A History of South Africa

An accessible, lively and authoritative one-volume history of one of the world’s most troubled, controversial and important nations by the author of the widely acclaimed A History of Hong Kong. Despite the optimism and euphoria which greeted the election as President of Nelson Mandela, South Africa’s history, racial mix and rapid recent political changes suggest it will not easily free itself from the legacy of its tumultuous past. South Africa is by far the most powerful country on the African continent. Whatever happens there will have an impact far beyond its borders. Yet prejudice and ignorance on the subject of South Africa are widespread. Some incidents, especially those of the nineteenth century, are well known: the Great Trek, the Jameson Raid, the Boer War. But how many people in the outside world are clear about the differences between Bantus, Zulu and Bushmen? Is it widely known that while the forebears of F.W. de Klerk lived in what is now South Africa three hundred years ago, those of Nelson Mandela did not? And what lies behind the development of the apartheid system, and the Boers’ forceful character and powerful sense of destiny? Frank Welsh’s vividly written and incisive one-volume history will surely, like his A History of Hong Kong, come to be regarded as definitive.