Political alternatives southern africa

Van Onselen (C.). Masked Raiders: Irish Banditry in Southern Africa, 1880-1899. Cape Town: Zebra Press, 2010. First Edition. "For two decades before a railway system linked southern Africa's principal cities in the mid-1890s, the world's richest supplies of diamonds and gold were transported by coach and horses to distant ports for export. For Irish soldiers based at Fort Napier, Pietermaritzburg, the temptation of this fabulous wealth proved irresistible: they deserted by the score and, as members of the criminal 'Irish Brigade', embarked on a spree of bank, safe and highway robberies. "Masked Raiders" follows the wild exploits of legendary brigands like the McKeone brothers and 'One-Armed Jack' McLaughlin, who ravaged the subcontinent, from the mining towns of Barberton, Kimberley and Johannesburg to the borders of Basotholand, Bechuanaland, Mozambique and Rhodesia. With tales of heists, safe-cracking, illegal gold dealings, prison breaks and hidden roadside treasure, the book reveals the potency of the highveld's 'criminal heroes', a force - until now - largely hidden from history. Startling new insights reveal how the hidden grammar of brigandage informed political actions of the day, such as the Jameson Raid, and how the movement of bandits across the interior helped shape the borders of what was to become modern South Africa. With inimitable storytelling flair, Charles van Onselen illuminates the intrigue and influence of a secretive, oath-bound brotherhood." 292pp., b+w plates. Near Fine. Pictorial Laminated Wrappers. (##2727)

THE WAR THAT SHAPED THE FACE OF SOUTHERN AFRICA A decorated career soldier who simultaneously pursued academic aspirations, Lt Col (Prof) J. L. Wikus Jansen van Rensburg is today Associate Professor in the Faculty of Military Science at Stellenbosch University. His first decade in the South African Defence Force was consumed by the pivotal second half of the Border War/Armed Liberation Struggle for Namibia that irrevocably changed the lives of all involved while shaping the regions geo-political evolution. Aiming to establish a broad orientation of what was viewed from radically polarised perspectives; this book is a balanced, diarised representation of that conflict, from its origins in the pre-German era up to and including Namibias independence. The comprehensive scope of the authors research is evinced by the over 1 000 references to reputable sources representing both sides of the struggle. These long-awaited annals of a defining period in Southern Africa are a most valuable addition to the lexicon of military history.  PAPERBACK, 311 PAGES with photos. First Published: 2014

  A Military History of Modern South Africa - Ian van der Waag - Jonathan Ball - 2015 - 388pp,  black and white photographs - Paperback. The 20th Century has been one of enduring, rapid and fundamental social and political change. In Southern Africa, innumerable wars, rebellions, uprisings and protests have marked the integration, disintegration and then reintegration of both society and subcontinent during this period. The century started with a brief but total war. Less than ten years later victorious Britain brought the conquered Boer republics, and the Cape and Natal colonies, together into the Union of South Africa. And the military of this early creation served not only in all of the major wars of the twentieth century, but also in a number of regional struggles: rebellion on the part of Afrikaner nationalists, industrial unrest fanned by syndicalists, and uprisings conducted chiefly but not exclusively by disenfranchised black South Africans. The century ended as it started, with a war. But this was a limited war, a flashpoint of the Cold War, which embraced more than just the subcontinent and lasted a long, twenty-three years.     The first of its kind, A Military History of Modern South Africa provides an overview of South African military history from 1899 to 2000. Focusing on the campaigns and battles, it also brings discussion on the evolving military policy and the development of the South African military as an institution into a single volume.

