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Books > History > World history > From 1900 > General
65 Years Of Friendship tells the heartrending story of a remarkable friendship between two remarkable men: world-renowned human-rights lawyer George Bizos, and Nelson Mandela. George and Madiba met as students at the University of the Witwatersrand in 1948. They would later become legal colleagues, and Mandela would become George Bizos’ most famous client soon after, for it was Bizos who formed part of his legal defence during the famous Treason Trial, and again during the Rivonia Trial, when Mandela and others faced the death penalty for plotting to overthrow the state. After seeing his friend sentenced to life imprisonment instead, Bizos became Mandela’s lifeline, navigating the complicated network of the Struggle. Working tirelessly, be it by secretly meeting Oliver Tambo in exile or arguing for the abolishment of the death penalty in the Constitutional Court years later, Bizos offered his unwavering support to Mandela on his long walk towards a democratic South Africa. In this touching homage to their friendship, George Bizos tells a fascinating tale of two men whose work affected the lives of all South Africans.
Black And White Bioscope recovers a neglected chapter in the histories of world cinema and Africa. It tells the story of movie production in Africa that long predated francophone African films and Nollywood that are the focus of most histories of this industry. At the same time as Hollywood was starting, a film industry in Southern Africa was surging ahead in integrating production, distribution, and exhibition. African Film Productions Limited made silent movies using technical and acting talent from Britain, the United States, and Australia, as well as from Africa. These included not only the original “long trek movie” and the prototype for the movies Zulu and Zulu Dawn but also the first King Solomon's Mines and the original Blue Lagoon, featuring African actors such as Goba, Tom Zulu, and Msoga Mwana, who starred as the black revolutionary in Prester John. In this lavishly illustrated book, fifty movies are reconstructed with graphic photographs and plot synopses—plus quotations from reviews—so that readers can rediscover this long-lost treasure trove of silent cinema.
A companion volume to the highly successful Field Guide to the Battlefields of South Africa, this features the pivotal sieges that characterised the Cape Frontier, Anglo-Zulu, Basotho and Anglo-Boer wars in one volume. Accounts of 17 sieges over the last two centuries explore in detail the historical context in which they occurred, the day-to-day military actions that sustained the investments and the conditions both soldiers and civilians faced while defending their territory against a hostile force. The siege descriptions are animated by maps and a variety of information boxes and human-interest stories, gleaned from diaries, letters and eye-witness accounts, while longer features focus on the practical aspects of siege warfare, such as artillery, medicine, food, and the psychological effects of besiegement. The book also provides practical information for visitors who wish to explore these historical sites. A fascinating read that will appeal to anyone interested in the volatile history of the country – armchair historians and travellers alike.
A landmark account of the fall of the Weimar Republic and the rise of Hitler, based on award-winning research, and recently discovered archival material. In the 1930s, Germany was at a turning point, with many looking to the Nazi phenomenon as part of widespread resentment towards cosmopolitan liberal democracy and capitalism. This was a global situation that pushed Germany to embrace authoritarianism, nationalism and economic self-sufficiency, kick-starting a revolution founded on new media technologies, and the formidable political and self-promotional skills of its leader. Based on award-winning research and recently discovered archival material, The Death Of Democracy is a panoramic new survey of one of the most important periods in modern history, and a book with a resounding message for the world today.
A detailed account of the rich history and resilience of the Bakwena ba Mogopa, one of the most important traditional communities in South Africa. This seminal and lucid work depicts the scope of social, political and economic change of the community from its earliest beginnings as the Kwena tribe migrating from East Africa to southern Africa, the birth of the tribe as a distinct and independent lineage in the 1600s, the impact of land dispossession of the Boer settlers as they advanced from the Cape Colony to the interior, the impact of Christianity, the racist and oppressive attitudes and policies of colonial governments, through to the hardships endured under the Union government and apartheid. Mountains Of Spirit captures the role that the traditional leaders of the Bakwena ba Mogopa played in shaping the community and responding to challenges of the modern economy and constitutional democracy of South Africa. It is an important study of the tribal structures, the social, cultural and traditional practices, and the questions of land, minerals and mining rights of the Bakwena ba Mogopa. A story spanning migrations, wars, land dispossession and restitution, intra-tribal rivalry, unrest, cultural disintegration, forced removals, pain and suffering and reintegration, Mountains Of Spirit reclaims the history of a people and evinces the fighting spirit and resilience of a resourceful community against immense odds.
