A Concise History of South Africa (Cambridge Concise Histories) |
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You Are Here: Home > History Books > Holland History > Item 401
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A Concise History of South Africa (Cambridge Concise Histories)
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by Robert Ross
Sales Rank: 566877
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List Price: $22.99
$22.99
At Amazon
on 11-17-2008.
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Features
Cover Type: Paperback with 234 pages
Published by: Cambridge University Press May 28, 1999
Written in: English
ISBN 10 Number: 0521575788
ISBN 13 Number: 978-0521575782
Book Dimensions:
8.4 x 5.4 x 0.6 inches
Weighs: 12 ounces
Product Review
"This book will provide its readers with a good platform from which to begin to expand their undestanding of Southern Africa." H-Net Reviews of Southern
"Ross's writing style will help the book find a wide audience. The narrative is not overburdened with the jargon of any particular historical school, and he uses strong, declarative sentences to make his points." The Historian
Product Description
This book provides a succinct overview of the past 1500 years of South African history, up to and including the government of Nelson Mandela. On the basis of a description of precolonial African societies and of colonial conquest, it concentrates on the economic and political transformations leading up to the radical changes of the past decade. Nevertheless, it also devotes much attention to the diversity of South African society and the vibrancy of its cultural life.
Reader Reviews
Based on the title, I assumed that this book would be a relatively light overview of S. African history and would provide some commentary about how S. Africa had gotten to where it is today. My assumption was wrong, however, and I found it to be much more academic than I expected. It seems to be the ambition of many historians to make their subject as dry and inaccessible as possible. I mean, why write a sentence like 'Then Bob rode his horse into the sunset' when you could write 'following, Robert employed his most favored mode of transport, equestrianism, to progress toward the sun, which was setting, as it had done ever since the Earth had formed from a rotating disk of hot dust, and was expected to do in the foreseeable future, every night." Ross seems to struggle with the 'concise' aim of the book on a number of levels. First, as I've alluded to, he wastes a great deal of space with sentences like "He was succeeded by Balthazar Johannes Vorster, often, and surprisingly, anglicized to John, who was relatively junior in the cabinet and unforgiven by its elder members for his participation in the Ossewabrandwag, in the course of which he had spent some years in gaol during the war for nazi sympathies.' And, perhaps my favorite: 'Nevertheless, the cultures that have been developed are only local when, as is the case with certain of S. Africa's ethnicicities, they have been created in almost conscious rejection of values, which within the confines of S. Africa, are universal.' If you found those sentences clear and riveting, rush right out and buy this book. Second, he seems bent on covering relatively minor occurrences with a single (run-on) sentence that has no real context and assumes that the reader has previous knowledge of the event. Combine that with the fact that there are no good maps to refer to and no glossary to consult when you forget the difference between an 'inboekelinge' and a 'dorp', and you have a book that seems almost intentionally obscure. So why not one star? Ross's scholarship is undeniable, and he is as unbiased as can be reasonably expected. The bottom line, though, is that I had to fight with this book to get anything out of it. The benefit of its conciseness was negated by my wandering mind and the fact that I had to re-read sentences constantly. Go with Leonard Thompson's 'History of South Africa' which, though twice the length, appears to have been written with the goal of actually informing and entertaining the reader.
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A Concise History of South Africa (Cambridge Concise Histories)
Available from Amazon
Price: $22.99
Updated on 11-17-2008.
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