THE GREAT TREK - OLIVER RANSFORD IN SOUTH AFRICA

 The Great Trek - Oliver Ransford - 1972 - Paperback still in goodcondition. This account of the emigration of the Trekboers moves along at an engaging pace and never gets bogged down in scholarly minutiae. Ransford is sympathetic to his subjects - oversympathetic, by 21st century standards - and does a good job of bringing the principal figures of the Afrikaner migration to life. He also gives vivid and atmospheric descriptions of places, enabling the reader to visualise them as more than just names. Though he occasionally gets carried away with similes that are just silly. There are plenty of maps showing all the places mentioned in the text - deficiencies in this regard are one thing that often frustrate me in works of popular history. In a very fine appendix Ransford describes what can be seen in modern times (1972) at the more important camp and battle sites of the Great Trek. The overall effect of the book was to make me pine for the times when there were still Transvaals or Utahs beyond the reach of 'The Man'.