For 250 years the Bryan Rostron’s family spread across the globe, helping to expand the British Empire and paint the map red. This is a personal reckoning with that dubious legacy, echoing down to the present in South Africa.

It begins with the ‘discovery’ of Tahiti in 1767 by an ancestor, from whose log book Rostron reveals that his sailors were exchanging the ship’s nails for sex with Tahitian maidens so that HMS Dolphin began, literally, to fall apart.

After the Anglo-Boer war, having emigrated to South Africa, one grandfather became editor of the Sunday Times, voicing racist opinions, and later of the Rand Daily Mail, at that time a voice of the Randlords. Ironically, his other grandfather worked for the Communist Party and printed revolutionary pamphlets for the violent 1922 Rand Revolt. In a bizarre twist, Rostron’s father managed the 1936 South African boxing team at the Berlin Olympics, where from under his nose their star boxer was recruited by the Nazis.

Uncovering family secrets and mistaken myths, Rostron offers a unique insight into modern-day South Africa’s colonial past.

From the winner of the Telegraph Sports Book Awards Cycling Book of the Year 2018 The first Tour de France in 1903 was a colourful affair full of adventure, mishaps and audacious attempts at cheating. Its riders included characters like Maurice Garin, an Italian-born Frenchman, said to have been swapped for a round of cheese by his parents in order to smuggle him into France to clean chimneys as a teenager, Hippolyte Aucouturier with his trademark handlebar moustache, and amateurs like Jean Dargassies, a blacksmith who had never raced before. Would this ramshackle pack of cyclists draw crowds to throng France's rutted roads and cheer the first Tour heroes? Surprisingly it did, and, all thanks to a marketing ruse dreamed up to revive struggling newspaper L'Auto, cycling would never be the same again. Peter Cossins takes us through the inaugural Tour de France, painting a nuanced portrait of France in the early 1900s, to see where the greatest sporting event of all began.

In 1957 emigreer die negejarige Henk van Woerden vanaf Nederland met sy gesin na Kaapstad – leertas in die hand, mussie oor die ore, serp om die nek, glasoog in die oogkas. Eers veertig jaar later ontdek hy wat die rede was vir hierdie vertrek na Suid-Afrika: Sy pa was ’n kollaborateur in die Tweede Wêreldoorlog. Die emigrasie is die begin van ’n lewe as buitestaander en vorm later die goue draad in sy skilderye en literêre werk.

Koning Eenoog is ’n boeiende biografie van die ewig soekende emigrant Henk van Woerden (1947–2005), ’n skrywer wat nie net ’n bekroonde oeuvre agtergelaat het nie (Een mond vol glas – Alan Paton Award en die Frans Kellendonk-prys, Ultramarijn – Gouden Uil en Inktaap) maar ook die Nederlandse literatuur oor Suid-Afrika verander het.

MISTRA's publication on Whiteness Afrikaans Afrikaners: Addressing Post-Apartheid Legacies, Privileges and Burdens consists of various thought-provoking contributions made at a roundtable held in 2015 at Constitution Hill as a continuation of MISTRA’s research on nation formation and social cohesion. The publication aims to enhance the understanding of the history of whiteness in all its socio-economic manifestations as well as the architecture of power relations and privileges in democratic South Africa.

The volume comprises of contributions by former president Kgalema Motlanthe, current Deputy Minister of Cogta, Andries Nel, Mary Burton, Christi van der Westhuizen, Lynette Steenveld, Bobby Godsell, Dirk Herman (of Solidarity), Ernst Roets (of Afriforum), Xhanti Payi, Mathatha Tsedu, Pieter Duvenage, Hein Willemse, Nico Koopman, Melissa Steyn, Achille Mbembe and Mathews Phosa.

The story of how information networks have made, and unmade, our world from the #1 Sunday Times bestselling author of Sapiens.

For the last 100,000 years, humans have accumulated enormous power. But despite all our discoveries, inventions and conquests, we now find ourselves in an existential crisis. The world is on the verge of ecological collapse. Misinformation abounds. And we are rushing headlong into the age of AI – a new information network that threatens to annihilate us. If we are so wise, why are we so self-destructive?

