Equally skilled in different trades than in the art of love, the Italian prisoners-of-war (POWs) who were incarcerated in South Africa during the Second World War are a source of great fascination to this day.

The first Italian POWs arrived in the Union of South Africa in early 1941, most of them being held in Zonderwater Camp outside Cullinan or in work camps across the country. The government of Jan Smuts saw them as a source of cheap labour that would contribute to harvesting schemes, road-building projects such as the old Du Toit’s Kloof Pass between Paarl and Worcester and even to prickly-pear eradication schemes.

Prisoners of Jan Smuts recounts the stories of survival and shenanigans of the Italian POWs in the Union through the eyes of five prisoners who had documented their experiences in memoirs and letters. While many POWs seemed to appreciate the opportunities to gain new skills, others clung to the Fascist ideas they had grown up with and refused to work.

Many opted to remain in South Africa once the war had ended, forging quite a legacy. These included sculptor Edoardo Villa, who left an important mark in the local and international art world, and businessman Aurelio Gatti, who built an ice-cream empire whose gelato was to delight generations of South Africans.

Historian Karen Horn painstakingly tracked down a number of former POWs in which their interviews reveal rich narratives of hardship, endurance, humour, longing and self-discovery. Instead of fighting, these men adapted to another war, one which was fought on the inside of many prison camps.

In their interviews, all the POWs expressed surprise at being asked to share their experiences of almost 70 years earlier.They returned home in 1945 to a country which soon afterwards tried its utmost to promote national amnesia with regard to the country’s participation in the war.

With great insight and empathy, Karen Horn shines a light on a neglected corner of South African history. Karen Horn is a lecturer at Stellenbosch University.

A compelling and agonising story.

Durban-based journalist Glynis Horning and her husband Chris woke up one Sunday morning almost two years ago to the devastating discovery of their 25-year-old son Spencer dead in his bed. Horning’s story chronicles a parent’s worst nightmare. Establishing that his death was suicide, Horning embarks on a journey of anguished self-recrimination.

Should she not have seen the signs? Could she somehow have prevented it? As she struggles with Spencer’s decision to end his life, she has to learn to understand what the depths of depression entail. We feel Horning’s pain, and learn to understand and feel Spencer’s pain, at a visceral level.

Surrounded by loving family and friends, Horning pieces together the puzzle of Spencer’s death, writing with a brutal and heart-searing intensity of grief and loss, but also of the joys of celebrating her son’s life. This book will touch anyone who has experienced a mental health journey directly or indirectly, or a searing loss. Her wisdom and insight are extraordinary.

Sectional Titles and Other Fragmented Property Schemes aims to describe the different forms of urban fragmented property schemes introduced by legislation. Therefore, the functioning of the management bodies of such schemes and the nature and effect of management and conduct rules are emphasised to indicate to what extent the idea of urban fragmented property holding has changed the property concept in the new constitutional dispensation in South Africa.

Relevant case law, new legislative developments, especially the amended Sectional Titles Act 95 of 1986, the Sectional Titles Schemes Management Act 8 of 2011, the Community Schemes Ombud Service Act 9 of 2011 and the Companies Act 71 of 2008, are discussed comprehensively to indicate how fragmented property schemes are governed and how disputes regarding use rights of individual sections and the common property of such schemes are solved.

Juta’s Property Law Library is aimed at revisiting and reassessing the whole of South African property law, which includes uncodified common law that is mostly embodied in case law, academic writing and legislation, to establish:

• how each aspect of property law was influenced by apartheid law;
• its response to the new constitutional dispensation (including land reform), and;
• whether it can make a contribution towards the transformation of South African law and society.

For this purpose, Juta’s Property Law Library will eventually consist of a number of monographs, each of which is focused on a specific aspect of property law.

Embark on a comprehensive journey into forensic document examination with this specialised guide, tailored for aspiring forensic document examiners, investigators, legal professionals, and the judiciary. Covering a spectrum of topics, from document definition to the future of forensic document examination, Forensic Document Examination Techniques Supporting Investigations and Judicial Procedures highlights the vital role of examiners in discerning document authenticity and contributing to criminal case and civil case resolutions.

The book explores the diverse responsibilities of forensic document examiners, from consulting with law enforcement and legal practitioners to serving as expert witnesses. Forensic Document Examination Techniques Supporting Investigations and Judicial Procedures emphasises effective communication skills, providing insights into key considerations, including cases, expert evidence weight, and logical reasoning in examination reports.

Focused on the integrity of document evidence, the book discusses proper collection and preservation methods, illumination techniques, and authentication questions arising from document disputes. The concluding section delves into a range of examinations, covering paper and ink analysis, alterations, electronic signatures, and the impact of the Fourth Industrial Revolution (4IR).

