
- English
- ePUB (mobile friendly)
- Available on iOS & Android
About this book
South Africa was born in war, has been cursed by crises and ruptures, and today stands on a precipice once again. This book explores the country’s tumultuous journey from the Second Anglo-Boer War to 2021. Drawing on diaries, letters, oral testimony and diplomatic reports, Thula Simpson follows the South African people through the battles, elections, repression, resistance, strikes, insurrections, massacres, crashes and epidemics that have shaped the nation.
Tracking South Africa’s path from colony to Union and from apartheid to democracy, Simpson documents the influence of key figures including Jan Smuts, Nelson Mandela, Steve Biko, P.W. Botha, Thabo Mbeki and Cyril Ramaphosa. He offers detailed accounts of watershed events like the 1922 Rand Revolt, the Defiance Campaign, Sharpeville, the Soweto uprising and the Marikana massacre. He sheds light on the roles of Gandhi, Churchill, Castro and Thatcher, and explores the impact of the World Wars, the armed struggle and the Border War. Simpson’s history charts the post-apartheid transition and the phases of ANC rule, from Rainbow Nation to transformation; state capture to ‘New Dawn’. Along the way, it reveals the divisions and solidarities of sport; the nation’s economic travails; and painful pandemics, from the Spanish flu to AIDS and Covid-19.
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Information
Table of contents
- Cover
- Half Title
- Title
- Copyright
- Dedication
- Contents
- History of South Africa Photos
- Preface to the Hurst edition
- Preface and Acknowledgements
- Abbreviations
- Historical Note
- 1. Aftermath
- 2. Founders
- 3. Union and Disunion
- 4. Imperial Impi
- 5. Revolt
- 6. Red Peril
- 7. Dominion
- 8. Springboks and the Swastika
- 9. Apartheid
- 10. Defiance
- 11. Charterists and Africanists
- 12. States of Emergency
- 13. Freedom Fighters
- 14. Silent Sixties
- 15. Homeland
- 16. Tar Baby
- 17. Adapt or Die
- 18. Total Onslaught
- 19. Ungovernable
- 20. Rubicon
- 21. Liberators
- 22. The World Turned Upside Down
- 23. Born Free
- 24. The Settlement
- 25. Rainbow Nation
- 26. Transformation
- 27. The Second Transition
- 28. Into the Whirlwind
- 29. Captive State
- 30. False Dawn
- 31. The Reckoning
- Notes
- Index
- Back Cover