NEXUS considers how the flow of information has shaped us, and our world. Taking us from the Stone Age through the Bible, early modern witch-hunts, Stalinism, Nazism and the resurgence of populism today, Yuval Noah Harari asks us to consider the complex relationship between information and truth, bureaucracy and mythology, wisdom and power. He explores how different societies and political systems have wielded information to achieve their goals, for good and ill. And he addresses the urgent choices we face as non-human intelligence threatens our very existence.

Information is not the raw material of truth; neither is it a mere weapon. NEXUS explores the hopeful middle ground between these extremes, and of rediscovering our shared humanity.

This stirring collection of essays and talks by activist and former judge Albie Sachs is the culmination of more than 25 years of thought about constitution-making and non-racialism. Following the Constitutional Court's landmark Nkandla ruling in March 2016, it serves as a powerful reminder of the tenets of the Constitution, the rule of law and the continuous struggle to uphold democratic rights and freedoms. We, The People offers an intimate insider's view of South Africa's Constitution by a writer who has been deeply entrenched in its historical journey from the depths of apartheid right up to the politically contested present.

As a second-year law student at the University of Cape Town, Sachs took part in the Defiance Campaign and went on to attend the Congress of the People in Kliptown, where the Freedom Charter was adopted in 1955. Three decades later, shortly after the bomb attack in Maputo that cost him his arm and the sight in one eye, he was called on by the Constitutional Committee of the African National Congress to co-draft (with Kader Asmal) the first outline of a Bill of Rights for a new democratic South Africa. In 1994, he was appointed by Nelson Mandela to the Constitutional Court, where he served as a judge until 2009. We, The People contains some of Sachs' most memorable public talks and writings, in which he takes us back to the broad-based popular foundations of the Constitution in the Freedom Charter. He picks up on Oliver Tambo's original vision of a non-racial future for South Africa, rather than one based on institutionalised power-sharing between the races. He explores the tension between perfectability and corruptibility, hope and mistrust, which lies at the centre of all constitutions.

Sachs discusses the enforcement of social and economic rights, and contemplates the building of the Constitutional Court in the heart of the Old Fort Prison as a mechanism for reconciling the past and the future. Subjective experience and objective analysis interact powerfully in a personalised narrative that reasserts the value of constitutionality not just for South Africans, but for people striving to advance human dignity, equality and freedom across the world today.

Jonathan Jansen is die voormalige Rektor van die Universiteit van die Vrystaat, met 'n formidabele reputasie vir transformasie en 'n diepgewortelde verbintenis tot versoening in gemeenskappe wat met die erfenis van apartheid saamleef. In hierdie boek, Jansen se persoonlikste en mees intieme boek tot op hede, daag Suid-Afrika se geliefde professor die stereotipes en stigma uit wat so maklik op Kaapse Vlakte-ma's van toepassing gemaak word as luidrugtig, wellustig en sonder tande – en bied hy dié deernisvolle verhaal aan as 'n lofsang vir ma's oral wat op moeilike plekke gesinne moet grootmaak en gemeenskappe moet bou.

As jong man het Jansen gewonder hoe ma's dit regkry om kinders onder moeilike omstandighede groot te maak – en toe besef die antwoord is reg voor hom in die vorm van Sarah Jansen, sy eie ma. Deur haar vroeë lewe in Montagu en die gevolge van apartheid se gedwonge verskuiwings na te speur, werp Jansen lig op hoe sterk vroue nie slegs daarin geslaag het om gesinne bymekaar te hou nie, maar hulle kinders ook met integriteit groot te maak.

Met sy kenmerkende fynsinnigheid, humor en eerlikheid, volg Jansen sy ma se lewensverhaal as 'n jong verpleegster en ma van vyf kinders, en wys hy hoe dié ma's hulle verlede verwerk het, hulle huise ingerig het, sin gemaak het van die politiek, die liefde bestuur en kernwaardes gekommunikeer het – hoe hulle hulle lewens gelei het. Om sy eie herinneringe te balanseer, het Jansen hom op sy suster, Naomi, beroep om haar eie insigte en herinneringe te deel, en daardeur spesiale waarde tot hierdie roerende memoir toe te voeg.

Set amid the civil rights movement, this is the true story of NASA's African-American female mathematicians who played a crucial role in America's space program.

