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Title: The Afrikaners: Biography of a People (Reconsiderations in Southern African History) by Hermann Giliomee ISBN: 0-8139-2237-2 Publisher: University of Virginia Press Pub. Date: September, 2003 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $39.50 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.8 (5 reviews)
Rating: 5
Summary: A marvelous fantastic account
Comment: A wonderful book and the first of its kind to bring the Afrikaner historical experience up to date. From their beginnings as Dutch colonizers to their Brutal wars with the Zulu as they trekked northward to escape British imperialism. The Dutch of Africa became a hardened and embittered people. As they grew from a paltry group of colonists to become their own tribe, whose roots in S. Africa predate the migration of the Zulu, they also became hardened against those who wanted to crush them, namely the British and the more viscous of S. Africa natives. This book tells the tale of a people between two worlds, on one hand the African world of the Natives and the European of the imperialists. In the end the Afrikaans, being so numerous and having no country to call home could not simply move, the way so many whites did when fleeing black nationalism in Africa. The Afrikaners became victims of their own situation, although the first to suffer the horrors of the concentration camp, and although a poor and starving people in 1900 they grew to dominate S. Africa, and many opposed helping the English in WWII. A marvelous account that brings to life the history of the region this is a muct read for anyone interested in Africa, Aparthied or colonialism's consequences.
Rating: 5
Summary: A Wonderful full account
Comment: This is a wonderful new full account of the Afrikaner people of South Africa. This narrative history ranges from the first Dutch settlements to the post-apartheid era. It covers the Great Trek, the Zulu Wars and gives special attention to the harsh treatment of the Afrikaners at the hands of the British during the Boer War, in which many were forced into the worlds first concentration camps. A very fluid history and one of the only books to focus on the history of the Afrikaners as a people and a culture. The author is an eminent South African Historian, and an original fighter against Apartheid, yet he argues passionately to explain the reasons the Afrikaners, their nationalists having come to power in 1948, choose apartheid over majority rule. Important leaders are revealed such as Mr. Smuts, Mr. Botha and Mr. De Klerk as well as insights into Mandela and Mbeki's rule. A must read for scholars of south Africa and those interested in Apartheid, its creation and consequences.
Rating: 4
Summary: The road to hell is paved with good intentions.
Comment: This is a sympathetic history of the Afrikaners.
Another reviewer quotes M.E.Rothman as saying 'They [the Afrikaners] want[ed] to survive as a nation and do no harm to others'. The road to hell is paved with good intentions. The fact of the matter is that the Afrikaners did do a whole lot of harm to a whole lot of others. The Afrikaners are not alone in this: The British did the Afrikaners and South African blacks a whole lot of harm too. And that is but one of countless examples of history continuing to the present day. But this book does gloss over the harm Afrikaners did.
This book is a great read. It is a compelling page-turner for anyone who, like me, grew up in a white but English-speaking South African environment and who, frankly, viewed the Afrikaners as just another group to look down on. I have a whole lot more sympathy for the Afrikaners than I did before reading the book.
Could South Africa have got to a multi-racial society (and it's not quite there yet) without the apartheid process? Hermann Giliomee says no. This is the thesis of the book: The Afrikaners had their well-intentioned experiment and when they recognised it failed, they gave it up.
Well, perhaps, say I, but apartheid was a weapon of hate in the hands of many whites in general [English speaking ones too] and in the hands of senior and junior state officials in particular. Blacks suffered terribly as a result. The Afrikaner political and intellectual leadership who, according to Giliomee, were opposed to this were hardly ever outspoken enough to rock the boat. There were a few exceptions such as Van Zyl Slabbert and maybe even Giliomee himself but this book, it seems to me, comes close to excusing practically all of them by sacrificing Verwoerd and one or two others along the way.
Having said that I recommend this book.
Ironically, this, the supposedly definitive history of the Afrikaners, is written by an Afrikaner in English. It is not an English translation of an Afrikaans book. And that demonstrates why this book could be the last definitive history of the Afrikaners: They have no future. This is, I believe, Giliomee's conclusion despite the hopes he expresses in the last few pages.
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Title: Beyond the Miracle: Inside the New South Africa by Allister Sparks ISBN: 0226768589 Publisher: University of Chicago Press (Trd) Pub. Date: September, 2003 List Price(USD): $32.50 |
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Title: Franklin Delano Roosevelt: Champion of Freedom by Conrad Black ISBN: 1586481843 Publisher: PublicAffairs Pub. Date: November, 2003 List Price(USD): $39.95 |
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Title: A History of South Africa, Third Edition by Leonard Monteath Thompson, Leonard L. Thompson ISBN: 0300087764 Publisher: Yale Univ Pr Pub. Date: 01 March, 2001 List Price(USD): $17.95 |
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Title: Seven Myths of the Spanish Conquest by Matthew Restall ISBN: 0195160770 Publisher: Oxford University Press Pub. Date: July, 2003 List Price(USD): $28.00 |
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Title: The Zanzibar Chest: A Story of Life, Love, and Death in Foreign Lands by Aidan Hartley ISBN: 0871138719 Publisher: Atlantic Monthly Press Pub. Date: June, 2003 List Price(USD): $24.00 |
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