Reflecting on South Africa's achievement of majority rule, this book takes a critical and searching look at the country's past. It presents South Africa's past in an objective, clear, and refreshing manner. With chapters contributed by ten of the best historians of the country, the book elaborately weaves together new data, interpretations, and perspectives on the South African past, from the Early Iron Age to the eve of the mineral revolution on the Rand. Its findings incorporate new sources, methods, and concepts, for example providing new data on the relations between Africans and colonial invaders and rethinking crucial issues of identity and consciousness. This book represents an important reassessment of all the major historical events, developments, and records of South Africa - written, oral, and archaeological - and will be an important new tool for students and professors of African history worldwide.

In the age of the African Renaissance, southern Africa has needed to reinterpret the past in fresh and more appropriate ways. The last 500 years represent a strikingly unexplored and misrepresented period which remains disfigured by colonial/apartheid assumptions, most notably in the way that African societies are depicted as fixed, passive, isolated, un-enterprising and unenlightened. This period is one the most formative in relation to southern Africa’s past while remaining, in many ways, the least known. Key cultural contours of the sub-continent took shape, while in a jagged and uneven fashion some of the features of modern identities emerged. Enormous internal economic innovation and political experimentation was taking place at the same time as expanding European mercantile forces started to press upon southern African shores and its hinterlands. This suggests that interaction, flux and mixing were a strong feature of the period, rather than the homogeneity and fixity proposed in standard historical and archaeological writings. Five Hundred Years Rediscovered represents the first step, taken by a group of archaeologists and historians, to collectively reframe, revitalise and re-examine the last 500 years. By integrating research and developing trans-frontier research networks, the group hopes to challenge thinking about the region’s expanding internal and colonial frontiers, and to broaden current perceptions about southern Africa’s colonial past.

A guide for interpreting the mfecane's role in history Was the mfecane a figment of historians' imagination as Julian Cobbing contends? How large a responsibility do Shaka and the Zulu people bear for the social turbulence in South-central and South-east Africa in the early decades of the 19th century? These are some of the issues explored in this collection, which is designed as a response to the radical critique of Dr. Cobbing and other scholars. The mfecane, suggests Cobbing, must be seen as a myth lying at the root of a set of interlinked assumptions and distortions that have seriously twisted our understanding of the main historical processes of late 18th- and early 19th-century Southern Africa. Contributors to this collection assess the implications of this critique for scholars from a range of disciplines, notably history, anthropology, archaeology, history of art and African languages. But the book is not only about the debate over Cobbing's work; it is also an indicator of the state of current scholarship in Southern Africa in the 18th and 19th centuries and, because it raises questions about the nature of sources and, indeed, about the nature of historical debate itself, it is also about historiography. This book should provide a useful guide for students starting out in this field, as well as a resource for established scholars seeking their way through the textual intricacies of varied editions and secondary texts that become the primary sources for historiographical debate.

Popular Politics in the History of South Africa, 1400–1948 offers an inclusive vision of South Africa's past. Drawing largely from original sources, Paul Landau presents a history of the politics of the country's people, from the time of their early settlements in the elevated heartlands, through the colonial era, to the dawn of Apartheid. A practical tradition of mobilization, alliance, and amalgamation persisted, mutated, and occasionally vanished from view; it survived against the odds in several forms, in tribalisms, Christian assemblies, and other, seemingly hybrid movements; and it continues today. Landau treats southern Africa broadly, concentrating increasingly on the southern Highveld and ultimately focusing on a transnational movement called the 'Samuelites'. He shows how people's politics in South Africa were suppressed and transformed, but never entirely eliminated.

The new, fully-updated edition of the acclaimed textbook covering 200 years of African history A History of Modern Africa explores two centuries of the continent’s political, economic, and social history. This thorough yet accessible text help readers to understand key concepts, recognize significant themes, and identify the processes that shaped the modern history of Africa. Emphasis is placed on the consequences of colonial rule, and the links between the precolonial and postcolonial eras. Author Richard Reid, a prominent scholar and historian on the subject, argues that Africa’s struggle for economic and political stability in the nineteenth century escalated and intensified through the twentieth century, the effects of which are still felt in the present day. The new third edition offers substantial updates and revisions that consider recent events and historiography. Greater emphasis is placed on African agency, particularly during the colonial period, and the importance of the long-term militarization of African political culture. Discussions of the postcolonial period have been updated to reflect recent developments, including those in North Africa. Adopting a long-term approach to current African issues, this text: Explores the legacies of the nineteenth century and the colonial period in the context of the contemporary era Highlights the role of nineteenth century and long-term internal dynamics in Africa’s modern challenges Combines recent scholarship with concise and effective narrative Features maps, illustrations, expanded references, and comprehensive endnotes A History of Modern Africa: 1800 to the Present, 3rd Edition is an excellent introduction to the subject for undergraduate students in relevant courses, and for general readers with interest in modern African history and current affairs.