Before Neil Armstrong walked on the moon, a group of professionals worked as 'Human Computers', calculating the flight paths that would enable these historic achievements. Among these were a coterie of bright, talented African-American women. Segregated from their white counterparts, these 'coloured computers' used pencil and paper to write the equations that would launch rockets, and astronauts, into space.

Moving from World War II through NASA's golden age, touching on the civil rights era, the Space Race, the Cold War, and the women's rights movement, 'Hidden Figures' interweaves a rich history of mankind's greatest adventure with the intimate stories of five courageous women whose work forever changed the world.

Jonathan Jansen is the former Vice Chancellor of the University of the Free State, with a formidable reputation for transformation and for a deep commitment to reconciliation in communities living with the heritage of apartheid. In this, Jansen’s most personal and intimate book to date, South Africa’s beloved professor contemplates the stereotypes and stigma so readily applied to Cape Flats mothers as bawdy, lusty and gap-toothed – and offers this endearing antidote as a praise song to mothers everywhere who raise families and build communities in difficult places.

As a young man, Jansen questioned how mothers managed to raise children in trying circumstances – and then realised that the answer was right in front of him in the form of Sarah Jansen, his own mother. Tracing her early life in Montagu and the consequences of apartheid’s forced removals, Jansen unpacks how strong women managed to not only keep families together, but raise them with integrity.

With his trademark delicacy, humour and frankness, Jansen follows his mother’s life story as a young nurse and mother to five children, and shows how mothers dealt with their pasts, organised their homes, made sense of politics, managed affection, communicated core values – how they led their lives. As a balance to his own recollections, Jansen has called on his sister, Naomi, to offer her own insights and memories, adding special value to this touching personal memoir.

Multidisciplinary scholars showcase their search for decolonial strategies from within their disciplinary focus, covering ideas such as the different layers at which colonialism operates, strategies for a decolonisation that does not recolonise, and the importance of preserving and publishing in indigenous languages.

Decolonisation explores questions of justice, injustice and inhumanity that have geographically and intellectually shaped the course of history through overlapping colonial, decolonial and postcolonial eras. This multidisciplinary collection uses the lenses of history, philosophy, literature and education to examine aspects of colonialism and decolonisation, and their revolutionary and evolutionary manifestations which, contributors argue, occurred simultaneously in the historical and epistemological record. The problems that come into focus have a kaleidoscopic effect on how we come to understand fraught issues, from the ‘invention’ of blacks, to the formulation of the ideology of trusteeship and the obligations to ‘lower civilisations’.

Decolonisation brings together an internationally renowned group of scholars to showcase their search for decolonial strategies within their disciplinary focus, covering ideas such as the different layers at which colonialism operates, strategies for a decolonisation that does not recolonise, and the importance of preserving and publishing in indigenous languages.

This is a much-needed book for students and scholars in the field of decolonisation, history, philosophy and pedagogy. The introductory chapter offers a clear and concise primer to this complex subject, covering colonialism, imperialism, decoloniality, and the various actors involved.

Beyond Diplomacy covers nearly six decades of Riaan “Koedoe” Eksteen's eventful career — from being South Africa's youngest ambassador at the time, taking the helm and transforming broadcasting in South Africa, to being closely involved in Namibia's pre- and post-independence.

Events and altercations that have never before been aired or documented are now put in a new context. For example, what exactly was said in the evening calls when P.W. Botha fired Eksteen as head of the SABC and all that happened after this. His experiences and involvement in South Africa's diplomacy stretched over a period of 27 years starting way back when Verwoerd was prime minister.

During his extraordinary career he served as ambassador under John Vorster, P.W. Botha, F.W. de Klerk and Nelson Mandela.

The remarkable story of a woman's journey out of Auschwitz to find her family, told to her son for the very first time.

As a reporter, Jacques Peretti has spent his life investigating important stories. But there was one story, heard in scattered fragments throughout his childhood, that he never thought to investigate. The story of how his mother survived Auschwitz.

In the few last months of the War, thirteen-year-old Alina Peretti, along with her mother and sister, was one of thirteen thousand non-Jewish Poles sent to Auschwitz, in the wake of the Warsaw Uprising. Her experiences there, which she rarely discussed, cast a shadow over the rest of her life.

