Fatima Meer, a South African academic, public intellectual, and activist, was a tireless fighter for social justice and human rights—for which she various suffered banning and detention by the apartheid government. After the end of apartheid, she declined a parliamentary seat, choosing instead to continue her advocacy work. She did, however, subsequently serve the ANC government in several capacities. She died in 2010, at the age of 81. In Fatima Meer, Shireen Hassim deftly weaves a narrative in which Meer's distinctive individuality unfolds. This serves as an apt context for the second part of the book, which presents Meer's ideas in her own voice and makes palpable her belief in a common humanity.

This comprehensive, beautiful book delves deep into the complex but fascinating story of our relationship with colour throughout human history. Colour is fundamental to our experience and understanding of the world. It crosses continents and cultures, disciplines and decades. It is used to convey information and knowledge, to evoke mood, and to inspire emotion. This book explores the history of our understanding of colour, from the ancient world to the present, from Aristotle to Albers. Interspersed in the historical story are numerous thematic essays that look at how colour has been used across a wide range of disciplines and fields: in food, music, language and many others.   The illustrations are drawn from the Royal College of Art’s renowned Colour Reference Library which spans six centuries of works and nearly 2,000 titles, from a Gothic manuscript on the composition of the rainbow to hand-painted Enlightenment works on colour theory and vibrant 20th-century colour charts, including many fascinating examples not  seen in other books. Delving far and wide in this fascinating and varied subject, this book will help readers find new layers of meaning and complexity in their everyday experiences and teach them to look closer at our colourful lives.

'The Singularity' is what Silicon Valley calls the idea that, eventually, we will be overrun by machines that are able to take decisions and act for themselves. What no one says is that it happened before.

A few hundred years ago, humans started building the robots that now rule our world. They are called states and corporations: immensely powerful artificial entities, with capacities that go far beyond what any individual can do, and which, unlike us, need never die.

They have made us richer, safer and healthier than would have seemed possible even a few generations ago - and they may yet destroy us. The Handover distils over three hundred years of thinking about how to live with artificial agency.

“Brilliant, ambitious, and often surprising. A remarkable contribution to the current global debate about Empire and a small masterpiece of research and conceptual reimagining.� —William Dalrymple, author of The Anarchy: The East India Company, Corporate Violence, and the Pillage of an Empire An award-winning historian places the corporation—more than the Crown—at the heart of British colonialism, arguing that companies built and governed global empire, raising questions about public and private power that were just as troubling four hundred years ago as they are today. Across four centuries, from Ireland to India, the Americas to Africa and Australia, British colonialism was above all the business of corporations. Corporations conceived, promoted, financed, and governed overseas expansion, making claims over territory and peoples while ensuring that British and colonial society were invested, quite literally, in their ventures. Colonial companies were also relentlessly controversial, frequently in debt, and prone to failure. The corporation was well-suited to overseas expansion not because it was an inevitable juggernaut but because, like empire itself, it was an elusive contradiction: public and private; person and society; subordinate and autonomous; centralized and diffuse; immortal and precarious; national and cosmopolitan—a legal fiction with very real power. Breaking from traditional histories in which corporations take a supporting role by doing the dirty work of sovereign states in exchange for commercial monopolies, Philip Stern argues that corporations took the lead in global expansion and administration. Whether in sixteenth-century Ireland and North America or the Falklands in the early 1980s, corporations were key players. And, as Empire, Incorporated makes clear, venture colonialism did not cease with the end of empire. Its legacies continue to raise questions about corporate power that are just as relevant today as they were 400 years ago. Challenging conventional wisdom about where power is held on a global scale, Stern complicates the supposedly firm distinction between private enterprise and the state, offering a new history of the British Empire, as well as a new history of the corporation.

