South African History

Africa is a vast continent whose waters, fertile lands, minerals, and diverse wildlife nurtured humankind since ancient times until European colonization and exploitation caused immeasurable suffering and loss. To understand how Africa developed, thrived, suffered, and emerged into the rich tapestry of peoples that it is today, take a trip back to the ancient River Nile and the East African coast.

The Great Boer War (1899-1902) - more properly the Great Anglo-Boer War - was one of the last romantic wars, pitting a sturdy, stubborn pioneer people fighting to establish the independence of their tiny nation against the British Empire at its peak of power and self-confidence. It was fought in the barren vastness of the South African veldt, and it produced in almost equal measure extraordinary feats of personal heroism, unbelievable examples of folly and stupidity, and many incidents of humor and tragedy.

The story of the intelligence war in South Africa during the Second World War is one of suspense, drama and dogged persistence. In 1939, when the Union of South Africa entered the war on Britain’s side, the German government secretly contacted the political opposition, and the leadership of the anti-war movement, the Ossewabrandwag. The Nazis’ aim was to spread sedition, undermine the Allied war effort, and - given the strategic importance of the Cape of Good Hope sea route - gain naval intelligence. Soon U-boat packs were sent to operate in South African waters, to deadly effect.

A Short History of South Africa is a brief, general account of the history of this most complicated and fascinating country - from the first evidence of hominid existence to the wars of the 18th, 19th and 20th centuries that led to the establishment of modern South Africa, the horrors of Apartheid and the optimism following its collapse, as well as the prospects and challenges for the future. This highly listenable account is the culmination of a lifetime of researching and teaching the broad spectrum of South African history.

Love history? Know your stuff with History in an Hour.

With the passing of Nelson Mandela, ‘the father of the nation’, comes the end of an era, and the moment to look back on his remarkable saving, and remaking, of South Africa. After years of oppression and racial...

This riveting narrative unfolds a tumultuous chapter in history where ambition, resilience, and tragedy collide on the sun-scorched plains of South Africa. Embark on a journey through time where the indomitable spirit of the Boer farmers clashed with the might of the British Empire, driven by dreams of expansion and the glittering allure of gold and diamonds.

From the storied ache of mbube harmonies of the ‘40s to the electronic boom of kwaito and the amapiano and house explosion of the ‘00s, this book explores vignettes taken from across South Africa’s popular music history. There are moments in time where music can be a mighty weapon in the fight for freedom. Disguised in a danceable hook or shouted for the world to hear, artists have used songs to deliver important truths and bring listeners together in the face of a segregated reality.

The Boer War was the defining conflict of South African history and one of the most important conflicts in the history of the British Empire. Naturally, complicated geopolitics underscored it, going back centuries. In fact, the European history of South Africa began with the 1652 arrival of a small Dutch flotilla in Table Bay, at the southern extremity of the African continent, which made landfall with a view to establishing a victualing station to service passing Dutch East India Company (Vereenigde Oost-Indische Compagnie) ships.

An available audiobook in cooperation with Spoken Realms. The Negro in South Carolina During the Reconstruction (1924) by Alrutheus Ambush Taylor Narrated by Joseph Tabler.

This groundbreaking book tracks the massive wealth amassed from slavery from pre-Civil War to today, showing how our modern economy was built on the backs of enslaved Black people—and lays out a clear argument for reparations that shows exactly what was stolen, who stole it, and to whom it is...

In Foreign Native, RW Johnson looks back with affection and humour on his life in Africa. From schooldays in Durban - fresh off the boat from Merseyside - to later years as an academic, director of the Helen Suzman Foundation and formidable political commentator, he has produced an entertaining and occasionally eye-popping memoir brimming with history, anecdote and insight. Johnson charts his evolution from enthusiastic, left-leaning Africanist to political realist, relating the episodes that influenced his intellectual worldview.

In Raising Racists: The Socialization of White Children in the Jim Crow South, author Kristina DuRocher reveals how white adults in the late 19th and early 20th centuries continually reinforced race and gender roles to maintain white supremacy. DuRocher examines the practices, mores, and traditions that trained white children to fear, dehumanize, and disdain their black neighbors.

From the late eighteenth century through the end of the Civil War, Choctaw and Chickasaw Indians bought, sold, and owned Africans and African Americans as slaves, a fact that persisted after the tribes' removal from the Deep South to Indian Territory. The tribes marginalized free black people in the Indian nations well after the Civil War and slavery had ended. In this groundbreaking study, Barbara Krauthamer rewrites the history of southern slavery, emancipation, race, and citizenship to reveal the centrality of Native American slaveholders and the black people they enslaved.

Twenty-five years after its original publication, Slave Religion remains a classic in the study of African American history and religion. Using a variety of first and secondhand sources - some objective, some personal, all riveting - Raboteau analyzes the transformation of the African religions into evangelical Christianity. He presents the narratives of the slaves themselves, as well as missionary reports, travel accounts, folklore, Black autobiographies, and the journals of White observers to describe the day-to-day religious life in the slave communities.

More than 150 years after the end of the Civil War, scores of websites, articles, and organizations repeat claims that anywhere between 500 and 100,000 free and enslaved African Americans fought willingly as soldiers in the Confederate army. But as Kevin M. Levin argues in this carefully researched book, such claims would have shocked anyone who served in the army during the war itself. Levin explains that imprecise contemporary accounts, poorly understood primary-source material, and other misrepresentations helped fuel the rise of the black Confederate myth.

James Anderson critically reinterprets the history of southern Black education from Reconstruction to the Great Depression. By placing Black schooling within a political, cultural, and economic context, he offers fresh insights into Black commitment to education, the peculiar significance of Tuskegee Institute, and the conflicting goals of various philanthropic groups, among other matters.

German South West Africa: The History and Legacy of Germany’s Biggest African Colony chronicles the politics and conflicts that marked Germany’s efforts to colonize German South West Africa. You will learn about German South West Africa like never before.

The first genocide of the 20th century, though not well known, was committed by Germans between 1904-1907 in the country we know today as Namibia, where they exterminated thousands of Herero and Nama people and subjected the surviving indigenous men, women, and children to forced labor. The perception of Africans as subhuman - lacking any kind of civilization, history, or meaningful religion - and the resulting justification for the violence against them is what author Elizabeth R. Baer refers to as the "genocidal gaze", an attitude that was later perpetuated by the Nazis.

This book is committed to checking out the gods and goddesses that the people on the African continent worshiped.

En este libro, se le enseñará acerca de algunos de los dioses y diosas egipcios más prestigiosos que fueron adorados hace mucho tiempo. Después de algunos recursos educativos e información sobre ellos, nos sumergimos en algunas de las historias más intrigantes que la antigua cultura egipcia pudo reunir, como Isis y los siete escorpiones, el campesino y el trabajador, la gran reina Hatshepsut y la princesa de Bekhten. Estos mitos despertarán la imaginación y te dejarán maravillado y asombrado.