Now ninety, Alina has been diagnosed with dementia. Together, mother and son begin a race against time to record her memories and preserve her family's story. For the first time, Alina recalls her experiences as a child during the Second World War, the horrors that she witnessed in Auschwitz and the miraculous story of how she survived a firing squad.

Along the way, Jacques learns long-hidden secrets about his mother's family; his mysterious grandfather who lived a double-life, his grandmother who read tarot cards in a Soviet labour camp, and his aunt and uncles, whose fate he never knew. He also gains an understanding of his mother through retracing her past, learning more about the woman who would never let him call her 'Mum'.

Internationally-renowned historian Hermann Giliomee has himself been intimately involved in the unfolding drama of South Africa’s history, as participant at the Dakar talks with the ANC, as outspoken commentator for the English press, and as leading thinker on the Afrikaners. Giliomee’s lucidity and original insights make this more than just his own story. It is also a gripping narrative, filled with anecdotes and revealing inner workings of the Afrikaner establishment.

By the late 1880s, after more than two centuries of European presence at the Cape, only seven routes led up Table Mountain. Thousands had climbed to the summit, the majority via the gash in the face of the mountain known as Platteklip Gorge, yet vast tracts remained unexplored. Only with the advent of mountaineering in the early 1890s did climbers begin a systematic exploration in their quest for new routes.

Lines of Least Resistance tells the story of Table Mountain through its hiking and scrambling routes. Drawing on his intimate knowledge of the mountain, Riaan Vorster pays tribute to the early pioneers by examining their routes, clearing the sands of time from those which have slipped into oblivion. No two routes are alike; each possesses unique qualities that reveal something of the mountain’s character.

Written from a personal as well as historical perspective, the book takes the reader on a journey of discovery along the highways and byways of Table Mountain.

Operation Biting was one of the most thrilling British commando raids of World War II, and probably the most successful. In February 1942 RAF intelligence was baffled by a newly-identified radar network on the coast of Nazi-occupied Europe, codenamed Würzburg. The brilliant scientist Dr RV Jones proposed an assault to capture key components. The nearest accessible enemy set stood upon a steep cliff at Bruneval in Normandy. Winston Churchill enthused, as did Lord Louis Mountbatten, chief of Combined Operations. A company of the newly-formed Airborne Forces was committed to the operation, which took place on the night of 27/28 February. Amid heavy snow 120 men landed, some of whom were misdropped almost two miles from their objective. They nonetheless launched the assault, dismantled the German radar, and after three nail-biting hours in France and a fierce battle with Wehrmacht defenders, escaped in the nick of time by landing-craft across stormy seas to Portsmouth.

Max Hastings recounts this cliffhanging tale in a wealth of previously unchronicled detail. He portrays its remarkable personalities: the ‘boffin’ RV Jones; the peacock Mountbatten; the troubled husband of Daphne Du Maurier, Gen. ’Boy’ Browning, who commanded the Airborne Division; ‘Colonel Remy’, the French secret agent whose men reconnoitered Bruneval at mortal risk; Major John Frost, who led the paras into action; Charlie Cox, the little RAF technician who stripped the Würzburg and became an unexpected hero; Wing-Commander Charles Pickard, a legendary bomber pilot who led the drop squadron. Seldom have so many fascinating personalities been brought together to fulfil a mission that became a front-page triumph in a season of British defeats.

Recounted in Hastings’ familiar best-selling blend of top-down and bottom-up action detail, Operation Biting tells a story that has become almost forgotten yet deserves to rank among the epic tales of courage and daring that took place in the greatest conflict in history.

Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa (BRICS) nations have become a strong engine of South-South Cooperation. The most significant outcome of the emergence of BRICS is the shift they have brought to the balance of power in global affairs. The past decade has steadily accelerated commercial and strategic engagements between BRICS and Africa. The BRICS countries constitute Africa’s largest trading partners and new investors. BRICS has nourished Africa’s economic emergence and elevated the continent’s contemporary global positioning. This book seeks to determine the potential of BRICS-Africa cooperation in promoting African development.

Some of the critical issues in this book include the following: a) What will be the impact of intra-BRICS and BRICS–Africa cooperation and partnerships, mainly through the New Industrial Revolution, financial technologies, infrastructure, economic growth and development in health; b) Determine the relevance of the BRICS New Development Bank in the post-COVID era; c) Examine the governance and accountability mechanisms required to entrench BRICS governance cooperation with the continent, and e) Determine strategies that address gender developmental disparities and inequalities in BRICS and Africa.