A Military History of Modern South Africa by Ian van der Waag The 20th Century has been one of enduring, rapid and fundamental social and political change. In Southern Africa, innumerable wars, rebellions, uprisings and protests have marked the integration, disintegration and then reintegration of both society and subcontinent during this period. The century started with a brief but total war. Less than ten years later victorious Britain brought the conquered Boer republics, and the Cape and Natal colonies, together into the Union of South Africa. And the military of this early creation served not only in all of the major wars of the twentieth century, but also in a number of regional struggles: rebellion on the part of Afrikaner nationalists, industrial unrest fanned by syndicalists, and uprisings conducted chiefly but not exclusively by disenfranchised black South Africans. The century ended as it started, with a war. But this was a limited war, a flashpoint of the Cold War, which embraced more than just the subcontinent and lasted a long, twenty-three years. The first of its kind, A Military History of Modern South Africa provides an overview of South African military history from 1899 to 2000. Focusing on the campaigns and battles, it also brings discussion on the evolving military policy and the development of the South African military as an institution into a single volume.

The 20th Century has been one of enduring, rapid and fundamental social and political change. In Southern Africa, innumerable wars, rebellions, uprisings and protests have marked the integration, disintegration and then reintegration of both society and subcontinent during this period. The century started with a brief but total war. Less than ten years later victorious Britain brought the conquered Boer republics, and the Cape and Natal colonies, together into the Union of South Africa. And the military of this early creation served not only in all of the major wars of the twentieth century, but also in a number of regional struggles: rebellion on the part of Afrikaner nationalists, industrial unrest fanned by syndicalist, and uprisings conducted chiefly but not exclusively by disenfranchised black South Africans. The century ended as it started, with a war. But this was a limited war, a flashpoint of the Cold War, which embraced more than just the subcontinent and lasted a long, twenty-three years. The first of its kind, A Military History of Modern South Africa provides an overview of South African military history from 1899 to 2000. Focusing on the campaigns and battles, it also brings discussion on the evolving military policy and the development of the South African military as an institution into a single volume. Paperback, 400 pages About the Author: Ian van der Waag is an associate professor and chair of the Department of Military History in the Faculty of Military Sciences, Stellenbosch University. A transnational historian, he has published extensively on imperial and colonial defence, South Africas wars of the twentieth century, and the mutual, reciprocal impacts between war and South African society.

Book and wrapper in great condition - Actually looks brand new and unread to me - 403 pages which includes and excellent index at the back -  Before Southern Africa's peac e there came the war. Between August 1987 and July 1988 Fidel Castro's Cuban Revolutionary Armed Forces, the South African Defence Force, Angolan government forces directed by Soviet officers and an Angolan opposition guerrilla army trained by Red China, France and the United States clashed in the biggest land battles in the history of black Africa. It was a fierce collision of ideologies and of modern warplanes, missiles and tanks across one of the world's most remote and undeveloped terrains known to Angola's former Portuguese colonial rulers as the Land at the End of the Earth. Thousands of men died and thousands more were terribly maimed. Weapons and ammunition worth billions of dollars were destroyed and expended. The Angolan economy was crippled. The budgets of Cuba, South Africa and the Soviet Union were subjected to terrible strains. It was a War for Africa's very soul. It culminated in a peace agreement, the New York Accords, signed on 22 December 1988,. The reader will learn what it is like to encounter an advanced Soviet MiG fighter in a French Mirage warplane 30,000 feet above the forests of Africa; what emotion grip a reconnaissance commando lying unseen inside Cuban lines within feet of enemy soldiers; how it feels in an armoured car to face a Soviet T-55 tank at just 30 feet in burning bush and swirling dust and smoke. This is, however, far more than just an account of men in battle. Woven through are details of the political background to the conflict and the diplomatic initiatives which governed the lives and deaths of young Cuban, South African and Angolan men at the front.    * Africana *  *N.B.*   If you buy more than one book from me you only pay R 6 postage on each additional book   – see what else I have to offer, it might be worth your while.