A stunning anthology of great stories of war and peace collected and edited by Max Hastings. Soldiers is a very personal gathering of sparkling, gripping tales by many writers, about men and women who have borne arms, reflecting bestselling historian Max Hastings's lifetime of studying war. It rings the changes through the centuries, between the heroic, tragic and comic; the famous and the humble. The nearly 350 stories illustrate vividly what it is like to fight in wars, to live and die as a warrior, from Greek and Roman times through to recent conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan. Here you will meet Jewish heroes of the Bible, Rome's captain of the gate, Queen Boudicca, Joan of Arc, Cromwell, Wellington, Napoleon's marshals, Ulysses S. Grant, George S. Patton and the modern SAS. There are tales of great writers who served in uniform including Cobbett and Tolstoy, Edward Gibbon and Siegfried Sassoon, Marcel Proust and Evelyn Waugh, George Orwell and George MacDonald Fraser. Here are also stories of the female 'abosi' fighters of Dahomey and heroic ambulance drivers of World War I, together with the new-age women soldiers who have served in Iraq and Afghanistan. The stories reflect a change of mood towards warfare through the ages: though nations and movements continue to inflict terrible violence upon each other, most of humankind has retreated from the old notion of war as a sport or pastime, to acknowledge it as the supreme tragedy. This is a book to inspire in turn fascination, excitement, horror, amazement, occasionally laughter. Max Hastings mingles respect for the courage of those who fight with compassion for those who become their victims, above all civilians, and especially in the twenty-first century, which some are already calling 'the Post-Heroic Age'.
Winner of the European Book Prize. On 10 July 1941 a horrifying crime was committed in the small Polish town of Jedwadbne. Early in the afternoon, the town's Jewish population - hundreds of men, women and children - were ordered out of their homes, and marched into the town square. By the end of the day most would be dead. It was a massacre on a shocking scale, and one that was widely condemned. But only a few people were brought to justice for their part in the atrocity. The truth of what actually happened on that day was to be suppressed for more than sixty years. Part history, part memoir, part investigation, The Crime And The Silence is an award-winning journalist's account of the events of that day: both the story of a massacre told through oral histories of survivors and witnesses, and a portrait of a Polish town coming to terms with its dark past.
A major retelling of the history of science from 1450 to the present day that explodes the myth that science began in Europe - instead celebrating how scientists from Africa, America, Asia and the Pacific were integral to this very human story We are told that modern science was invented in Europe, the product of great minds like Nicolaus Copernicus, Isaac Newton, Charles Darwin and Albert Einstein. But this is wrong. Science is not, and has never been, a uniquely European endeavour. Copernicus relied on mathematical techniques borrowed from Arabic and Persian texts. When Newton set out the laws of motion, he relied on astronomical observations made in Asia and Africa. When Darwin was writing On the Origin of Species, he consulted a sixteenth-century Chinese encyclopaedia. And when Einstein was studying quantum mechanics, he was inspired by the Bengali physicist, Satyendra Nath Bose. Horizons pushes beyond Europe, exploring the ways in which scientists from Africa, America, Asia and the Pacific fit into the history of science, and arguing that it is best understood as a story of global cultural exchange. Challenging both the existing narrative and our perceptions of revered individuals, above all this is a celebration of the work of scientists neglected by history. Among many others, we meet Graman Kwasi, the seventeenth-century African botanist who discovered a new cure for malaria, Hantaro Nagaoka, the nineteenth-century Japanese scientist who first described the structure of the atom, and Zhao Zhongyao, the twentieth-century Chinese physicist who discovered antimatter (but whose American colleague received the Nobel prize). Scientists today are quick to recognise the international nature of their work. In this ambitious and revisionist history, James Poskett reveals that this tradition goes back much further than we think. _______________ 'This treasure trove of a book puts the case persuasively and compellingly that modern science did not develop solely in Europe. Hugely important' Jim Al-Khalili 'Brilliant. Revolutionary and revelatory' Alice Roberts 'Remarkable. Challenges almost everything we know about science in the West' Jerry Brotton, author of A History of the World in 12 Maps 'Perspective-shattering' Caroline Sanderson, The Bookseller, 'Editor's Choice'