The authors envision the future forensic document examiner as a multi-skilled professional navigating digital technology, biometrics, and statistics. With a positive outlook on the evolving landscape.

Investigation: A Comprehensive Guide to the Basic Principles, Procedures and Forensic Processes equips prospective investigators with the principles that they must know and apply to successfully carry out their duties.

The aim of this book is not to train prospective investigators in investigating crime, but to make them aware of the principles of criminal investigation that will enable them to bring an investigation to a successful conclusion.

For any investigating officer to be successful in pursuing the objectives of criminal investigation, he or she must take cognisance of the five questions rule:

• What evidence and information do I have?
• What evidence and information do I need?
• Where am I going to find the evidence and information?
• How am I going to obtain the evidence and information?
• What am I going to do with it?

Forensic Investigation: Legislative principles and investigative practice is an essential resource for professionals and students in the field of forensic investigation. Written by a team of seasoned experts, this book explores forensic investigation as a comprehensive discipline that combines natural, social and human sciences with crucial management skills.

The book distinguishes forensic investigation as practised by detectives and investigating officers from laboratory-based forensic analysis or auditing. It examines the complexities of investigating crimes and incidents, emphasising that successful investigations require more than technical expertise; they demand continuous learning, strategic planning and the integration of diverse scientific c and social approaches.

With a particular focus on the South African context, Forensic Investigation: Legislative principles and investigative practice provides a detailed analysis of investigative processes, offering valuable insights into criminal, misconduct and non-compliance investigations. The book explores the roles of corporate and private investigators, the importance of crime intelligence, and the evolving challenges in digital forensics.

Copywriter: include this in European/French History rather than British This is a comparative study of national labour movements in France and Britain during the First World War. Historians of labour in this period have concentrated on pacifism, and on the post-war radicalism and emergent communism to which that contributed. John N. Horne focuses instead on the majorities in both the French and the British labour movements which continued to support the war to its end. He examines the terms of their support, and the broader working-class experience which this reflected, showing how a critical programme of socialist reforms was gradually developed. Labour at War is a genuinely comparative analysis, based on intensive primary research in both countries. It is an important contribution both to labour history, and to the social and political history of the First World War.

By comparing linguistic varieties that are quite similar overall, linguists can often determine where and how grammatical systems differ, and how they change over time. Micro-Syntactic Variation in North American English provides a systematic look at minimal differences in the syntax of varieties of English spoken in North America. The book makes available for the first time a range of data on unfamiliar constructions drawn from several regional and social dialects, data whose distribution and grammatical properties shed light on the varieties under examination and on the properties of English syntax more generally. The nine contributions collected in this volume fall under a number of overlapping topics: variation in the expression of negation and modality (the "so don't I " construction in eastern New England, negative auxiliary inversion in declaratives in African-American and southern white English, multiple modals in southern speech, the "needs washed " construction in the Pittsburgh area); pronouns and reflexives (transitive expletives in Appalachia, personal dative constructions in the Southern/Mountain states, long-distance reflexives in the Minnesota Iron Range); and the relation between linguistic variation and language change (the rise of "drama SO " among younger speakers, the difficulty in establishing which phenomena cluster together and should be explained by a single point of parametric variation). These chapters delve into the syntactic analysis of individual phenomena, and the editors' introduction and afterword contextualize the issues and explore their semantic, pragmatic, and sociolinguistic implications.

Topher Grace, Teresa Palmer and Anna Faris star in this coming-of-age comedy drama set in the late 1980s. Matt Franklin (Grace) is a bright young college graduate whose life has been going steadily nowhere since he left college, despite the economic boom going on all around him. When he finds himself at a Labour Day weekend party with Tori (Palmer), the long-time object of his unrequited affections, Matt throws caution to the wind and goes all out to catch the girl of his dreams, whatever it takes.

The District Railway was designed by a committee with impractical aspirations. A banking crisis and collapse of one of its contractors during construction created long term financial difficulties. It was complicit in completing the long hoped for `inner circle' railway that was a financial disaster and very difficult to operate. Its directors were for many years ineffectual and its managing director, though getting off to a good start, became complacent and distracted and failed to pursue with vigour the policies that were needed. Even the American entrepreneurs, who arrived with the twentieth century, had their work cut out trying to make something of a line that rarely paid dividends and had never been far from bankruptcy. In all this, the railway and its operational staff provided good and useful services to important parts of London or the suburbs it helped to shape. Why a railway like this found itself in such a sorry state is part of the story covered in this definitive volume. Well illustrated in colour and black and white.