her characters are an excellent precis of the types of people involved in those resistance circles. The frustrations and meagre triumphs, and then their inevitable marginalization are so tangible to the reader.

This book is pretty good if you like to do tours easy and with detailled description belonging to the route you have to take. The places and tours are worth to see them! Very good guide. I tried a lot of guidebooks but this was the best!

Professor Laband draws on his extensive knowledge of late 19th Century South Africa to trace the origins and course of the lesser-known, but politically significant conflict between the Boers of the South African Republic (a.k.a. the Transvaal) and British colonial forces. Deftly defining the war as a collision of two radically different military cultures, he takes a middle path between traditional historical perspectives, which have often taken either the Afrikaner view of a divinely-ordained victory, or the British outlook, which regarded its defeat as an aberration in the largely-triumphant advance of British rule.
Laband clearly describes the events preceding and during the war, so that those less familiar with figures and issues of that era in this part of the world will gain an understanding of a pivotal point in British-South African relations.

read this book if you care about AFRICA

TREE SHAKER is a very informative and colorful book written by Bill Keller, the Executive Editor of The New York Times. The entire book is written like one long article, broken up by chapters and festive with many colorful pictures.

It tells the story of Nelson Mandela's life -- from childhood to becoming the first black South African president -- and his impact on South Africa and the world.

This book was very informative; somewhat like a history textbook but with many colorful pictures and interesting story and dialogues in between the factual parts.

This book is highly recommended for anyone who wants to learn about the life of a man who impacted the world with his brilliance and determination for black equality among a white supremacist country.

Reviewed by: Steph

This is a botanical reference work on the trees of Southern Africa (mostly S-Africa & Rhodesia/Zimbabwe?). Its printing history speaks for itself. First published in 1977; second revised edition by Dr E.J.Moll in 1984, third impression 1988 (when 12 pages were added with updates on nomenclature); ninth impression in 1997. What can I add to that?

This is an identification key and reference work to Southern African trees, giving per species a short description, a distribution map and one (or more) line drawings of a detail, usually a leaf (sometimes a fruit, sometimes both. Upon occasion a tree habit). Names listed include full scientific name, in some cases synonyms, always an english name and usually an afrikaans name. There are close to a thousand pages of this, supplemented with over a hundred pages of color illustrations (both photographs and colored drawings).

Compared to some of the magnificently illustrated books on trees that are now available this work looks somewhat modest. However the absence of an abundance of photographs does mean that all these trees can be captured in a single binding of a handy size and weight, at a quite affordable price. [Might be due for an update, but I sure won't volunteer to undertake it. That would be a whole lot of work! ]

This book gives a wonderful idea of what it was like to live in southern Africa at the beginning of this century. Doke gives a very insightful view of the people and customs of that time. Having spent many years with the Lamba people of Kafulafuta, he is a excellent source of information of the tribes of Rhodesia. This book is both interesting and educational.

Here's an interesting look at social literacy theories presented in the form of a correspondence between a struggling young professor at the University of Western Cape in South Africa (Katz) and his former Sociolinguistics professor from NYU (Rouse). The book offers a lot of theory and practical applications thereof to anyone involved in teaching reading and writing (especially at the college or adult levels). Rouse's opinionated letters are particularly invigorating. Although I wouldn't recommend the book to a general audience, it does present a fascinating backstory about South African life at the time following the fall of apartheid.

An Unpopular War

This interesting book consists of a series of first-person vignettes provided by individuals who had served on the South African side in South Africa's Border Wars in the 70s and 80s. The accounts seem to be in the language and words of those who provided them, save for their translation in some instances from Afrikaans to English. As such, they are provided with no contextual supporting text, except for an appendix of slang words and their meanings. A reader coming into this material for the first time may be puzzled at times but the intention of the editor was clearly to provide an authentic `voice' to the protagonists without any comment or interpretation of her own. The individuals who provided their stories varied from army chefs to helicopter pilots to conscious objectors , and each have a story to tell, sometimes funny, sometimes poignant and sometimes macabre. For this reason the material will be of interest to a broad readership anywhere in the world. Although not an historical account of events at all (for which the reader should seek some other source, such as Wikipedia, or The Silent War by Peter Stiff) the situations and events reported appear to be accurate, and are certainly consistent with other accounts with which I am familiar. A recommended read.

In 1973 Stanford University historian questioned whether or no anything new could be said about Vichy France. In response to his rhetorical question, Wright pointed out the revisionist work of Robert Paxton - VICHY FRANCE - OLD GUARD AND NEW ORDER 1940 - 1944. Paxton challenged the traditinal myths of French resistence and atacked France's edited memory of their collaboration with the Germans. Eric T. Jennings demonstrates that he is an heir to Paxton's revisionism in this work. Through the use of a comparative study of three colonial possessions in the outer reaches of the French Empire from 1940 - 1944, Jennings describes and interprets Marshall Petain's unique brand of colonialism, a subject, according to Jennings, that has been largely ignored by other historians.

The gist of Jenning's argument is that in the selected colonies, there was no German presence. With no Germans, he questions why the Vichy colonial officials were so repressive. A recurring theme in the three exampes cited is the underlying rejection of republicanism in the colonies by the French administratin. Jennings demonstrates the points made by Paxton, namely, that the Vichy government, in the metropole and in the colonies went beyond what the Germans required in terms of anti Semitism, ultra conservatism, authoritarianism and anti republicanism and formulated policies and practices that were anti Masonic, anti Communistic and ardently Catholic.

Prior to the coming of the Vichy government, colonial administrators, particulary in Guadeloupe advocated assimilation and officially per pounded ideas of "Liberty, Equality, and Fraternity." In Madagascar and Indochina the colonies could anticipate at best an association with France. But at heart of the colonial empire, even before the Vichy government, was a belief in Social Darwinism that saw the indigenous people of the colonies as proper subjects for domination, not citizens of France. True equality had never really been anticipated. So when the opportunity present itself the true colors of the colonial administrators emerged.

Jennings argued that the repressive tactics of the French colonial administration back fired on the French. Little did they realize that the tactics galvinized dissent in the colonies and provided unintended fertilizer for the already fertile ground of colonial nationalism. To Jennings, the four years he described mark a crossroads of colonialism and post colonialism.

Jennings, however, gives no agency to the indigeous people. It seems to me that there would have been strong nationalist movements even without the pressure from the French. In addition, I think that Jennings gives to much credence to de Gaulle and the Free French. Jennings uses local records to present a part of French history that has been ignored by other historians. The book considers a subject that is in much need or research for its own sake and for its impact on the subject of Vicy France and French mentalities.