Radio 4's The Food Programme Book of the Year, chosen by Dan Saladino Longlisted for The Art of Eating Prize 2023 ‘If you’re a vegetable growing addict or just curious about their origins, there’s something for everyone in Adam’s new book.’ Rob Smith, TV presenter 'The writing is rich . . . [This book] is a clarion call to think about our food in new ways and carefully consider where it comes from.' New Scientist Meet the Indiana Jones of vegetables on his quest to save our heritage produce. Have you ever wondered how everyday staples such as peas, kale, asparagus, beans, squash and sweetcorn ended up on our plates? Well, so did Adam Alexander. Adam’s passion for heritage vegetables was ignited when he tasted an unusual, sweet and fiery pepper while on a filmmaking project in Ukraine. Smitten by its flavour, he began to seek out local growers of old and near-forgotten varieties in a mission to bring home seeds to grow and share – saving them from being lost forever. In The Seed Detective, Adam tells of his far flung (and closer to home) seed-hunting adventures and reveals the stories behind many of our everyday vegetable heroes. How the common garden pea was domesticated from three wild species over 8,500 years ago, that the first carrots originated in Afghanistan (and were actually purple or red in colour), how Egyptian priests considered it a crime to look at a fava bean and that the Romans were fanatical about asparagus. Join The Seed Detective as he takes us on a journey that began when we left the life of hunter-gatherers to become farmers. Sharing storiesof globalisation, political intrigue, colonisation and serendipity, Adam shows us the vital part vegetables have played in our food story – and how they are the key to our future. ‘Informative, enlightening and entertaining but also important.’ Mark Diacono ‘One of the most inspirational books I have encountered.’ Darina Allen

This is the first in-depth, English-language history of modern Serbia in nearly half a century. It covers the period from the Serbian state’s revolutionary rebirth in the early nineteenth century, under the rebel leaders Karađorđe Petrović and Miloš Obrenović; its turbulent history of wars, uprisings and dynastic rivalries; the triumph of Yugoslav unification in 1918; and the catastrophe of occupation by Nazi Germany in 1941. It shows how the birth of the modern nation-state involved the creation of a new elite–dynasty, army and bureaucracy–whose rule over the peasantry generated a popular resistance that would ultimately take form in Nikola Pašić’s mighty People’s Radical Party. The resulting struggle between elitist Westernisers and pro- Russian populists became entwined with the struggle for pan-Serb and Yugoslav liberation and unification. These causes came together with the Sarajevo assassination of 1914, which triggered the First World War. Existing histories of the Yugoslav kingdom that emerged from that war focus on the national conflict between Serbs, Croats, Bosnian Muslims and others, but Marko Attila Hoare challenges this narrative. He shows how the new kingdom’s politics continued to be dominated by the ongoing internal Serbian power struggle, bringing renewed disaster to Yugoslavia and its peoples.

Trace the history of the world in over 500 easy-to-follow maps, from the dawn of humanity to the present day. Organized chronologically, A History of the World in 500 Maps tells a clear, linear story, bringing together themes as diverse as religion, capitalism, warfare, geopolitics, popular culture and climate change. Meticulously rendered maps chart the sequence of broad historical trends, from the dispersal of our species across the globe to the colonizing efforts of imperial European powers in the 18th century, as well as exploring moments of particular significance in rich detail. • Visualizes 7 million years of human history. • Analyses cities and kingdoms as well as countries and continents. • Features major technical developments, from the invention of farming in the Fertile Crescent to the Industrial Revolution. • Charts the spread of major global religions, including Christianity and Islam. • Explores the increasing interconnectivity of our world through exploration and trade. • Investigates warfare and battles from across the ages, from Alexander the Great’s conquests to the D-Day offensive.

CHOSEN AS A BOOK OF THE YEAR BY SUNDAY TIMES AND HISTORY TODAY 'Absolutely stunning. . . a formidable achievement. A six-part historical thriller that is essential reading for both our politicians and the ordinary citizen' Kai Bird Best-selling historian Serhii Plokhy returns with an illuminating exploration of the atomic age through the history of six nuclear disasters In 2011, a 43-foot-high tsunami crashed into a nuclear power plant in Fukushima, Japan. In the following days, explosions would rip buildings apart, three reactors would go into nuclear meltdown, and the surrounding area would be swamped in radioactive water. It is now considered one of the costliest nuclear disasters ever. But Fukushima was not the first, and it was not the worst. . . In Atoms and Ashes, acclaimed historian Serhii Plokhy tells the tale of the six nuclear disasters that shook the world: Bikini Atoll, Kyshtym, Windscale, Three Mile Island, Chernobyl and Fukushima. Based on wide-ranging research and witness testimony, Plokhy traces the arc of each crisis, exploring in depth the confused decision-making on the ground and the panicked responses of governments to contain the crises and often cover up the scale of the catastrophe. As the world increasingly looks to renewable and alternative sources of energy, Plokhy lucidly argues that the atomic risk must be understood in explicit terms, but also that these calamities reveal a fundamental truth about our relationship with nuclear technology: that the thirst for power and energy has always trumped safety and the cost for future generations.