This book consists of five sections, preceded by an introduction and later at the end of the chapters, a conclusion. The five mentioned sections respond to the 2020 12th BRICS Summit, ‘Global Stability, Shared Security, and Innovative Growth thematic thrusts.

Returning to the family homestead in the Eastern Cape for the holidays, and worried that your city ways and less than perfect knowledge of Xhosa culture will get you a wagging finger in the face from ooMalume – the uncles?

No need to fret. Don’t Upset ooMalume! captures the essence of Xhosa heritage and culture, and explores different aspects of village life. It covers a range of topics, from major Xhosa life ceremonies and traditional clothing, to the significance of uronta (the rondavel) and ubuhlanti (the kraal). Not forgetting the importance of traditional food, the author describes popular dishes, edible forage and even medicinal plants.

This book was born from writer and agriculturalist Hombakazi Mercy Nqandeka’s concern that aspects of Xhosa heritage will be lost to future generations. By interweaving her guide to Xhosa culture with stories from her daily life at Mqele and Bulungula villages, and lessons taught to her by her mother and her late grandmothers, she hopes to help reconnect Xhosa people to their roots.

In January 1900, galvanised by the daring of the Boers in taking on imperial Britain, the young Russian officer Yevgeny Avgustus set off for the Transvaal to fight in the Anglo-Boer War. Like most of the foreign volunteers who flocked to the Boer cause, he ended up on the Natal front.

Avgustus and his companions joined the Krugersdorp Commando, and their experiences in the field are portrayed in vivid detail. The central part of this gripping account covers the Battle of the Tugela Heights in February 1900 and the Boers’ subsequent retreat. The immediacy of Avgustus’s writing captures his trepidation and excitement as he approaches the battlefield for the first time, as well as his experience of life on commando.

The keen eye of this foreign volunteer brings to life a turning point in South African history. Avgustus is a gifted writer, and his narrative offers both acute observation and thoughtful introspection.

A gripping portrayal of human frailty and courage in the face of mortal danger, A Russian on Commando highlights both the strange attraction and the absurdities of war.

When Love Kills is the tale of hip hop star, AKA. whose life unravelled when he embarked on a relationship with 21 year-old Anele Tembe.

When she "fell" to her death from the 10th storey of the Pepper Club in April, 2021, after a long night of heated arguing, details would emerge that they'd been caught up in a whirlwind of toxic obsession, alleged substance abuse and violence. Less then two years later AKA was assassinated in what looked like a hit to avenge her death.

This is their tragic story.

As a young Reuters correspondent, Fred Bridgland revealed the secret invasion in 1975 of post-independence Angola by apartheid South Africa’s armed forces in support of UNITA rebel leader, Jonas Savimbi. At the time, Bidgland befriended Tito Chingunji, a guerrilla officer, before he became UNITA foreign secretary, who persuaded Bridgland to walk hundreds of kilometres across Angola to watch UNITA’s fighters go into combat.

Later Chingunji and Bridgland worked together on a sympathetic biography of the charismatic Savimbi – then the great hope of the ‘free West’. However, after the book’s publication, Chingunji told Bridgland how he and his family were under constant threat of death from Savimbi.

Bridgland started to uncover atrocities that revealed Savimbi not as the champion of his people, but as a murderous tyrant. Chingunji had risked his life to help Bridgland tell the true story of what was going on behind the scenes. When his friend went missing, Bridgland journeyed into the Angolan jungle to plead his friend’s case and he, himself, was put before a kangaroo court by an enraged Savimbi.

This is a personal account of the bond that developed between a guerrilla fighter and a journalist, and the terrifying challenges they faced as they revealed Savimbi’s true colours.

Luise White brings the force of her historical insight to bear on the many war memoirs published by white soldiers who fought for Rhodesia during the 1964–1979 Zimbabwean liberation struggle.

In the memoirs of white soldiers fighting to defend white minority rule in Africa long after other countries were independent, the author finds a robust and contentious conversation about race, difference, and the war itself. These are writings by men who were ambivalent conscripts, generally aware of the futility of their fight—not brutal pawns flawlessly executing the orders and parroting the rhetoric of a racist regime. Moreover, most of these men insisted that the most important aspects of fighting a guerrilla war—tracking and hunting, knowledge of the land and of the ways of African society—were learned from black playmates in idealized rural childhoods.