This is a soldier's story about South African soldiers in southern Angola and Namibia and the enemies they fought. It tells of insurgency and counter-insurgency, guerrilla warfare and counter-guerrilla warfare, almost conventional warfare and conventional warfare. It tells of a conflict which the world saw as unpopular and unjust, in which South Africa was perceived as the aggressor. The South African soldiers who fought in it, however, saw it as a conflict fought to stop what is now Namibia falling into the hands of the Soviet and Cuban-backed SWAPO black nationalist political organisation. After Namibia South Africa would be next. They saw the whole conflict as an extension of the Cold War, but while it was on the frontiers in Europe, in Angola they were fighting a very hot war in Angola. Eventually, after the fall of the Soviet Union, the war was resolved by the democratic solution of UN supervised free and fair elections in Namibia. Since then, regrettably, there has been interference by the ruling party with the democratic constitution put in place in Namibia which has eroded much of that hard won democracy. 32 Battalion, of which Colonel Jan Breytenbach was the founding commander, became the most controversial unit in the South African Army because of the secrecy surrounding it. Its story is virtually the story of the Angolan/Namibian war, because its involvement in it was greater than any other South African unit. The regiment primarily consisted of black troops and NCOs originating from virtually every tribe in Angola. They were led by white South African officers and NCOs. Neither apartheid nor any form of racial discrimination was ever practiced in the unit. There was always a sprinkling of whites originating from countries like Great Britain, the old Rhodesia, Portugal and the USA amongst its leadership cadre, although in the latter stages of its existence this shrank to only a few. Such a presence undoubtedly led to stories circulating that the unit was a led by foreign white mercenaries. While it was true that the black Angolan element could have fallen with the mercenary definition, the whites involved were attested soldiers in the South African Army. In any case, they formed a minority and the vast majority of white officers and NCOs were born South Africans. The unit's aggressiveness and the successes it achieved in the field of battle, often against incredible odds, lay in its spirit and its  espirit de corps. In this respect and in many other ways it compared favourably with the French Foreign Legion. Its story parallels with and reminds one of the British and British Commonwealth Chindits of World War-2, operating behind the Japanese lines in Burma in large formations, out-guerrillaing those who only three years earlier had been regarded in awe as the unbeatable jungle warfare experts. Likewise, 32-Battalion consistently outfought both FAPLA, SWAPO and the Cubans in the Angola bush throughout the war years. It created a problem to which neither they nor their Soviet and East German mentors ever found a solution to. After the 1989 Namibian settlement the unit was with withdrawn to South Africa where they were deployed to effectively deal with MK infiltrations into the north of South Africa. From there, after the unbanning of the ANC in 1990, they were redeployed to deal with political troubles, principally between armed ANC self defense units and armed units of the IFP. The intrusion of black foreigners into the townships who were prepared to deal with troubles robustly and without fear or favour, did not suit either the ANC or the IFP, as they could not be subverted to support local causes because they held no local tribal allegiances. In the end it seems they became something of a bargaining chip at the CODESA negotiations, designed to find a new political dispensation for South Africa. Despite it having borne the brunt of South Africa' war in Angola with the blood of its troops, the National Party Government disgracefully ordered its arbitrary disbandment in March 1993 and the unit ceased to exist. Paperback, 360 pages with photos & maps  

 WAITING: THE WHITES OF SOUTH AFRICA. (1985) by Vincent Crapanzano. The book explores the process of decolonisation throughout the southern african region with respect to Rhodesia, Angola and Mozambique as experienced by the individual. At the time of writing, South Africa's white population were coming to terms with the notion of political change and eventual majority rule which seemed inevitable. The personal narratives presented, express the emotions and views held by many white South Africans in response to the winds of change that were sweeping across the continent.  The hardcover book is in good condition and has no foxing or stains. Spine is intact and all pages are present.