Die klein dorpie Aus aan die rand van die Namib, die oudste woestyn in die wereld, het 'n besonder romantiese geskiedenis. Wanneer die 85-jarige Dora Bolz terugkyk, tref dit haar hoe ingrypend dinge op alle vlakke verander het. In Hard soos kameeldoringhout vertel sy van die opwindende dinge wat sy self beleef het en die vroee geskiedenis soos sy dit uit navorsing in argiewe gerekonstrueer het. Amptelik is Aus in 1906 gestig en het dus in 2006 'n honderd jaar oud geword. Maar selfs voor sy amptelike stigting het Aus roemryke tye beleef. Deur die jare het verskeie pioniers se paaie deur Aus geloop - die beroemde handelaar Adolf Luderitz uit Bremen, die sendelinge Heinrich Schmelen en Heinrich Kreft en die Schutztruppe Ernst Raabe, Adam Bolz en Franz Izko. Die skrywer vertel ook van die onkreukbare Georg Klinghardt en die ontdekking van fabelagtige diamantrykdomme in die Sperrgebiet, die vestiging van die trekboere, die vroee dae van transportry en botsings met Namas onder Dawid Christian en Hendrik Witbooi. Gedurende die Eerste Wereldoorlog beleef Aus selfs veldslae en lugaanvalle en 'n groot krygsgevangenekamp word hier aangele. Na die oorlog word Deutsch-Sudwestafrika omskep in die mandaatgebied Suidwes-Afrika. Tydens die Tweede Wereldoorlog word byna die hele manlike bevolking van Aus geinterneer en Dora Bolz eindig haar vertelling met die uitwerking wat die gebeure op die dorpie het.

'Marvellous...escapes the inane, balance-sheet view of Empire and sees its full complexity' Sathnam Sanghera, bestselling author of Empireland The story of the British Empire at its maximum territorial extent, including a wider range of voices of the colonised than have ever been recorded before On Saturday 29 September 1923, the Palestine Mandate became law and the British Empire reached what would prove to be its maximum territorial extent, covering a scarcely credible quarter of the world's land mass, containing 460 million people. But the tide was beginning to turn. This book is a new way of looking at the British Empire. It immerses the reader in the contemporary moment, focusing on particular people and stories from that day, gleaned from newspapers, letters, diaries, official documents, magazines, films and novels: from a remote Pacific Island facing the removal of its entire soil, across Australia, Burma, India and Kenya to London and the West Indies. In some ways, the issues of a hundred years ago are with us still: debates around cultural and ethnic identity in a globalised world; how to manage multi-ethnic political entities; racism; the divisive co-opting of religion for political purposes; the dangers of ignorance. In others it is totally alien. What remains extraordinary is the Empire's ability to reveal the most compelling human stories. Never before has there been a book which contains such a wide spread of vivid experiences from both colonised and coloniser: from Pan-Africanists in West Africa to militant Buddhists in Burma; governors, policemen and nurses. 'An engrossing and wide-ranging account of the zenith of the British Empire - with all the contradictions, brittleness, ambition and hubris that moment entailed. Across Continents and characters, Matthew Parker provides a new, global history of British imperialism which feels both epic and immediate' Tristram Hunt

The astonishing true story of Heinrich Himmler's personal physical therapist who used his influence over the S.S. commander to save the lives of thousands. Felix Kersten, an exceptional masseur, was the only person able to relieve Himmler's crippling and chronic abdominal pain. Although he was resolutely anti-Nazi, he continued to work for Himmler throughout the war, trading his services for that of prisoners' lives. François Kersaudy's meticulously researched Kersten's Lists, explores how by the end of the war, Felix Kersten had helped to obtain the liberation of some 100,000 people, including 60,000 Jews. It is a vital and too little known chapter of the Second World War and one worthy of greater recognition.