This book is the product of many years’ research by Lodge, whose Black Politics in South Africa since 1945 (1983) established him as a leading commentator on South African politics, past and present. 2021 will mark the centenary of the foundation of the Communist Party of South Africa (CPSA) and today’s South African Communist Party (SACP, founded in 1953 after the proscription of the CPSA) will be extremely fortunate to have the milestone marked by a scholarly work of this calibre. Since 1994, many memoirs have been written by communists, and private archives have been donated to university and other collections. Significant official archives have been opened to scrutiny, particularly those of South Africa and the former Soviet Union. It is as if a notoriously secretive body has suddenly become confiding and confessional! While every chapter draws upon original material of this sort, such evidence is supported, amplified, illuminated and challenged by the scholarship of others: the breadth of secondary sources used by the author reflects what may well be an unrivalled familiarity with the scholarly literature on political organisations and resistance in twentieth century South Africa. Lodge provides a richly detailed history of the Party’s vicissitudes and victories; individuals – their ideas, attitudes and activities – are sensitively located within their context; the text provides a fascinating sociology of the South African left over time. Lodge is adept at making explicit what the key questions and issues are for different periods; and he answers these with analyses and conclusions that are judicious, clearly stated, and meticulously argued. Without doubt, this book will become a central text for students of communism in South Africa, of the Party’s links with Russia and the socialist bloc, and of the Communist Party’s changing relations with African nationalism – before, during and after three decades of exile.
From the author of the bestselling phenomenon The Hare with Amber Eyes As you may have guessed by now, I am not in your house by accident. I know your street rather well. The Camondos lived just a few doors away from Edmund de Waal's forebears. Like de Waal's family, they were part of belle epoque high society. They were also targets of anti-Semitism. Count Moise de Camondo created a spectacular house filled with art for his son to inherit. Over a century later, de Waal explores the lavish rooms and detailed archives and, in a haunting series of letters addressed to Camondo, he tells us what happened next. 'Illuminating... A wonderful tribute to a family and to an idea' Guardian 'Letters to Camondo immerses you in another age... Dazzling' Financial Times
When Lou Henry married Herbert Hoover in February 1899, she looked forward to a partnership of equality and a life of adventure. She could fire a rifle and sit a horse as well as any man. The Quaker community of Whittier, California, where she lived as a teen, reinforced the egalitarian spirit of her upbringing. But history had other ideas for Lou Henry Hoover. For the first fifteen years of married life, Lou globe-trotted with her husband as he pursued a lucrative career in mining engineering and consulting. World War I not only changed the map of the world; it changed the map of the Hoovers' marriage. Herbert Hoover's Commission for the Relief of Belgium launched him into a political career that led to the White House. Lou, who detested the limelight, led a dual life. She supported her husband's political career, managed their multiple households, and saw to the needs of their family. Behind the scenes, she pursued her own interests. History has long since forgotten the breadth of her achievements, but Lou Henry Hoover's powerful legacy endures in the ongoing success of the Girl Scouts, the music and physical therapy degree programs at Stanford University, athletic opportunities for women, and the countless unknown men and women who received an education thanks to Lou's anonymous financial support. Conveying Lou's humor, personality, and intelligence, A Woman of Adventure takes a fresh look at the first lady who preceded Eleanor Roosevelt and her extraordinary accomplishments.