As a schoolboy at the age of thirteen, Magnus Malan had already run away to join what was then the Union Defence Force. This was to no avail, of course, but ever since he was permitted to join the Physical Training Battalion in 1946, for a period of some 45 years, his career and life has been closely entwined with the South African Defence Force. Malan's military career took him to many places in Southern Africa: Robben Island, the former South West Africa, where the Territorial Force was charged with protecting the South African Mandate territory, to the Military Academy in Saldanha and the Castle in Cape Town. As Chief of the Army and later Chief of the Defence Force he was closely involved in South Africa's incursion into Angola in 1975 and 1976, and also in many cross-border operations in the years thereafter. Malan then entered politics, and will be particularly remembered as Minister of Defence during the troubled 1980s. Malan offers a brief account of the influence that political developments in Southern Africa since 1960 had on the structures and functions of the South African Defence Force; on the successes of Armscor, and on South Africa's nuclear arms capability. He also provides valuable context for a period of many political and military events; a period of immense importance to the present generation and their descendants, but which has become almost forgotten. The title pays tribute to all those who contributed to the successes of the South African Defence Force and Armscor in a critical era of our history. Hardcover, 509 pages.  Published 2006 General Magnus Andr de Merindol Malan SSA SD OMSG SM MP (30 January 1930 18 July 2011)  was the Minister of Defence in the cabinet of President P. W. Botha, Chief of the South African Defence Force (SADF) and Chief of the South African Army. He died peacefully at home on Monday 18 July 2011

Magnus Malan - My life with the SA Defence Force - Protea - 2006 - Hard gloss in very good, clean and tight condition. As a schoolboy at the age of thirteen, Magnus Malan had already run away to join what was then the Union Defence Force. This was to no avail, of course, but ever since he was permitted to join the Physical Training Battalion in 1946, for a period of some 45 years, his career and life has been closely entwined with the South African Defence Force. Malan’s military career took him to many places in Southern Africa: Robben Island, the former South West Africa, where the Territorial Force was charged with protecting the South African Mandate territory, to the Military Academy in Saldanha and the Castle in Cape Town. As Chief of the Army and later Chief of the Defence Force he was closely involved in South Africa’s incursion into Angola in 1975 and 1976, and also in many cross-border operations in the years thereafter. Malan then entered politics, and will be particularly remembered as Minister of Defence during the troubled 1980s. Malan offers a brief account of the influence that political developments in Southern Africa since 1960 had on the structures and functions of the South African Defence Force; on the successes of Armscor, and on South Africa’s nuclear arms capability. He also provides valuable context for a period of many political and military events; a period of immense importance to the present generation and their descendants, but which has become almost forgotten. The book pays tribute to all those who contributed to the successes of the South African Defence Force and Armscor in a critical era of our history.  

The climactic death-throes of Soviet Communism during the 1980's included a last-gasp attempt at strategic franchise expansion in Southern Africa. Channelled through Castro's Cuba, oil-rich Angolan armed forces (FAPLA) received billions of dollars of advanced weaponry including MiG 23 and Sukhoi fighter jets, SAM 8 missile systems and thousands of armoured vehicles. Their   intent - to eradicate the US-backed Angolan opposition (UNITA), then push southwards into South Africa's protectorate SWA/Namibia, ostensibly as liberators. 1985 saw the first large-scale mechanized offensive in Southern African history. Russian Generals planned and oversaw the offensive but without properly accounting for the tenacity of UNITA (supported by the South African Defence Forces - SADF) or the treacherous terrain typical in the rainy season. The '85 offensive floundered in the mud and FAPLA returned to their capital Luanda. The South Africans stood down, confident their 'covert' support for UNITA had demonstrated the folly of prosecuting war so far from home against Africa's military Superpower. The South Africans were mistaken. Fidel and FAPLA immediately redoubled their efforts, strengthening fifteen battalions with even more Soviet hardware while Russian and Cuban specialists oversaw troop training. As Cuban and Angola fighter pilots honed their skills over the skies of Northern Angola, David Mannall, a normal 17-year old kid completing High School, was preparing for two years of compulsory military service before beginning Tertiary education. Through a series of fateful twists he found himself leading soldiers in a number of full-scale armoured clashes including the largest and most decisive battle on African soil since World War II. This is the David and Goliath story that, due to seismic political changes in the region, has never been truthfully told. The author lifts the hatch on his story of how Charlie Squadron, comprising just twelve 90mm AFVs crewed by 36 national servicemen, as part of the elite 61 Mechanised Battalion, engaged and effectively annihilated the giant FAPLA 47th Armoured Brigade in one day - 3 October 1987. Their 90mm cannons were never designed as tank-killers but any assurances that it would never be used against heavy armour were left in the classroom during the three-month operation and never more starkly than the decisive 'Battle on The Lomba River'. The Communist-backed offensive died that day along with hundreds of opposition fighters. 47th Brigade survivors abandoned their remaining equipment, fleeing north across the Lomba, eventually joining the 59th Brigade in what became a full-scale retreat of over ten thousand soldiers to Cuito Cuanavale. The myth perpetuated by post-apartheid politicians goes something like this "The SADF force that destroyed 47th Brigade on 3 October numbered 6,000 men and that all the hard yards were run by the long suffering UNITA!" The inconvenient truth is that there were just 36 South African boys on the front-line that day, but it is also true to say they would never have achieved such a stunning victory without the support of many more. This is their story. Paperback, 192 pages First Published October 2014, Second Revised Edition May 2015        

