This book explores South Africa’s tumultuous history from the aftermath of the Second Anglo-Boer War to the COVID-19 pandemic. Drawing on never-before-published documentary evidence – including diaries, letters, eyewitness testimony and diplomatic reports – the book follows the South African people through the battles, elections, repression, resistance, strikes, massacres, economic crashes and health crises that have shaped the nation’s character.

Tracking South Africa’s path from colony to Union and from apartheid to democracy, History of South Africa documents the influence of key figures including Pixley Seme, Jan Smuts, Lilian Ngoyi, H.F. Verwoerd, Nelson Mandela, Steve Biko, P.W. Botha and Jacob Zuma. The book also gives detailed accounts of definitive events such as the 1922 Rand Revolt, the Defiance Campaign, Sharpeville, the Soweto uprising and the Marikana massacre. Looking beyond the country’s borders, it unpacks military conflicts such as the World Wars, the armed struggle and the Border War. The book explores the transition to democracy and traces the phases of ANC rule, from the Rainbow Nation to transformation to state capture. It examines the divisive and unifying role of sport, the ups and downs of the economy, and the impact of pandemics from the Spanish flu to AIDS and COVID-19.

As South Africa faces a crisis as severe as any in its history, the book shows that these challenges are neither unprecedented nor insurmountable, and that there are principles to be found in history that may lead us safely into the future.

South Africa was born in war, has been cursed by crises and ruptures, and today stands on a precipice once again. This book explores the country's tumultuous journey from the Second Anglo-Boer War to 2021. Drawing on diaries, letters, oral testimony and diplomatic reports, Thula Simpson follows the South African people through the battles, elections, repression, resistance, strikes, insurrections, massacres, crashes and epidemics that have shaped the nation. Tracking South Africa's path from colony to Union and from apartheid to democracy, Simpson documents the influence of key figures including Jan Smuts, Nelson Mandela, Steve Biko, P.W. Botha, Thabo Mbeki and Cyril Ramaphosa. He offers detailed accounts of watershed events like the 1922 Rand Revolt, the Defiance Campaign, Sharpeville, the Soweto uprising and the Marikana massacre. He sheds light on the roles of Gandhi, Churchill, Castro and Thatcher, and explores the impact of the World Wars, the armed struggle and the Border War. Simpson's history charts the post-apartheid transition and the phases of ANC rule, from Rainbow Nation to transformation; state capture to 'New Dawn'. Along the way, it reveals the divisions and solidarities of sport; the nation's economic travails; and painful pandemics, from the Spanish flu to AIDS and Covid-19.

This edited volume encompasses a range of themes and approaches relevant to the field of South African history today, as viewed from the perspective of practicing historians at the cutting edge of research in the discipline. The collection features the historians offering critical reflection on the theoretical and methodological aspects of their work. This involves them both looking back at the inherited historiographical tradition in the respective areas of their research, while also pointing forwards to possible future directions for scholarly engagement. -- .

The history of the ANC, which is the oldest liberation movement on the African continent, is one that has generated a great deal of interest amongst historians in recent years. Gone are the days when the history of African nationalism could be relegated to the margins of the study of the South African past. Instead, with the ANC having ascended to the helm of political power, a position it has maintained for over twenty years, there can be no question that its history occupies an important and permanent place in the history of the nation.

This volume gathers together some of the most important contributions to the literature on the ANC’s role in South Africa’s struggle for liberation. Besides important themes such as gender, ethnicity, and healthcare, contributions from leading historians also address why the ANC decided to engage in armed struggle; what role the South African Communist Party played in making this decision; how the ANC External Mission contributed to the upsurge of mass protest in South Africa in the 1970s and 1980s; and the ANC’s contribution, relative to the other components of the liberation struggle, in ensuring the eventual demise of the old racial order. The chapters in this book were originally published in the South African Historical Journal, the Journal of Southern African Studies, and African Studies.

Table of Contents

Preface Thula Simpson

1. Dialectical Dances: Exploring John Dube’s Public Life Heather A. Hughes

2. ‘A Member of the Race’: Dr Modiri Molema’s Intellectual Engagement with the Popular History of South Africa, 1912-1921 Jane Starfield

3. Women and the Problem of Family in Early African Nationalist History and Historiography Meghan Healy-Clancy

4. The African National Congress in the Western Transvaal/Northern Cape Platteland, c.1910-1964: Patterns of Diffusion and Support for Congress in a Rural Setting Andrew Hayden Manson and Bernard Mbenga

5. The Lasting Legacy: The Soviet Theory of the National-Democratic Revolution and South Africa Irina Filatova

6. The Genesis of the ANC’s Armed Struggle in South Africa 1948-1961 Stephen Ellis

7. The African National Congress (ANC) Underground: From the M-Plan to Rivonia Raymond Suttner

8. ‘The Road to Freedom is via the Cross’: ‘Just Means’ in Chief Albert Luthuli’s Life Raymond Suttner

9. Emasculating Agency: An Unambiguous Assessment of Albert Luthuli’s Stance on Violence Scott Everett Couper

10. Secret Party: South African Communists between 1950 and 1960 Tom Lodge

11. The ANC, MK, and ‘The Turn to Violence’ (1960-1962) Paul S. Landau

12. Armed and Trained: Nelson Mandela’s 1962 Military Mission as Commander in Chief of Umkhonto we Sizwe and Provenance for his Buried Makatov Pistol Garth Benneyworth

13. Transformations in the ANC External Mission and Umkhonto we Sizwe, c. 1960-1969 Arianna Lissoni

14. Healthcare in Exile: ANC Health Policy and Health Care Provision in MK Camps, 1964 to 1989 Melissa Armstrong

15. Main Machinery: The ANC’s Armed Underground in Johannesburg During the 1976 Soweto Uprising Thula Simpson

16. ‘Umkhonto we Sizwe, We are Waiting for You’: The ANC and the Township Uprising, September 1984 – September 1985 Thula Simpson

17. Sex in a Time of Exile: An Examination of Sexual Health, AIDS, Gender, and the ANC, 1980-1990 Carla Tsampiras

The history of the ANC, which is the oldest liberation movement on the African continent, is one that has generated a great deal of interest amongst historians in recent years. Gone are the days when the history of African nationalism could be relegated to the margins of the study of the South African past. Instead, with the ANC having ascended to the helm of political power, a position it has maintained for over twenty years, there can be no question that its history occupies an important and permanent place in the history of the nation. This volume gathers together some of the most important contributions to the literature on the ANC's role in South Africa's struggle for liberation. Besides important themes such as gender, ethnicity, and healthcare, contributions from leading historians also address why the ANC decided to engage in armed struggle; what role the South African Communist Party played in making this decision; how the ANC External Mission contributed to the upsurge of mass protest in South Africa in the 1970s and 1980s; and the ANC's contribution, relative to the other components of the liberation struggle, in ensuring the eventual demise of the old racial order. The chapters in this book were originally published in the South African Historical Journal, the Journal of Southern African Studies, and African Studies.