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Ohio University Press · Swallow Press · www.ohioswallow.com

South Africa

South Africa Book List

A 2007 CHOICE Outstanding Academic Title
Cover of 'Rewriting Modernity'

Rewriting Modernity
Studies in Black South African Literary History
By David Attwell

Rewriting Modernity: Studies in Black South African Literary History connects the black literary archive in South Africa to international postcolonial studies via the theory of transculturation, a position adapted from the Cuban anthropologist Fernando Ortiz.

Cover of 'Apartheid’s Leviathan'

Apartheid’s Leviathan
Electricity and the Power of Technological Ambivalence
By Faeeza Ballim

Beginning in the 1960s, the security of electricity supply has shaped South Africa’s economic growth and prosperity, and electricity shortages have negatively inflected the rise of its postapartheid democracy. Construction delays and escalating costs have thwarted the nation’s mining, manufacturing, and power generation.

Cover of 'Apartheid’s Leviathan'

Apartheid’s Leviathan
Electricity and the Power of Technological Ambivalence
By Faeeza Ballim

Beginning in the 1960s, the security of electricity supply has shaped South Africa’s economic growth and prosperity, and electricity shortages have negatively inflected the rise of its postapartheid democracy. Construction delays and escalating costs have thwarted the nation’s mining, manufacturing, and power generation.

Cover of 'African Activists of the Twentieth Century'

African Activists of the Twentieth Century
Hani, Maathai, Mpama/Palmer, Saro-Wiwa
By Hugh Macmillan, Tabitha Kanogo, Robert R. Edgar, Roy Doron, and Toyin Falola

This omnibus edition brings together concise and up-to-date biographies of Chris Hani, Wangari Maathai, Josie Mpama/Palmer, and Ken Saro-Wiwa. The volume complements history, social justice, and political science courses and is a useful collection for general readers interested in learning about Africa’s most influential historical figures.

Cover of 'Convening Black Intimacy'

Convening Black Intimacy
Christianity, Gender, and Tradition in Early Twentieth-Century South Africa
By Natasha Erlank

This social history of twentieth-century Black intimacy and family life in South Africa is the first book to demonstrate the singular role of Christianity in reshaping sexual and marital traditions. It is a must-read for scholars interested in the politics of gender, sexuality, and family in South Africa, as well as for historians of Christianity.

Cover of 'Apartheid’s Black Soldiers'

Apartheid’s Black Soldiers
Un-national Wars and Militaries in Southern Africa
By Lennart Bolliger

Thousands of Black troops served in South Africa’s security forces in Namibia and Angola during apartheid. Bolliger’s new research leads him to reject their common depiction as “collaborators,” challenge the portrayal of the wars in which they fought as struggles for national liberation, and reveal the complexity of South Africa’s military culture.

Cover of 'Spear'

Spear
Mandela and the Revolutionaries
By Paul S. Landau

Spanning the years just before (and just after) Nelson Mandela’s 1962 arrest, this entirely fresh history of Umkhonto we Sizwe (MK), or Spear of the Nation, and its revolutionary milieu brings to life the period in which Mandela and his comrades fought South Africa’s apartheid regime not only with words and protests, but also with bombs and fire.

Cover of 'Spear'

Spear
Mandela and the Revolutionaries
By Paul S. Landau

Spanning the years just before (and just after) Nelson Mandela’s 1962 arrest, this entirely fresh history of Umkhonto we Sizwe (MK), or Spear of the Nation, and its revolutionary milieu brings to life the period in which Mandela and his comrades fought South Africa’s apartheid regime not only with words and protests, but also with bombs and fire.

Cover of 'Apartheid’s Black Soldiers'

Apartheid’s Black Soldiers
Un-national Wars and Militaries in Southern Africa
By Lennart Bolliger

Thousands of Black troops served in South Africa’s security forces in Namibia and Angola during apartheid. Bolliger’s new research leads him to reject their common depiction as “collaborators,” challenge the portrayal of the wars in which they fought as struggles for national liberation, and reveal the complexity of South Africa’s military culture.

Cover of 'Ubuntu'

Ubuntu
George M. Houser and the Struggle for Peace and Freedom on Two Continents
By Sheila D. Collins

George M. Houser’s moral integrity and influential advocacy for nonviolent protest helped shape the American Civil Rights Movement, anticolonial independence victories across Africa, and the overthrow of the South African apartheid regime.

Cover of 'Chris Hani'

Chris Hani
By Hugh Macmillan

Chris Hani was one of the most highly respected leaders of the African National Congress, the South African Communist Party, and uMkhonto we Sizwe. His assassination in 1993 threatened to upset the transition to democracy but also prompted an intervention by Nelson Mandela, which accelerated the process. This biography provides a concise presentation of this iconic political leader’s life.

Cover of 'Familiarity Is the Kingdom of the Lost'

Familiarity Is the Kingdom of the Lost
By Dugmore Boetie
· Edited by Vusumuzi R. Kumalo and Benjamin N. Lawrance
· Introduction by Benjamin N. Lawrance and Vusumuzi R. Kumalo
· Foreword by Nadine Gordimer
· Afterword by Barney Simon

This fictionalized, first-person biography tells how a cunning rogue with nothing to lose relies on his guts and wits to survive amid racism and injustice in apartheid South Africa.

Cover of 'Ubuntu'

Ubuntu
George M. Houser and the Struggle for Peace and Freedom on Two Continents
By Sheila D. Collins

George M. Houser’s moral integrity and influential advocacy for nonviolent protest helped shape the American Civil Rights Movement, anticolonial independence victories across Africa, and the overthrow of the South African apartheid regime.

Shortlisted for the Humanities and Social Sciences (HSS) Awards (South Africa).
Cover of 'Josie Mpama/Palmer'

Josie Mpama/Palmer
Get Up and Get Moving
By Robert R. Edgar

The latest in the Ohio Short Histories of Africa series, Josie Mpama/Palmer: Get Up and Get Moving tells the story of Josie Mpama/Palmer’s activism and political legacy in South Africa and around the world.

Winner of the American Historical Association's 2021 Martin A. Klein Prize in African History
Cover of 'Safari Nation'

Safari Nation
A Social History of the Kruger National Park
By Jacob S. T. Dlamini

Safari Nation tells the history of the Kruger National Park through a black perspective, helping explain why Africa’s national parks—often derided by scholars as colonial impositions—survived the end of white rule on the continent.