Die verhaal van Pieter van der Smit, sy vrou Martha en hulle kinders is nie bedoel om vinnig te lees en gou te vergeet nie. Dit is 'n verhaal van merkwaardige mense in moeilike omstandighede; 'n verhaal oor die voortdurende stryd om oorlewing. In 1898 verlaat die "Rouw Ollandertjie" Pieter van der Smit Nederland om vir Boerekinders in Transvaal te gaan skoolhou. Toe die Anglo-Boereoorlog 'n jaar later uitbreek, sluit hy by die Boeremagte aan. Nadat Pretoria deur die Engelse ingeneem is, word hy na Nederland gedeporteer. Maar Afrika trek hom onweerstaanbaar aan. In 1901 vertrek hy na die kolonie Boere wat hulle na afloop van die Dorslandtrekke by Humpata in die suide van Angola gevestig het. Hy trou met Martha Maria Prinsloo, die dogter van die Dorslandtrekker Willem Prinsloo, en hulle maak elf kinders groot. Hulle swerfpad loop deur Palanca, Que, Caconda, Sacangimba, Bihe, Luimbale en Mombolo. Hy is agtereenvolgens onderwyser, transportryer, boer, algemene handelaar, kaasmaker en fotograaf. In 1921 vind hy rus in 'n eensame graf onder 'n grysappelboom by Mombolo op die vrugbare hoogland van Angola. Sy weduwee en kinders se swerfpad loop verder deur Palanca, Chilenga, die Sandveld langs die Kunene, Swartbooisdrif en Kamanjab - van die suide van Angola na die noorde van Suidwes-Afrika. Eindelik vind hulle rus in Outjo, Suidwes-Afrika. Sy dagboeke, briewe en foto's is 'n unieke bronne van inligting oor die lewenswyse van die Boere in Angola en hulle moeilike jare onder 'n vreemde bewind, omring deur vyandige inboorlingstamme en die ongenaakbare natuur. Die baasverteller W.A. de Klerk het reeds in 'n Swerwer op die sonpad van die uitsonderlike lewe van Pieter van der Smit beskryf. Hierdie lewensverhaal verdien om aan 'n wyer gehoor bekendgestel te word.

This is the updated and substantially expanded second edition of Christopher Ballantine's classic Marabi Nights, which offers a fascinating view of the triumphs and tragedies of South Africa's marabi-jazz tradition. Based on conversations with legendary figures in the world of music - as well as a perceptive reading of music, the socio-political history, and social meanings - this book is one of sensitive and impassioned curatorship. New chapters extend the book's in-depth account of the birth and development of South African urban-black popular music. They include a powerful story about gender relations and music in the context of forced migrant labor in the 1950s, a critical study of the legendary Manhattan Brothers that uniquely positions their music and words in relation to the apartheid system, and an account of the musical, political, and commercial strategies of the local record industry. A new afterword looks critically at the place of jazz and popular music in South Africa since the end of apartheid, and argues for the continued relevance of the robust, questioning spirit of the marabi tradition. The book includes an illustrative CD of historic sound recordings that the author has unearthed and saved from oblivion.

'n Verversingstasie is in 1652 in Tafelbaai aangele om skepe te bedien op die roete tussen Europa en Oos-Indie. Die diens is deur 'n netwerk van bemande buiteposte aan die Kaapse kus en op die nabygelee eilande moontlik gemaak. Die Buiteposte is die resultaat van 30 jaar van navorsing in Suid-Afrika en in Europa, waar die VOC sy ontstaan gehad het. Dr. Sleigh is een van slegs 'n klein aantal geskiedkundiges wat die sewentiende-eeuse skrif van die VOC-dokumente met gemak lees. Hy is lid van verskeie plaaslike en internasionale geskiedenisverenigings en bewaringsorganisasies en word landswyd erken as adviseur rakende sake wat op die VOC betrekking het.

An intimate history of the most important month of the Second World War - perhaps the century - as experienced by those who lived through it, completely based on their diaries, letters and memoirs. At the beginning of November 1942, it looked as if the Axis powers could win the war; at the end of that month, it was obviously just a matter of time before they would lose. In between came el-Alamein, Guadalcanal, the French North Africa landings, the Japanese retreat in New Guinea, and the Soviet encirclement of the German 6th Army at Stalingrad. In this innovatively kaleidoscopic and riveting historical marvel, Peter Englund reduces these epoch-making events to their basic component: the individual experience. In thirty memorable days we meet characters including a Soviet infantryman at Stalingrad; an Italian truck driver in the North African desert; a partisan in the Belarussian forests; a machine gunner in a British bomber; a twelve-year-old girl in Shanghai; a university student in Paris; a housewife on Long Island; a prisoner in Treblinka; Albert Camus, Vasily Grossman, and Vera Brittain - forty characters in all. We also witness the launch of SS James Oglethorpe; the fate of U-604, a German submarine; the building of the first nuclear reactor; and the making of Casablanca. Not since Englund's own The Beauty and the Sorrow has a book given us one of the most dramatic periods of human history in all its immensity and emotional range.