In these memoirs, African guerrillas never lost their association with the wild, even as white soldiers boasted of bringing Africans into the intimate spaces of regiment and regime.

As uitgesproke kommenatator wat voor en na 1994 met die regering gebots het, een van die Dakar-gangers wat al in die 1980s die ANC gaan ontmoet het en wereldkenner van die Afrikaners, is Giliomee ten nouste betrokke by ons land se geskiedenis – en hoe ons dit verstaan. Hier verweef hy sy eie lewensverhaal met die van die land en die mense wat hom fassineer in leesbare, narratiewe vorm, vol staaltjies en onvertelde verhale.

In some settings, such as Ireland, contiguous Catholic and Protestant states are often not conducive to good relations or neighbourliness. In colonial and imperial southern Africa, formal inter-state arrangements took place at the expense of a third party - subjected African peoples.

Three Wise Monkeys explores some of the contradictions, silences and oversights, and working misunderstandings that arise when an emerging Anglophone, Protestant, industrial and urbanising state - South Africa - develops side by side with Mozambique - a Lusophone, Catholic, commercial, rural colony.

In three volumes, Charles van Onselen examines the intertwined relations between South Africa and Portugal's chronically weak east coast colony, as expressed through the migrant labour system, the tourist trade, the rise and fall of LM Radio and the extraordinary tale of the Lourenço Marques Lottery. These areas constituted zones of cross-cultural, transnational interaction that both states were reluctant to acknowledge formally, choosing instead to 'see no evil, speak no evil and hear no evil' for much of the 20th century.

Three Wise Monkeys presents a startling new way of viewing the entangled, often hidden, economic, political and social dynamics that informed the rise of 20th-century South Africa, often at the expense of neighbouring Mozambique.

The volumes are:

• Volume 1: The Makings Of An African Economic Tragedy - Mozambique, circa 1500-1960
• Volume 2: Through The Turnstiles Of The Mind - White South Africans and the Freedoms Of Mozambique, circa 194-1975
• Volume 3: The Quest For Wealth Without Work - The Lourenco Marques Lottery, Protestant Panics and the South African White Working Classes , circa 1890-9165

The shocking, definitive account of the 2020 election and the first year of the Biden presidency by two New York Times reporters, exposing the deep fissures within both parties as the country approaches a political breaking point.

This is the authoritative account of an eighteen-month crisis in American democracy that will be seared into the country’s political memory for decades to come. With stunning, in-the-room detail, New York Times reporters Jonathan Martin and Alexander Burns show how both our political parties confronted a series of national traumas, including the coronavirus pandemic, the January 6 attack on the Capitol, and the political brinksmanship of President Biden’s first year in the White House.

From Donald Trump’s assault on the 2020 election and his ongoing campaign of vengeance against his fellow Republicans, to the behind-the-scenes story of Biden’s selection of Kamala Harris as his running mate and his bitter struggles to unite the Democratic Party, this book exposes the degree to which the two-party system has been strained to the point of disintegration. More than at any time in recent history, the long-established traditions and institutions of American politics are under siege as a set of aging political leaders struggle to hold together a changing country.

Martin and Burns break news on most every page, drawing on hundreds of interviews and never-before-seen documents and recordings from the highest levels of government. The book asks the vitally important (and disturbing) question: can American democracy, as we know it, ever work again?

Everyone is originally from Africa, and this book is therefore for everyone.

For too long, Africa’s history has been dominated by western narratives of slavery and colonialism, or simply ignored. Now, Zeinab Badawi sets the record straight.

In this fascinating book, Badawi guides us through Africa’s spectacular history – from the very origins of our species, through ancient civilisations and medieval empires with remarkable queens and kings, to the miseries of conquest and the elation of independence. Visiting more than thirty African countries to interview countless historians, anthropologists, archaeologists and local storytellers, she unearths buried histories from across the continent and gives Africa its rightful place in our global story.

The result is a gripping new account of Africa: an epic, sweeping history of the oldest inhabited continent on the planet, told through the voices of Africans themselves.