The Afrikaner's Interpretation of South African History. By F. A. van Jaarsveld. (Cape Town: Simondium Publishers. 1964. Pp. 199. R. 2.80.) and Time Longer than Rope: A History of the Black Man's Struggle for Freedom in South Africa. By Edward Roux. (2d ed.; Madison: University of Wisconsin Press. 1964. Pp. xviii, 469. $6.50.)

1965 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
South African ◽  
Cape Town ◽  
African History ◽  
University Of Wisconsin ◽  
History Of

South Africa, philosophy in

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Pieter Duvenage
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
South African ◽  
Cape Town ◽  
Philosophical Tradition ◽  
African Philosophy ◽  
The South ◽  
Analytical Philosophy ◽  
History Of ◽  
Anglo American ◽  
British Idealism

Although it is incorrect to refer to an independent South African philosophical tradition, South Africa is nevertheless the location of an interesting history of philosophical institutionalization. This institutionalization is closely intertwined with the colonial and postcolonial history of Western expansion (Dutch and English) and the reactions it unleashed within the South African context. It is especially interesting to trace the influence and the application of Anglo-American and continental origins in South Africa. Even in contemporary South Africa, philosophers who are working in fields such as postmodernism, postcolonialism, feminism and analytical philosophy do so mostly under the influence of contexts beyond South Africa’s borders. After the early Dutch influence in South Africa (1652–1806) a British colonial educational system emerged during the nineteenth century. From the first institutions of higher education (the South African College in Cape Town, and the University of the Cape of Good Hope) the first tertiary institutions emerged in the early part of the twentieth century at Cape Town, Stellenbosch, Witwatersrand (Johannesburg) and Pretoria. Although other universities were subsequently instituted, these four can be considered the four founding residential universities in South Africa. It is also at these universities (and at Colleges in Grahamstown, Bloemfontein, Durban and Pietermaritzburg) that British idealism had a major influence on the early stages of South African philosophy (1873–1940). Against this background figures such as Fremantle (Cape Town), Walker (Stellenbosch), Hoernlé (Johannesburg), Lord (Grahamstown) and Macfadyen (Pretoria) were instrumental. From the 1930s the hegemony of British idealism was challenged by analytical philosophy (mainly at English-speaking South African universities) and continental traditions (mainly at Afrikaans-speaking universities). Since the political transformation of South Africa (1994) African philosophy has also emerged as a major philosophical tradition. The challenge for philosophy in contemporary South Africa is to explore those intellectual traditions that have shaped philosophy in South Africa, to know where they are coming from and to understand how they were transformed under (post)colonial conditions. Such a (genealogical) perspective provides a historical and material corrective to arguments that might otherwise strive to reconcile cultural values and ideas in an apolitical and ahistorical manner.

THE GREAT DEBATE AND THE ORIGINS OF SOUTH AFRICAN HISTORIOGRAPHY

1997 ◽  
Vol 38 (2) ◽  
pp. 261-281 ◽  
Author(s):  
ANDREW BANK
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
South African ◽  
African History ◽  
Historical Writing ◽  
Early Nineteenth Century ◽  
Great Debate ◽  
History Of ◽  
Nineteenth And Twentieth Centuries ◽  
Late Nineteenth

The fundamental preoccupation with race in later historical writing in South Africa has its origins in the Great Debate between liberals and their enemies in the early nineteenth century. Standard overviews of South African historiography date the emergence of racially structured histories to the second half of the nineteenth century. For Saunders, the making of the South African past and its thematic ordering in terms of race only began in the 1870s ‘when the first major historian [G. M. Theal] began to write his history’. Prior to Theal's monumental efforts, ‘only a few amateur historians had turned their hands to the writing of the history of particular areas or topics’. Likewise, in Smith's analysis, also published in 1988, the construction of South African history in terms of race is seen almost exclusively as the product of the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries. In a very brief introductory section, Smith suggests that what little historical writing there was before the middle of the nineteenth century is scarcely to be taken seriously, and his study offers no more than a bare outline of historiographical developments before Theal and his heirs.

The History of the Soga Family, Race, and Identity in South Africa in the Late 19th and Early 20th Centuries

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Natasha Erlank
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
South African ◽  
African History ◽  
Eastern Cape ◽  
Pilgrim's Progress ◽  
African Christianity ◽  
The Third ◽  
The Bible ◽  
History Of ◽  
The 19Th Century

The history of African Christianity in South Africa in the 19th century would be incomplete without a discussion of Tiyo Soga, the first Xhosa man to be ordained a minister in South Africa. His work as a preacher and translator was key to the spread of African indigenous Christianity in the Cape. In 1866 he completed his translation of The Pilgrim’s Progress into Xhosa, a book that had a greater impact than the Bible on how many Africans learned about Christianity. Less well known is the history of his family, including his parents, his wife, his children, and his grandchildren. While it is possible to reconstruct lives of some of the Soga men, it is difficult to uncover the lives of the women. Tiyo Soga and his wife, Janet Burnside, had seven children, and the four sons (William Anderson, John Henderson, Jotello Festiri, and Allan Kirkland) became prominent figures in Eastern Cape and South African history. The daughters, Isabella, Frances, and Jessie, had less prominent careers. African Christianity was important for all of them, and the sons pursued careers as a doctor, a historian, a veterinarian, and a journalist. The third son, A.K. Soga, was important as both a journalist and an African nationalist.

