The Afrikaners, The: Biography of a People - Tapa blanda

"A book to welcome-a history of the Afrikaners from the first European settlement to the present day written by a proud and even patriotic Afrikaner which is nevertheless critical in its approach and untainted by Afrikaner nationalism. It includes an account of the origins and demise of apartheid that must rank as the most sober, objective and comprehensive we have." -J.M. Coetzee "A strong historian at the peak of his powers ... Real historical truth always lies concealed in the thickets of contradiction, irony and paradox. To flush it from where it skulks amidst the shadows of competing interpretations of racially-based nationalisms requires truth-tellers rather than praise-singers; honest historians who tread with the greatest of care, with the sharpest of eyes, the keenest of hearing. For the genuinely curious - those who wish to see the species rather than the spectre - there can be no more experienced or honest guide than Hermann Giliomee." Charles van Onselen "The Afrikaners is all that we have come to expect from him: authoritative, original, well written and full of insights, many of them causing one to ponder not just the might-have-beens of South African history but the difficulties of democratic transition elsewhere in the world too. At a time when much writing about South Africa is either wishful, ideological or both - and when many intellectuals have decided to keep their heads well down, Giliomee is level-headed, independent minded and wholly unafraid to take on even the most difficult questions." R.W. Johnson'a magisterial new study.' -The Economist

This work is a biography of the Afrikaner people by historian and journalist Herman Giliomee, one of the earliest and staunchest Afrikaner opponents of apartheid. Weaving together life stories and historical interpretation, he creates a narrative history of the Afrikaners from their beginnings with the colonisation of the Cape of Good Hope by the Dutch East India Company to the dismantling of apartheid and beyond. While document - and revising - the history of the Afrikaners' pursuit of racial domination (as well as British contributions to that enterprise), Giliomee supplies Afrikaners' own, often divided, perspectives on their history, perspectives not always or entirely skewed by their struggle for privilege at Africans' expense. The result is not only a magisterial history of the Afrikaners but a fuller understanding of their history, which, for good or ill, resonates far beyond the borders of South Africa.