Author: Richard Elphick
Publisher: Wesleyan University Press
ISBN: 0819573760
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 646
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Book Description
History is a powerful aid to the understanding of the present, and those who are concerned with the escalating crisis in South Africa will find this an invaluable source book. This is the story of the evolution of a society in which race became the dominant characteristic, the primary determinant of status, wealth, and power. Cultural chauvinism of the first European colonists – primarily the Dutch – merged with economic and demographic developments to create a society in which whites relegated all blacks – free blacks, Africans, imported slaves – to a systematic pattern of subordination and oppression that foreshadowed the apartheid of the twentieth century. From the beginning of the nineteenth century the new empire-builders, the British, reinforced the racial order. In the next century and a half the industrialized South Africa would become firmly integrated into the world economy. Published originally in South Africa in 1979 and updated and expanded now, a decade later, this book by twelve South African, British, Canadian, Dutch, and American scholars is the most comprehensive history of the early years of that troubled nation. The authors put South Africa in the comparative context of other colonial systems. Their social, political, and economic history is rich with empirical data and rests on a solid base of archival research. The story they tell is a complex drama of a racial structure that has resisted hostile impulses from without and rebellion from within.
Author: Martin Plaut
Publisher: Hurst & Company
ISBN: 1787382044
Category : South Africa
Languages : en
Pages : 326
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Book Description
When Nelson Mandela emerged from decades in jail to preach reconciliation, South Africans truly appeared a people reborn as the Rainbow Nation. Yet, a quarter of a century later, the country sank into bitter recriminations and rampant corruption under Jacob Zuma. Why did this happen, and how was hope betrayed? President Cyril Ramaphosa, who is seeking to heal these wounds, is due to lead the African National Congress into an election by May 2019. The ANC is hoping to claw back support lost to the opposition in the Zuma era. This book will shed light on voters' choices and analyze the election outcome as the results emerge. With chapters on all the major issues at stake--from education to land redistribution-- Understanding South Africa offers insights into Africa's largest and most diversified economy, closely tied to its neighbors' fortunes.
Author: Henry Lever
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Apartheid
Languages : en
Pages : 332
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Book Description
This study by a sociologist provides the most rigorous and comprehensive review of South African society to appear to date. At a time when the nations of the world are devoting increasing attention to the problems of South Africa and when South Africans are recognising the need to make adjustments to their way of life, this book presents a timely and provocative guide to the significant features of the society. Throughout his work Lever presents a detached and critical view of a troubled and complex society, while at the same time showing a genuine concern for the fate of South Africa and its people.
Author: Richard Elphick
Publisher: University of Virginia Press
ISBN: 0813932793
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 862
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Book Description
From the beginning of the nineteenth century through to 1960, Protestant missionaries were the most important intermediaries between South Africa’s ruling white minority and its black majority. The Equality of Believers reconfigures the narrative of race in South Africa by exploring the pivotal role played by these missionaries and their teachings in shaping that nation’s history. The missionaries articulated a universalist and egalitarian ideology derived from New Testament teachings that rebuked the racial hierarchies endemic to South African society. Yet white settlers, the churches closely tied to them, and even many missionaries evaded or subverted these ideas. In the early years of settlement, the white minority justified its supremacy by equating Christianity with white racial identity. Later, they adopted segregated churches for blacks and whites, followed by segregationist laws blocking blacks’ access to prosperity and citizenship—and, eventually, by the ambitious plan of social engineering that was apartheid. Providing historical context reaching back to 1652, Elphick concentrates on the era of industrialization, segregation, and the beginnings of apartheid in the first half of the twentieth century. The most ambitious work yet from this renowned historian, Elphick’s book reveals the deep religious roots of racial ideas and initiatives that have so profoundly shaped the history of South Africa.
Author: Iris Berger
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0199722099
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 208
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Book Description
This volume begins in the early centuries of the Common Era with the various groups of people who had settled in southern Africa. Stone Age foragers, farmers with iron technology, and pastoralists all interacted to create a complex society before Europeans arrived. In the seventeenth century, Dutch settlers developed a colonial society based on the menial labor of indigenous inhabitants of the Cape and slaves imported from the East Indies and other parts of Africa. British conquest in the early nineteenth century brought an end to slavery, as well as new forms of colonial domination, tension between the British and the original Dutch settlers, armed struggle between expanding European communities and Africans (including the highly militarized Zulu kingdom), and intensive missionary activity that transformed many African societies. The discovery of diamonds and gold in the late nineteenth century brought industrialization based on migrant labor, new clashes between British and Africaaners, the final conquest of African societies, and new European migrants. During the twentieth-century, despite further economic development, African communities were increasingly impoverished. New forms of racial domination lead to the implementation of apartheid in 1948 and heightened political organizing among both African and Africaaner nationalists. The intensification of resistance in the 1970s and '80s coupled with drastic changes in the international balance of power brought an end to the apartheid state in 1994 and an intensified struggle to overcome apartheid's economic and political legacy by building a new nonracial society. The book emphasizes social and cultural history, focusing on people's interactions and identities according to race, class, gender, religion and ethnicity. It also addresses changes in literature (both oral and written), music, and the arts and draws on the extensive biographical and autobiographical literature to provide a personal focus for the discussion of major themes. While this emphasis reflects dominant trends in historical scholarship for the past two decades, it also includes recent material on environmental history and relationships between African Americans and South Africans. Where relevant, it highlights comparisons between South African and U.S. history.
