This early work by Olive Schreiner was originally published in 1909 and we are now republishing it with a brand new introductory biography. 'Closer Union: A Letter on South African Union and the Principles of Government' is a polemical work in which the author argues for greater rights for blacks and women in South Africa. Olive Emilie Albertina Schreiner was born on 24th March 1855 at the Wesleyan Missionary Society station at Wittebergen in the Eastern Cape, near Herschel in South Africa. In 1880, Olive set sail for the United Kingdom with the goal of taking a position as a trainee nurse at the Royal Infirmary in Edinburgh in Scotland. Unfortunately ill-health prevented her from studying and she was forced to concede that writing would and could be her only work in life. In 1883, she produced her first published work The Story of an African Farm which she penned under the pseudonym Ralph Iron. This novel details the lives of three characters, first as children and then as adults, and caused significant controversy over its frank portrayal of freethought, feminism, premarital sex, and transvestitism. She became increasingly involved with the politics of the South Africa, leading her to make influential acquaintances such as Cecil John Rhodes, with whom she eventually became disillusioned and wrote a scathing allegory in his honour.

The classic reference work that provides annually updated information on the countries of the world.

This book surveys South African history from the discovery of gold in the Witwatersrand in the late nineteenth century to the first democratic elections in 1994. Written by many of the leading historians of the country, it pulls together four decades of scholarship to present a detailed overview of South Africa during the twentieth century. It covers political, economic, social, and intellectual developments and their interconnections in a clear and objective manner. This book, the second of two volumes, represents an important reassessment of all the major historical events, developments, and records of South Africa and will be an important new tool for students and professors of African history worldwide, as well as the basis for further development and research.

How did the Union of South Africa come to be dominated by a white minority? That is the obvious but haunting question addressed in this remarkable historical survey which documents and analyses the chain of events that led up to the passing in 1909 of the South African Act' by the British Parliament.'

Originally published in 1968, this volume traces the history and growth of Apartheid in South Africa. The acts which enforced Apartheid – the Group Areas Act, Population and Registration Act are given in full. The book also includes documents which reflected reaction to these measures: Parliamentary debates, newspaper reports and policy statements by the leading political parties and religious denominations. The documents are headed by a full historical and analytical introduction.

Sheds new light on Native Life appearing at a critical historical juncture, and reflects on how to read it in South Africa’s heightened challenges today. First published in 1916, Sol Plaatje's Native Life in South Africa was written by one of the South Africa's most talented early twentieth-century black leaders and journalists. Plaatje's pioneering book arose out of an early African National Congress campaign to protest against the discriminatory 1913 Natives Land Act. Native Life vividly narrates Plaatje's investigative journeying into South Africa's rural heartlands to report on the effects of the Act and his involvement in the deputation to the British imperial government. At the same time it tells the bigger story of the assault on black rights and opportunities in the newly consolidated Union of South Africa - and the resistance to it. Originally published in war-time London, but about South Africa and its place in the world, Native Life travelled far and wide, being distributed in the United States under the auspices of prominent African-American W E B Du Bois. South African editions were to follow only in the late apartheid period and beyond. The aim of this multi-authored volume is to shed new light on how and why Native Life came into being at a critical historical juncture, and to reflect on how it can be read in relation to South Africa's heightened challenges today. Crucial areas that come under the spotlight in this collection include land, race, history, mobility, belonging, war, the press, law, literature, language, gender, politics, and the state.