scholarly journals Die Groot Trek en die Kerk

1989 ◽  
Vol 45 (3) ◽  
Author(s):  
A. D. Pont
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
South African ◽  
Southern Africa ◽  
Turning Point ◽  
Free State ◽  
African History ◽  
Eastern Cape ◽  
History Of ◽  
British Colonies ◽  
The Church

The Great Trek and the Church The emigration of about 15 000 pioneer-farmers from the eastern Cape districts to the interior of Southern Africa, was a definite turning point in South African history. In 1852-1854, which can be regarded as the final date of the Great Trek, there were in South Africa two British colonies i e the Cape and Natal and two Boer republics i e the Transvaal and the Orange Free State. This study traces the history of the church during the emigration and the establishment of the church by the emigrants.

The Waterfront in Cape Town and South African History

2004 ◽  
Vol 32 (2) ◽  
pp. 194-199
Author(s):  
Vivian Bickford-Smith
Keyword(s):  
South African ◽  
Business School ◽  
Cape Town ◽  
African History ◽  
Surrounding Area ◽  
History Of ◽  
University Of Cape Town ◽  
The University

I spent some time contemplating what you might find particularly interesting about the history of the Waterfront, until I learnt that many of you are staying at hotels on Portswood Road, and that the conference itself is at the Breakwater campus of the University of Cape Town (UCT.) This persuaded me to use the history of the crenellated building that dominates Portswood Ridge, and forms the heart of the UCT Business School campus, to talk about a number of important themes in the history of the country you have chosen for your latest conference. Just over one hundred years ago, that building came into existence as The Industrial Breakwater Prison. It was an addition to the original convict station that lay further down Portswood Road towards the sea. There are perhaps four particularly important ways in which this building, and its surrounding area, were connected to significant moments or processes in South Africa's past: the development of Cape Town's harbor, colonial conquest and resistance, the development of a diamond industry and, yes, the origins of apartheid. How so?

Strategic and Socio-Economic Explanations for Carnarvon's South African Confederation Policy: the Historiography and the Evidence

1986 ◽  
Vol 13 ◽  
pp. 13-34 ◽  
Author(s):  
R.L. Cope
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
South African ◽  
White Supremacy ◽  
African History ◽  
Forward Movement ◽  
Standard Work ◽  
Cape Peninsula ◽  
Black Resistance ◽  
History Of

Although Carnarvon's attempt to unite South Africa in the 1870s was a failure, the forward movement represented by his “confederation policy” marks an important turning point in South African history. The destruction of the Zulu and the Pedi polities, which resulted directly from the confederation scheme, together with the last Cape frontier war and a rash of smaller conflicts, constituted the virtual end of organized black resistance in the nineteenth century and the beginning of untrammelled white supremacy. Britain's annexation of the Transvaal in 1877, which Carnarvon had hoped would be the decisive move towards confederation, instead set the scene for the conflict between Boer and Briton which dominated the history of the last two decades of the nineteenth century in South Africa.Carnarvon's confederation scheme had important effects, but there is little agreement on its causes. The author of the standard work on the subject, Clement Goodfellow, took the view that Carnarvon's interest in South Africa arose essentially from its strategic importance within the empire as a whole. The Cape lay athwart the vital sea-route to Britain's eastern possessions, and confederation was designed, in Goodfellow's words, “to erect from the chaos of the subcontinent a strong, self-governing, and above all loyal Dominion behind the essential bastion at Simon's Bay.” This view, or some variant of it, sometimes with “Simonstown” or “Cape Town” or “the naval bases” or “the Cape peninsula” substituted for “Simon's Bay,” has been widely accepted and now appears as a matter of fact in the most recent and widely used general accounts of South African history.

scholarly journals South African History and Subaltern Historiography: Ideas for a Radical History of White Folk

2016 ◽  
Vol 61 (1) ◽  
pp. 117-150 ◽  
Author(s):  
Neil Roos
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
South African ◽  
Social History ◽  
Research Agenda ◽  
African History ◽  
Subaltern Studies ◽  
Starting Point ◽  
The Everyday ◽  
History Of ◽  
Radical History

AbstractIn considering how “radical” histories of ordinary whites under apartheid might be written, this essay engages with several traditions of historical scholarship “from” and “of” below. For three decades, Marxist-inspired social history dominated radical historiography in South Africa. It has, however, proved little able to nurture historiography of whites that is politically engaged and acknowledges post-Marxist currents in the discipline. I advocate a return to theory and suggest that new sources may be drawn from the academy and beyond. Historiographies “of” below need not necessarily be historiographies “from” below and this article proposes the idea of a “racial state” as an alternative starting point for a history of apartheid-era whites. It goes on to argue that Subaltern Studies, as a dissident, theoretically eclectic and interdisciplinary current in historiography offers useful perspectives for exploring the everyday lives of whites in South Africa. After suggesting a research agenda stemming from these theoretical and comparative insights, I conclude by reflecting on the ethics of writing histories of apartheid-era whites.

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