The climactic death-throes of Soviet Communism during the 1980's included a last-gasp attempt at strategic franchise expansion in Southern Africa. Channelled through Castro's Cuba, oil-rich Angolan armed forces (FAPLA) received billions of dollars of advanced weaponry including MiG 23 and Sukhoi fighter jets, SAM 8 missile systems and thousands of armoured vehicles. Their   intent - to eradicate the US-backed Angolan opposition (UNITA), then push southwards into South Africa's protectorate SWA/Namibia, ostensibly as liberators. 1985 saw the first large-scale mechanized offensive in Southern African history. Russian Generals planned and oversaw the offensive but without properly accounting for the tenacity of UNITA (supported by the South African Defence Forces - SADF) or the treacherous terrain typical in the rainy season. The '85 offensive floundered in the mud and FAPLA returned to their capital Luanda. The South Africans stood down, confident their 'covert' support for UNITA had demonstrated the folly of prosecuting war so far from home against Africa's military Superpower. The South Africans were mistaken. Fidel and FAPLA immediately redoubled their efforts, strengthening fifteen battalions with even more Soviet hardware while Russian and Cuban specialists oversaw troop training. As Cuban and Angola fighter pilots honed their skills over the skies of Northern Angola, David Mannall, a normal 17-year old kid completing High School, was preparing for two years of compulsory military service before beginning Tertiary education. Through a series of fateful twists he found himself leading soldiers in a number of full-scale armoured clashes including the largest and most decisive battle on African soil since World War II. This is the David and Goliath story that, due to seismic political changes in the region, has never been truthfully told. The author lifts the hatch on his story of how Charlie Squadron, comprising just twelve 90mm AFVs crewed by 36 national servicemen, as part of the elite 61 Mechanised Battalion, engaged and effectively annihilated the giant FAPLA 47th Armoured Brigade in one day - 3 October 1987. Their 90mm cannons were never designed as tank-killers but any assurances that it would never be used against heavy armour were left in the classroom during the three-month operation and never more starkly than the decisive 'Battle on The Lomba River'. The Communist-backed offensive died that day along with hundreds of opposition fighters. 47th Brigade survivors abandoned their remaining equipment, fleeing north across the Lomba, eventually joining the 59th Brigade in what became a full-scale retreat of over ten thousand soldiers to Cuito Cuanavale. The myth perpetuated by post-apartheid politicians goes something like this "The SADF force that destroyed 47th Brigade on 3 October numbered 6,000 men and that all the hard yards were run by the long suffering UNITA!" The inconvenient truth is that there were just 36 South African boys on the front-line that day, but it is also true to say they would never have achieved such a stunning victory without the support of many more. This is their story. Paperback, 284 pages First Published October 2014, Second Revised Edition May 2015   