Formerly colonised people sometimes play roles that sustain the power structure of coloniality. In this book, Professor Morgan Ndlovu asks why and how they can possibly participate in a system that is responsible for their subjugation. The author uses as an example the 'staged' performances of non-Western culture in South Africa, such as traditional healing, and the creation of 'cultural villages', which while seeming to define and keep alive elements of an African culture also serve the business of international and cultural tourism. He compares practices in South Africa with parallels in India, Australia, Canada, other parts of Africa and the Americas. He argues that it is not just brute force that made the survival and continuity of coloniality possible up to the present but also the control of knowledge that justified and naturalised the colonial project. Performing Indigeneity provides an insightful evaluation of what could constitute an 'authentic' indigenous agency and the pitfalls and prospects of decolonial practices.

A monumental and exhilarating history of European thought, from the fall of Rome in the fifth century AD to the Scientific Revolution thirteen centuries later. The Awakening traces the recovery and refashioning of Europe's classical heritage from the ruins of the Roman Empire. The process of preservation of surviving texts, fragile at first, was strengthened under the Christian empire founded by Charlemagne in the eighth century; later, during the High Middle Ages, universities were founded and the study of philosophy was revived. Renewed interest in ancient Greek and Roman thought provided the intellectual impetus for the Renaissance of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, whose ideas – aesthetic, political and scientific – were disseminated across Europe by the invention of the printing press. Equally momentous was Europe's encounter with the New World, and the resulting maritime supremacy which conferred global reach on Europe's merchants and colonists. Vivid in detail and informed by the latest scholarship, The Awakening is powered not by the fate of kings or the clash of arms but by deeper currents of thought, inquiry and discovery, which first recover and then surpass the achievements of classical antiquity, and lead the West to the threshold of the Age of Reason. Charles Freeman takes the reader on an enthralling journey, and provides us with a vital key to understanding the world we live in today. Praise for The Awakening: 'The Awakening is a work of serious scholarship by an author who has clearly been everywhere, seen everything and read voraciously. But it is also a work written with great elan and, given its scope, undertaken with considerable courage' Christopher Lloyd, Surveyor of the Queen's Pictures, 1988-2005 'The Awakening recounts the slow evolution of Western thought that restored legitimacy to independent examination and analysis, that eventually led to a celebration, albeit a cautious one, of reason over blind faith.' Stan Prager 'The Awakening is a very timely book and an excellently written and produced one. Freeman is a good host, a superb narrator and tells his story with aplomb' International Times

Imperial Island shows how the end of empire and its ever-present aftermath have divided and defined Britain over the last seventy years. 'Masterful ... you won't look at Britain in the same way ever again' OWEN JONES 'Incisive, important, and incredibly timely' CAROLINE ELKINS 'An eye-opening study of the empire within' SHASHI THAROOR 'Clear, bold, refreshing' LUCY WORSLEY 'A thought-provoking delight that absolutely everyone should read' STEPHEN BUSH 'Immaculately detailed and impeccably researched' HELEN CARR After the Second World War, Britain's overseas empire disintegrated. As white settlers from Rhodesia returned home to a country they barely recognised, Commonwealth citizens from Asia and the Caribbean migrated to a motherland that often refused to recognise them. Race riots erupted in Liverpool and Notting Hill even as communities lived and loved across the colour line. In the 1950s and 60s, imperial violence came home too, pervading the policing of immigrant communities, including their sex lives. In the decade that followed, a surge of support for the far-right inspired an invigorated anti-racist movement. These tensions, and the imperial mindset that birthed them, have dominated Britain's relationship with itself and the world ever since: from the jingoism of the Falklands War to the simplistic moral equation of Band Aid, from the rise of the gap year abroad to the invasion of Iraq. Most recently, in the tragedy of Stephen Lawrence and the opening ceremony of the 2012 Olympics, we see how Britain's contradictory relationship with its past has undermined its self-image as a multicultural nation, helping explain the Windrush deportations and Brexit. Drawing on a mass of new research, from personal letters to pop culture, Imperial Island tells a story of immigration and fractured identity, of social strife and communal solidarity, of people on the move and of a people wrestling with their past. It is the story that best explains Britain today.