South Africa Books

Picking up where David Yudelman's The Emergence of Modern South Africa: State, Capital, and the Incorporation of Organized Labor on the South African Gold Fields, 1902-1939 (Contributions in Comparative Colonial Studies) this book seeks to complete the picture of the development of South Africa. However it primarily views this through a post-apartheid lens where there is a good versus evil approach where the 'indigenous' people are always suppressed by the 'evil' people from outside.

This is a narrow minded view. the idea that South Africa's history is primarily one of 'conquest' and 'Apartheid' is a mistaken view. Afrikaners lived in South Africa for two hundred years before the advent of Apartheid. The 'conquest' of South Arica was one that also involved Zulus conquering others. This book seems to ignore this diverse history, especially as it relates to the Coloured people and the Indian/Asian population of South Africa. This is unjust and an unfair telling of history, especially as it ignores the evils of the Boer War.

But this is history as it is being told.

Seth J. Frantzman

The structure and narrative of Nigel Worden's The Making of Modern South Africa: Conquest, Segregation and Apartheid is perhaps what makes this volume of the Historical Association Studies accessible not only to historians, but social historians who are looking beyond the nationalism of the African and Afrikaner to study how rural culture and townships in South Africa were affected from the colonial conquests of the 18th Century through the present. Maps of African societies in the nineteenth century; The Union of South Africa in 1910; "Native Reserves" of 1913 and 1936'; and the Bantustans, or Homelands, all provide a tangible, physical view of the changing nature of South Africa's political topography. Worden's extremely detailed Outline Chronology provides the reader with extensive information regarding South Africa from the "Pastoralist revolution" in c. 1000 BCE, through the British annexation of Natal in 1843, to the Introduction of Indian indentured laborers to Natal in 1860, which subsequently ended in 1911. Worden's Chronology illustrates how the making of apartheid was evident even before the South African "Boer" War in 1899-1902 with the Glen Grey Act of 1894 establishing separate land and tax systems for Africans on the eastern Cape.
One of Worden's arguments states that the two explanations for the changing map of South Africa after the Zulu defeated the British were 1) Britain's desire to unify the region in order to control and 2) Britain was at this point in time representative of "the wider scramble for empire, particularly in Africa, amongst European powers." Worden's answer to these theories posited by historians prior to 1970 is that it was, in fact "The discovery of valuable mineral deposits and the need to secure labor supplies to mine them made the South African interior a highly desirable region for the British to control directly." (19) Yet mining was not the only available labor force in migrant labor. Many South Africans avoided wage labor by cultivating crops for commercial production, supplying the necessary cash for taxes and good. (46) The effect was a backlash with the victory of Het Volk in the 1907 Transvaal elections by "promis[ing] to restore white rural hegemony at the expense of African producers." (48) The Natives Land Act of 1913 passed by the Union Government forbade the purchase of land by Africans outside known reserves. Conflicts and resistance by South Africans was omnipresent and pronounced, and brought in the Industrial and Commercial Worker's Union (ICU), which ultimately weakened by the late 20s.
After providing a heavy dose of the background against which Apartheid is placed, Worden proceeds to explain how racial discrimination in South Africa came to be. The process was part of European imperialism, into which ideas of the west being obligated to "civilize" natives hastened expansion, and the Darwinist idea of evolution was being applied to the human race. Unlike other nations where white supremacism was strong (like other British colonies in Africa, Asia, and the U.S.), in South Africa it was the lines on which the economic and political structure was shaped. Worden carefully examines the origins of the structured form of racial superiority, and notes that almost immediately they emerged with the Dutch East India Company Officials maintaining the hierarchy. (66) Apartheid eventually emerged as a facet of Afrikaner nationalism. Apartheid became a means of excluding Africans from political power, and in the 1950s, while experiencing its "heyday," it also met substantial protest. The protests declined in the 1960s, but gained momentum in the 70s and 80s. Worden concludes that it was the variety of civil wars in South Africa, with the population alienated from the state and sanctions effectively slowing the economy, which seriously began to force apartheid into decline. But his book is disturbingly written as though unfinished, possibly partially because Nigel Worden himself does not see apartheid, as we know it today to be finished.

This is a very useful book with clear colour photographs. Descriptions and photographs are placed side-by-side which avoids paging back and forth. Each description is provided with a small map which clearly shows the range of the species. The most recent classification is used, but it is annoying that older, more familiar names have not been included. A full biliography and glossary is provided together with explanatory notes.