This book is a study of political exile and transnational activism in the late-Victorian period. It explores the history of about 500 French-speaking anarchists who lived in exile in London between 1880 and 1914, with a close focus on the 1890s, when their presence peaked. These individuals sought to escape intense repression in France, at a time when anarchist-inspired terrorism swept over the Western world. Until the 1905 Aliens Act, Britain was the exception in maintaining a liberal approach to the containment of anarchism and terrorism; it was therefore the choice destination of international exiled anarchists, just as it had been for previous generations of revolutionary exiles throughout the nineteenth century. These French groups in London played a strategic role in the reinvention of anarchism at a time of crisis, but also triggered intense moral panic in France, Britain and beyond. This study retraces the lives of these largely unknown individuals - how they struggled to get by in the great late-Victorian metropolis, their social and political interactions among themselves, with other exiled groups and their host society. The myths surrounding their rumoured terrorist activities are examined, as well as the constant overt and covert surveillance which French and British intelligence services kept over them. The debates surrounding the controversial asylum granted to international anarchists, and especially the French, are presented, showing their role in the redefinition of British liberalism. The political legacy of these 'London years' is also analysed, since exile contributed to the formation of small but efficient transnational networks, which were pivotal to the development and international dissemination of syndicalism and, less successfully, to anti-war propaganda in the run up to 1914.
In nineteenth-century Britain few cities could rival Liverpool for recorded drunkenness. Civic pride at Liverpool's imperial influence was undercut by anxieties about social problems that could all be connected to alcohol, from sectarian unrest and prostitution in the city's streets to child neglect and excess mortality in its slums. These dangers, heightened in Liverpool by the apparent connections between the drink trade and the city's civic elite, marked urban living and made alcohol a pressing political issue. As a temperance movement emerged to tackle the dangers of drink, campaigners challenged policy makers to re-imagine the acceptable reach of government. While national leaders often failed to agree on what was practically and philosophically palatable, social reformers in Liverpool focused on the system that licensed the sale of drink in the city's pubs and beerhouses. By reforming licensing, they would later boast, Liverpool had tackled its reputation as the drunkenness capital of England. The Licensed City reveals just how battles over booze have made the modern city. As such, it confronts whether licensing is equipped to regulate today's problem drinking.
Though largely forgotten today, one of the most destructive terrorist groups in the United States was the Galleanists, a fiery band of Italian anarchists active during the early 1900s. In America's Forgotten Terrorists, Jeffrey D. Simon shows how alienation and frustration among segments of a community were transformed into a militant extremist movement. Luigi Galleani, a gifted writer and speaker, tapped into widespread disappointment among Italian immigrants concerning their lives in America. Unemployment, low wages, long working hours, discrimination, and a poor quality of life made many Italian immigrants receptive to his words. The Galleanists introduced terrorist tactics and strategies that are still used today: they were the first group to send package bombs across the country and to exploit the media for their own advantage. One of their members is also suspected of launching the first vehicle bomb in the United States in 1920, considered the worst act of domestic terrorism until the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing. The story of the Galleanists is a chilling journey through a volatile period in American history, including labor-management conflicts, World War I, and the Red Scare. An expert in terrorism, Simon offers striking insights into the Galleanist era and some of its eerie connections to modern America, calling us to recognize the risks of repeating our history. How the Galleanists operated, and how the U.S. government responded, hold lessons for today as we continue to deal with the threat of terrorism.
By the Costa Award-winning author of PURE, a profound and tender tale of guilt, a search for atonement and the hard, uncertain work of loving. 'The writing is near perfect. But the novel's excellence goes far beyond this . . . You read [it] . . . with your pulse racing, all your senses awake' Guardian 'A beautiful, lambent, timely novel' - Sarah Hall An ex-soldier and recovering alcoholic living quietly in Somerset, Stephen Rose has just begun to form a bond with the daughter he barely knows when he receives a summons - to an inquiry into an incident during the Troubles in Northern Ireland. It is the return of what Stephen hoped he had outdistanced. Above all, to testify would jeopardise the fragile relationship with his daughter. And if he loses her, he loses everything. Instead, he decides to write her an account of his life; a confession, a defence, a love letter. Also a means of buying time. But time is running out, and the day comes when he must face again what happened in that faraway summer of 1982.
