Customer Reviews

A History of South Africa, Third Edition

5 star:		(14)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

"I did not think it was possible for a white person to write a history of South Africa which a black South African would find to be a fair and accurate account of a beautiful land and its people. Leonard Thompson has disabused me of that notion. His is a history that is both accurate and authentic, written in a delightful literary style." -- Archbishop Desmond Tutu

This truly is an incredible historical masterpiece. The account begins with two chapters dedicated to the early Africans before European intervention, and ends with the fall of apartheid and a new beginning for South Africa. It is a easy to read, and is a real page-turner.

The reason I picked this book up was I wanted to dig beneath the surface of the country's history. I learned about the two Afrikaner Republics - The Orange Free State, and the Transvaal Republic - and how they were incorporated, reluctantly, into the Union of South Africa at the beginning of the 20th century. The detail is incredible, and not boring in the least.

I highly recommend this book - especially for those who need to do research reports on apartheid, or South African history in general. Overall - and excellent, excellent history book!

I very much looked forward to receiving this book through the mail, due to the tons of praise which people expressed for it. I am however very disappointed. I have only read the first few pages (including the first one which quotes the multitude of praise) with emphasis on the summary/chronology of South African history. I am a South African, and I find it littered with inaccuracies which SHOULD NOT be present in a history book. It is painfully obvious that the book was written by a foreigner. Examples: The Boer war becomes "The war between the whites". I would have liked to see the Rand Revolt mentioned by name. Botha becomes prime minister. Botha who? Pik? PW? A newcomer to SA history should not have to guess at such things. 1981-1988 South African forces invade Angola. Uh....NO. SA started incursions into Angola in 1976. Since this is a history of SA, I will point out that a quick scan of the book reveals no more detail around these events, yet he takes a cheap shot at the Afrikaner government by making it sound as though they willy-nilly went into Angola for the sake of oppressing people. It seems that the author opted to avoid explaining the historical facts behind these VERY important events. What the reader does not know, is that Fidel Castro through this period of time circulated 350 000 (if I remember correctly) Cuban soldiers through Angola to infiltrate southern Africa with communism, through a war sponsored by Soviet money and state-of-the-art military equipment and training. The South Africans were responding to this threat to avoid the spread of communism into the region (it is rumored that the CIA condoned this until the withdrawal from Vietnam). Simultaneously civil wars in other southern African countries were tied in to this, as well as Soviet military training of ANC members such as Thabo Mbeki and others. The events surrounding the incursions into Angola has tremendous complexities tied into it that had a direct cause and effect role in the interaction between the government, apartheid era crackdowns, and African political organizations. That the author did not discuss these influential details in a modern history book is a scandal. He chooses to refer to a province we officially call KwaZulu-Natal, as KwaZulu. Overall the first few pages do not bode well for the rest of the book, but I will report back when I'm done reading it.

This is the report-back:
After reading the book I realized that my initial harsh criticism was borne from an expectation of having purchased a detailed history book. After realizing that it was not, I eased my expectations somewhat despite the errors. Overall the book is a readable but superficial summary of South African history, and anyone who wants to claim that they have a balanced understanding of South Africa's history cannot do so without having read further than this source. The book was clearly written for an audience (perhaps at freshman university level) who need a first-order introduction to SA history. In this sense the book is fairly well written but omissions of essential events and several factual errors prompt me to rate it 3.5 stars. I rate it 2 stars however, because this book is marketed as THE authoritative book on SA history, as the praise by Desmond Tutu and the title of the book misleadingly suggests. It is nothing of the kind (at least I hope it's not the best there is!!!!!). I think the praise this book received is outdated and inappropriate for today's day and age and the title should read "A summary of SA history". Since the author seems to update the book as time goes on, by adding chapters, he cannot be excused for not filling in the gaps, correcting errors in previous chapters, and adding details. The book therefore seems to propagate the gaps in recorded SA history instead of aspiring to become an accurate and detailed authoritative reference as time goes on. It's a pity.

One more comment: At least one reviewer has advised to take the last chapter with a grain of salt since it appears too pessimistic to him. I couldn't disagree more! The last chapter is - apart from a few opinionated (would be subtle to foreigners)statements by the author in terms of seemingly continuing to make Africans the underdogs and Caucasians the antagonists - factual, and an accurate (and perhaps even understated) recording of the dismal deterioration of SA society and the incompetence of the government that played out from 94-2000. The continuing trend of these events can clearly be seen in everyday South African news up to this day.

I found every part of this book, except for the last chapter, to be thorough, even-handed and well written. As a South African with a strong interest in our history seeking to flesh out an incomplete knowledge of it, this is the best and most complete source I have found so far.

The third edition contains two new chapters: the first one describes the negotiation process and the transition to the new government, and the second is a description of the state of the New South Africa. The transition chapter is excellent -- it is insightful, fascinating and highly relevant to South Africa today.

However, I found the final chapter of this book to be badly written, overly pessimistic and, in places, dangerously subjective. Part of this is because it was written in 2000, and doesn't include some of the serious progress made since then -- for example, it mentions the sharp drop in the Rand's value in 1999 and 2000, but not its subsequent strong and equally rapid recovery in 2003 and 2004. This leaves the impression that the Mbeki government is doing a terrible job, whereas as of now (early 2005) it is doing relatively well.