This is the story of a remarkable couple-Seretse Khama and his wife Ruth Willaims who overcame every obstacle put by the British Governmebnt to prevent Seretse taking up his lawful position as paramount Chief of his Bamanguata tribe in Bechuanaland -now Botswana.The white dominated Government of South Africa were afraid of the effect that the marriage of the Black Chief of a neighboring country to a white English lady would have on their emerging policy of Apartheid and the S.A Government brought every pressure to bear on the British Government to try and prevent the marriage taking place.

In the end right overcame wrong and Seretse went on to become the first President of Botswana and died in 1979. His wife Ruth played an important role in the Red Cross till her death.

The book is a good historical and human story.

A story of a relationship between an African man and woman, set in the Orange Free State region of South Africa during the Mfecane and Boer expansion. This is a more intimate and personal examination of the effects of these historical trends through the eyes of a young couple displaced by the battles and skirmishes. Although not sophisticated as a work of fiction, Mhudi is nonetheless a moving and insightful view of this period of history from an African perspective, as well as a piece of history in itself. Written by one of South Africa's true renaissance men whose contribution to his nation and people remains sadly underreported

It has been over a year since I read this book while I was living in Puerto Rico, but the deep impressions it made remain. Even now I feel like I would love to sit and just listen to the authoress in person as she tells more of her story. That is exactly how I predict you will feel as you read this account from her heart and you share her laughter and her tears.

Although now I live in Mexico, I realize that this true story of a young girl apparently forsaken by her own country and forced to move to another is universal in it's lesson of love and pride of your roots and how justice can prevail if we never give up!

Thank you Ms. Jacobs and God Bless You Forever, Bill

Long awaited subject, very informative and well researched book. I have several of Yeffim Gordon's books and they are all wonderful. This book covers the design stages and includes pictures of models that did not make it to the finals but that are interesting and one can see the progression of a concept, the things that worked and the things that didn't. The main thread of this and the other books is that they not only are factual but also present some details that are unique from native's point of view.

The photos are mostly black and white and in an age of digital perfection I sometime forget that this is a subject that was classified not so long ago. Nevertheless, I wish there were more close ups and more color photos and that the 3-d drawings include front and top views as well. I understand however that the space is limited and there are four helicopters covered.

It is a great refference material for historians and hobbyists alike and it is a great addition to my library of Soviet Aircrafts!

Borislav

I read this book while I was visiting South Africa and I would encourage it for anyone who is interested in an overview of life under apartheid. It was published just before apartheid ended, so the reader must look to other sources for a post apartheid look at South Africa, but I found this book to be well written, insightful, and interesting. South Africa is a very complex culture and that complexity is not always portrayed in American media. Hochschild lived in South Africa and his love for the people is evident in this work.

"Mortal Combat" tells how South African President Thabo Mbeki fell under the influence of quack AIDS theories at exactly the moment when the disease was becoming a massive public health crisis in South Africa. His government's halting and confused response to the epidemic was one of the great tragedies of post-1994 South Africa -- and one of the world's great policy idiocies of recent decades.

Mbeki was emotionally unable to accept the fact that HIV spreads through sexual contact, lest that finding "vindicate" racist attitudes about African culture. Groping for alternative explanations, he seized on dissident AIDS theories circulating on the internet, which blamed AIDS on poor nutrition and poverty. His endorsement of crackpot "science" had literally deadly results: it empowered his health minister (a heavy-drinking ANC hack) to delay the roll out of ARVs for years and to push "traditional" African remedies on a population of sick poor people who looked to the government for guidance. Eventually, Mbeki's anti-science policy was reversed in the face of opposition from civil society, unions, the courts, and the ruling ANC party itself -- but not before tens of thousands of South Africans had died unnecessarily. In the process, South Africa and the ANC became the laughingstock of the world.

"Mortal Combat" is informative, clearly written, and committed to science-based public health (which can't be taken for granted in South Africa). It also reproduces dozens of hilarious Zapiro cartoons. However, I took off one star because the book is based mostly on secondary sources and newspaper articles, and stays narrowly focused on AIDS denialism and its impact on policy -- it doesn't even attempt to tell the whole epic history of the AIDS epidemic in South Africa. But the heart of "Mortal Combat" is in the right place and it is essential reading for every educated South African -- especially the next generation of ANC leaders. Let's hope they learn from Mbeki's folly.

This book was produced for an exhibition at the metropolitan musuem of art in 1994. It shows how visions of 'the exotic' in places like asia and the middle east have affected western dress over the centuries - right up to the present time.

This volume is illustrated with numerous lovley colour photos of the exhibition pieces, which range from the 18th to 20th centuries. The text is quite light and easy to read, and the book does not have an index.

I give this book 4 stars for the photo and presentation content, but I'd have to drop one off for the text content. It's not a big book at 95 pages, but it's a nice one:)