A Short History of South Africa

Title: First People
Subtitle: The Lost History of the Khoisan
Authors: Gail Nattrass
Publisher: Jonathan Ball Publishers
Johannesburg, South Africa 2023
ISBN 9781868429592 / ISBN 978-1-86-842959-2
Softcover, 14 x 21 cm, 302 pages, several b/w photographs, maps and images

About: A Short History of South Africa

A Short History of South Africa is an absorbing account of South Africa's history, beginning with the first evidence of hominid existence and ending with the political turbulence and socio-economic uncertainties of the present day. In this culmination of many years spent researching and teaching the history of South Africa, Gail Nattrass takes us from the early occupants of the Cradle of Humankind, early settlement both pre- and post-European arrival, to the warfare through the 18th, 19th and 20th centuries that influenced the democracy that is South Africa today. Peppered with anecdotes of individual lives, and illustrated with maps and photographs, this is an accessible and valuable introduction to both the country's past and the processes that shaped its present.

Gail Nattrass lectured in the history department at the School of Education, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, for 20 years. She is the author of The Rooiberg Story (1983), co-edited Jan Smuts: Memoirs of the Boer War (1994) with SB Spies and contributed to They Shaped Our Century: The Most Influential South Africans of the Twentieth Century (1999) and Leaders of the Anglo-Boer War 1899-1902 (2001).

Content: A Short History of South Africa

Maps
Abbreviations
Timeline
Introduction
Chapter 1 How it all began
Chapter 2 Early settlers from about 1000 BC to AD 1500
Chapter 3 Settlers from out of Africa
Chapter 4 Migrations within South Africa
Chapter 5 The mineral discoveries
Chapter 6 The decline of the African chiefdoms and the rural areas
Chapter 7 The Two Anglo-Boer Wars, 1880-1881 and 1899-1902
Chapter 8 Union, the rise of nationalisms, resistance movements, World War I (1914-1918), and the PACT government (1924-1929)
Chapter 9 New political parties, the rise of the Afrikaners, World War II (1939-1945) and the 1948 elections
Chapter 10 The apartheid government
Chapter 11 The 1960s
Chapter 12 The 1970s and 1980s
Chapter 13 The momentous 1990s
Chapter 14 The years 1999-2008 and 2009-2016
Chapter 15 Prospects and challenges
Postscript
Notes and bibliographical details
Acknowledgements
Index

Maps: A Short History of South Africa

Map 1: South Africa and its neighbouring countries
Map 2: South Africa in 1910
Map 3: South Africa in 1994
Map 4: Some of Africa's early hominid sites
Map 5: The area of the Sterkfontein Caves, Gladysville and Maropeng
Map 6: The Mapungubwe, Great Zimbabwe and Thulamela sites
Map 7: The trade routes of 500 years ago
Map 8: Early gold and other mining sites
Map 9: The distribution of Bantu-speaking peoples in the early 1800s
Map 10: Vasco da Gama's route
Map 11: The route taken by the Sao Jose
Map 12: Wine-growing areas in the Western Cape
Map 13: The eastern Cape in the early 19th century
Map 14: Areas of southern Africa traversed by Mzilikazi and his Ndebele, 1821-1837
Map 15: The Great Trek
Map 16: Diamond areas and areas of land dispute, 1870-1890
Map 17: Pilgrim's Rest, South Africa's first payable gold-mining centre
Map 18: Mineral-rich areas of South Africa
Map 19: Anglo-Zulu War battle sites
Map 20: Sieges and incidents during the Anglo-Boer War, 1899-1902
Map 21: The effect of the 1913 Land Act on black farmers
Map 22: Land allocated to black people as 'Homelands' in 1976
Map 23: Battle sites during World War II