Damian P O'Connor Ma

A Short Guide to the History of South Africa 1652-1902 Damian P O'Connor Ma

To say that the History of South Africa has been a source of controversy over the years is to understate the case by several orders of magnitude. Everything has been fought over. Who was there first? Who owns the land? Why did the Bushmen disappear? Were the Khoikhoin people deliberately wiped out by the Europeans? Were the military exploits of the Zulu people a triumph or a curse? Was British Imperialism a grasping, brutal, racist curse or the advance of settled government, science, medicine, material prosperity and the Rule of Law? Were the Boers victims of British meddling or rapacious expansionists? Why did the Xhosa people collapse when the Tswana, Swazi and Basuto peoples maintained their independence? Where did Apartheid come from? Each of these questions merits a book on its own but this volume gives a fair survey of the issues and provides the reader with a series of workable answers. History is as much about Historians as it is about dates and battles and this book points out just how many Historians have attempted to influence the record to suit their own prejudices and political leanings and just how much and how often they get things wrong. Afrikaaner Nationalists, politically correct Marxists, campaigning missionaries, racists, anti-racists, anti-imperialists and out-and-out Jingoes have all tried to fix the record to justify their programmes over the years and here their efforts are laid bare for the reader to make his or her own judgement - or reserve it and study things further. Throughout, the message is consistent: doing your own thinking and having your own point of view does not make you a bad person.