What can human bones tell us of a persons life, or even death? How can information from bones solve mysteries both modern and ancient? And what makes the study of skeletonised human remains so imperative in southern Africa? The answers to these and other questions are contained in Missing & Murdered, which lays bare the fascinating world of forensic anthropology. As the popularity of TV programmes such as the CSI trilogy and Silent Witness attests, people are fascinated by forensic science as a means of solving crimes, and in this book Alan G. Morris follows the pathway into forensics via the fields of anthropology and anatomy. He makes the practice of forensic anthropology, the skills base of skeletal biology and the study of archaeological skeletons hugely accessible to the layperson in a series of fascinating cases, from muti murders and political killings to the work of the Missing Persons Task Team. An informative, original and engrossing read from one intriguing chapter to the next.  Softcover, 280 pages. Published 2011 About the Author: Alan G. Morris is currently Professor in the Department of Human Biology at the University of Cape Town. A Canadian by birth and upbringing, he is also a naturalised South African. Prof. Morris has an undergraduate degree in Biology from Wilfrid Laurier University in Waterloo, Ontario, and a PhD in anatomy from the University of the Witwatersrand. He has published extensively on the origin of anatomically modern humans, and the Later Stone Age, Iron Age and Historic populations of Malawi, Namibia and South Africa.  In more recent years he has extended his skeletal biology knowledge to the field of forensic anthropology. He has published on the history of race classification, the history of physical anthropology in South Africa and the Canadian involvement in the Anglo-Boer War. He is a council member of the Van Riebeeck Society for the Publication of Southern African Historical Documents, an associate editor of the South African Journal of Science and an elected member of the Academy of Science of South Africa.     

Author: Jane Katjavivi Publisher: Modajaji Books () ISBN-10: ISBN-13: Condition: As New Binding: Softcover Pages: 300 Dimensions: 23.2 x 15.4 x 1.5 cm +++ by Jane Katjavivi +++ When Jane Katjavivi becomes involved in London in support of change in Southern Africa, she meets and marries a Namibian activist in exile. Moving with him to Namibia at the time of Independence in , she faces a new life in a starkly beautiful country.  Set against the backdrop of the historical, political and social development of newly independent Namibia, Undisciplined Heart tells the story of Jane's love for her family, friends and her adopted country, in a gentle and honest way that reflects the joys and tragedies of life.   A passion for books and a passion for collecting fine editions was the recipe that created the successful group of bookshops in Johannesburg called Bookdealers. The group started thirty years ago with one store in the quirky suburb of Yeoville and has grown through the years to a total of five shops, plus our online sales. Bookdealers is well-known for its collectable and used books. We also have a large variety of remaindered books sourced from around the world.  If you collect from one of our five branches there is no delivery charge. We also offer postal delivery (when available) and courier delivery, subject to a quote.

Author: Peter Bayer Publisher: Sun Dragon Press () Edition: First Edition ISBN-10: ISBN-13: Condition: Very Good Binding: Softcover Pages: 388 Dimensions: 22.8 x 15.2 x 2.2 cm +++ by Peter Bayer +++ The Last Mentsch is a work of historical fiction told by Yitzhak, the son of Theodore Isaacs. It covers a period of almost 125 years in a time of tumultuous political, economic and social change in Southern Africa. A Jewish child is hustled out of Europe in the mid-nineteenth century to escape increasing waves of anti-Semitic ‘justice’ meted out in the ghettos and schtetls of Europe, and comes to South Africa. " The Last Mentsch is a rich, poignant and often hilarious celebration of story-telling. It effortlessly combines the historical novel and the picaresque to create a portrait of South Africa's fledgling Jewish community, of the emergent nation and a range of endearing and infuriating eccentrics. It is among the most sweeping, audacious and lively novels every written about this country" - Professor Michael Titlestad University of the Witwatersrand. Shortlisted for the European Union Literary Award, the judges said that the  The Last Mentsch  "...gallops us into a fast-paced roller coaster of immigrant survival... superb!".   A passion for books and a passion for collecting fine editions was the recipe that created the successful group of bookshops in Johannesburg called Bookdealers. The group started thirty years ago with one store in the quirky suburb of Yeoville and has grown through the years to a total of five shops, plus our online sales. Bookdealers is well-known for its collectable and used books. We also have a large variety of remaindered books sourced from around the world.  If you collect from one of our five branches there is no delivery charge. We also offer postal delivery (when available) and courier delivery, subject to a quote.