Description

pp. 1355, a monumental history of South Africa. “Masterfully reinterprets the founding era of South Africa, especially the 19th century, to emphasize not the Afrikaners but the conflict between British colonials and the indigenous Xhosa people. Drawing on virtually forgotten government records and vivifying little-known people, Mostert (Supership) has done for South Africa what Robert Hughes did for Australia in The Fatal Shore . Mostert places South Africa in the framework, both geographical and moral, of world colonial expansion; Britain’s Cape Colony, site of an experiment in political liberalism, illustrates the era’s tension “between high-minded conscience and self-interest.” To reconstruct this “crucible of modern South African society,” the author conjures up multiple worlds in passages often intricate and lyrical”. Heavy book, additional postage will apply.