Few people have courted as much controversy or evoked such strong and divergent emotions as Winnie Madikizela-Mandela. Adored by some, abhorred by others, she bears a name famous throughout the world, yet not many people know the woman behind the headlines, myths and controversies, or the details of the fascinating story that is her life. This biography reveals the enigma that is Winnie Mandela, by exploring both her personal and political life. The reader is given a rare glimpse into Winnie's strict yet happy rural upbringing, where the foundations were laid for her faith, compassion and indomitable resolve. As a young social worker in 1950s Johannesburg, her beauty, style and character captivated the political activist and Tembu prince, Nelson Mandela. Together, they personified the rising aspirations and political awakening of their people, and, in so doing, inspired a nation. Through her fierce determination and dauntless courage, she survived her husband's imprisonment, continuous harassment by the security police, banishment to a small Free State town, betrayal by friends and allies, and more than a year in solitary confinement – all the while keeping the struggle flame alight and the name of Nelson Mandela alive. A sensitive and balanced portrayal, the title nevertheless thoroughly investigates and honestly examines the controversies that have dogged Winnie Mandela in recent years - the allegations of kidnapping and murder, her divorce from Mandela, and the current charges of fraud.
'We felt an urge to document what we had witnessed. If we who had experienced it, I reasoned, did not reveal the bitter truth, people simply would not believe the extent of the Nazis' evil. I wanted to share our life, the events and our struggle to survive.' Thomas Geve was just 15 years old when he was liberated from Buchenwald concentration camp on 11 April 1945. It was the third concentration camp he had survived. Upon arrival at Auschwitz- Birkenau, Thomas was separated from his mother and left to fend for himself in the men's camp of Auschwitz I, at the age of 13. During the 22 months he was imprisoned, he was subjected to, and forced to observe first-hand, the inhumane world of Nazi concentration camps. On his eventual release Thomas felt compelled to capture daily life in the death camps in more than eighty profoundly moving drawings. Infamous scenarios synonymous with this dark period of history were portrayed in poignant but simplistic detail with extraordinary accuracy. Despite the unspeakable events he experienced, Thomas decided to become an active witness and tell the truth about life in the camps. He has spoken to audiences from around the world and continues to raise awareness about the Holocaust. The Boy Who Drew Auschwitz presents a rare living testimony through the eyes of a child who had the unique ability to observe and remember every detail around him and chose to document it all.
An explosive, long-forgotten story of police violence that exposes the historical roots of today's criminal justice crisis A deeply researched and propulsively written story of corrupt governance, police brutality, Black resistance, and violent white reaction in turn-of-the-century New Orleans that holds up a dark mirror to our own times.--Walter Johnson, author of River of Dark Dreams On a steamy Monday evening in 1900, New Orleans police officers confronted a black man named Robert Charles as he sat on a doorstep in a working-class neighborhood where racial tensions were running high. What happened next would trigger the largest manhunt in the city's history, while white mobs took to the streets, attacking and murdering innocent black residents during three days of bloody rioting. Finally cornered, Charles exchanged gunfire with the police in a spectacular gun battle witnessed by thousands. Building outwards from these dramatic events, To Poison a Nation connects one city's troubled past to the modern crisis of white supremacy and police brutality. Historian Andrew Baker immerses readers in a boisterous world of disgruntled laborers, crooked machine bosses, scheming businessmen, and the black radical who tossed a flaming torch into the powder keg. Baker recreates a city that was home to the nation's largest African American community, a place where racial antagonism was hardly a foregone conclusion--but which ultimately became the crucible of a novel form of racialized violence: modern policing. A major new work of history, To Poison a Nation reveals disturbing connections between the Jim Crow past and police violence in our own times. |
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