However, some (not much, but a little bit) of the material in the final chapter contains the kind of alarmist statements that South Africans have come to expect (and learned to ignore) from certain (predominantly conservative) sections of the popular press, and are inappropriate in a book that claims to be accurate and factual. I suspect that Bishop Tutu might wish to have the glowing review he gave to the first edition removed from the cover of the third.

Nevertheless, provided the reader is willing to to be take the final chapter with a grain of salt, the book lives up to its billing and deserves its extremely positive reviews.

Thompson's "History" is very comprehensive for a book that is relatively short in length. His account of African and settler life before white hegemony gives readers fresh perspectives on 20th century issues. However, once Thompson finally addresses apartheid he totally neglects to address intraracial issues that make black South Africa the volitile place it is. Instead, Thompson oversimplifies all of the issues facing South Africa by making them 'white vs. black.' Regardless, Thompson's book is a good reference for early South African history.

2000 was a rough year for publishing a history of South Africa, even one as superbly written and brilliantly researched as Leonard Thompson's far too blandly titled A HISTORY OF SOUTH AFRICA.

So much hung still in the balance, a precarious circumstance so potent that it reduced Thompson to this final, modest sentence: 'Nothing is preordained in human history. In 2000 it was still conceivable that the dreams of Nelson Mandela, Thabo Mbeki, and millions of other South Africans would eventually, in some fashion, triumph.'

Indeed.

Six years later, this reviewer has had opportunity to observe the astonishing steps the South African people have taken towards establishing a multiracial civil society. Although immense challenges remain, Mandela, Mbeki, and even a more sympathetically reviewed de Klerk can rightly be seen as the protagonists - though hardly of equal stature - in one of modern history's great human dramas.

Leonard Thompson has proven himself equal to the task of chronicling all of South Africa's known historical periods with a lucidity that has well served its subject matter. Rarely does history go down so easily and hungrily as do Thompson's 358 lovingly written pages.

The six years since its publication have been so full that one longs for another volume from Thompson's angle, hopefully more confident that that victory that remains so undetermined in human history can - from time to time and in the most longsuffering places - be achieved.

Thompson celebrating the South African people's realization of the secularly sainted elder Mandela's vision, say, ten years from 2006.

Now *there's* a sequel worth pre-ordering.

In the meantime, it would be difficult to find a single volume so blessed of an historian's virtues as the one Thompson has given us.

The history of South Africa is mostly one of violence, starting from the earliest beginning when the Europeans came from Portugal, England and Holland. The Dutch set up a fort in Cape Town from which European settlement of the southern part of Africa.

Settlement? Not really, Thompson (who was white) calls the settlers invaders; people who had no higher right to be there.
It is certainly not a history of white South Africa, the book starts a lot earlier than that. It is also not in any way making one group into heroes, an astonishing feat.

He is fair and critical, also about the new ANC governments after Apartheid, although he does see that 8 years is not long enough to complete change a nation.

Highly recommended for classes, universities and everyone else interesting in South African history. It's the perfect way to write a general history.

Its hard to find a readable history of SA in just under 300 pages. If you want a good overview of SA History this books is well written, accurate, and detailed enough that it is not too general. A must read if you need the History of SA in a short read.

I read this right before reading Nelson Mandela's biography. I thought I liked it better than I did -- when I started reading Mandela, I realized this book is a bit of a slog.

I really enjoyed the factual tone of the book; I disagree with other reviewers who somehow think this is a polemic. The author makes a few judgments (as all historians do) but when he does they jump out at you because it's a rare thing in this book. The discussion of the indigenous people of South Africa, the overview of the terminology, and the review of the evolution of, and end of, apartheid, provides plenty of food for thought about social change. Why did it happen? Did capitalism help, because the free market wouldn't support the wage disparities between blacks and whites? Or did it hurt, because capitalists are inherently conservative? Did international sanctions help? Why did President Reagan misjudge the situation (declaring that South Africa had "ended segregation")? Tone-wise, the author is obviously sympathetic toward the oppressed African population in the apartheid era, but who wouldn't be? The whole world made the same judgment, as did the white leadership of South Africa, eventually.

Having experienced a few other sources for much of the story (Mandela's autobiography, the Apartheid Museum, various news articles), I'd say this book de-emphasizes the student uprising of 1976 and the armed wing of the ANC, so it's not the best source for information about those things.

So it's an excellent overview, but it was no page-turner. I "enjoyed" reading it but it was tiring; Mandela's book flew by, so if you're more interested in the later period, it's probably a better choice. If you're interested in the 1970s and 1980s, this is a poor choice, but so is Mandela's book, as Mandela was largely sidelined during that period; I'm not sure where to get better information about that time.

Before giving my actual review, I want to give you some context from which this review came. I read this book while studying in South Africa and taking South African History. I'm an undergraduate student and I'm not getting a degree in History. I would say I'm what the author would look at as a basic twenty-something reader.

With that said, onto my review:

This is 3 1/2 stars. The book was overflowing with facts and all the key events that lead up to South Africa as it is today, spanning from the earliest inhabitants to the presidential term of Thabo Mbeki. The reason I didn't give this book four stars is not the information per se, but more so the way the information was presented. In short, good content, poor execution. Although the book is set up in a generally chronological order, the author constantly jumps around when discussing specific dates. The sheer amount of information that you are taking in makes it very difficult to keep track of all of the dates and span them out in a timeline in your head (at least it was for me). This structure proves to be confusing and makes recollecting certain events, groups, or short periods of history, difficult.

I thought it almost a must read for South Africans who were subjected to the Apartheid era history at school. I say that as a born and bred South Africa.