Author: J.M. Vorster
Publisher: AOSIS
ISBN: 1928396232
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 338
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Book Description
Race and inequality have always been sensitive topics in South African society due to its colonial past, diverse social composition and apartheid legacy of legal discrimination against people on the basis of their skin colour. Racial tensions seem to be escalating in South African society and disturbing racialised rhetoric and slogans are re-entering the political and social landscape. Another disturbing phenomenon has been violent incidents of xenophobia against African immigrants. The question probed by this book is: What perspectives can theology offer in addressing the roots of racism, inequality and xenophobia in South Africa and how can it and the church contribute to reconciliation and a sense of togetherness among South African citizens? Various methodologies and approaches are used to address this question. In chapter 1, Theuns Eloff employs a historical and socio-analytical approach to describe the social context that has given rise, and is still giving impetus to racism and other forms of intolerance in South African society. Nico Vorster approaches the issue of distorted racial identity constructions from a theological-anthropological perspective. Utilising various empirical studies, he attempts to provide conceptual clarity to the concepts of racism, nationalism, ethnocentrism and xenophobia, and maps the various racisms that we find in South Africa. His contribution concludes with a theological-anthropological discussion on ways in which theology can deconstruct distorted identities and contribute to the development of authentic identities. Koos Vorster provides a theological-ethical perspective on social stratification in South Africa. He identifies the patterns inherent to the institutionalisation of racist social structures and argues that many of these patterns are still present, albeit in a new disguise, in the South African social order. Jan du Rand provides in chapter 4 a semantic discussion of the notions of race and xenophobia. He argues that racist ideologies are not constructed on a factual basis, but that racial ideologies use semantic notions to construct social myths that enable them to attain power and justify the exploitation and oppression of the other. Du Rand’s second contribution in chapter 5 provides Reformed exegetical and hermeneutic perspectives on various passages and themes in the Bible that relate to anthropology, xenophobia and the imperative to xenophilia [love of the stranger]. Dirk Van der Merwe’s contribution analyses, evaluates, and compares both contemporary literature and ancient texts of the Bible to develop a model that can enable churches to promote reconciliation in society, while Ferdi Kruger investigates the various ways in which language can be used as a tool to disseminate hate speech. He offers an analytical description of hate language, provides normative perspectives on the duty to counter hate speech through truth speaking and phronesis (wisdom) and concludes with practical-theological perspectives that might enable us to address problematic praxis. Reggie Nel explores the Confessions of Belhar and the Declaration of Accra as theological lenses to provide markers for public witness in a postcolonial South African setting. The volume concludes with Riaan Rheeder’s Christian bioethical perspective on inequality in the health sector of sub-Sahara Africa. This book contains original research. No part was plagiarised or published elsewhere. The target audience are theologians, ministers and the Christian community, but social activists, social scientists, politicians, political theorists, sociologists and psychologists might also find the book applicable to their fields.
Author: Human Sciences Research Council
Publisher: Praeger
ISBN:
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 250
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Book Description
Intergroup relations is a contentious issue both inside and outside South Africa, where it has dominated political thinking for the past several decades, and affected the day-to-day lives of all the country's inhabitants. In recent years scholars have recognized the urgency and complexity of the problem posed by intergroup relations and responded to the challenge. This report of the Main Committee of the Human Sciences Research Council represents not merely a scientific analysis of intergroup relations in South Africa but a comprehensive interdisciplinary attempt to address all facets of the issue in a scientifically accountable way.
Author: Nancy J. Jacobs
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 9780521010702
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 326
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Book Description
Sample Text
Author: Allen Drury
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 546
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Book Description
Author: Gideon Shimoni
Publisher: UPNE
ISBN: 9781584653295
Category : Apartheid
Languages : en
Pages : 380
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Book Description
The first thorough account of South African Jewish religious, political, and educational institutions in relation to the apartheid regime.
