A History of South Africa

Okay, he was my dissertation advisor. Sorry! But Thompson’s is a concise, perceptive, and readable one-volume history of the great country, a splendid introduction. Born and raised in South Africa, the late Thompson was a Rhodes Scholar before seeing extensive service in World War II. Like so many talented South Africans from many fields, he went into exile around 1960 when the apartheid regime moved toward a no-holds-barred stranglehold on all opposition. This was his last book, and in it he distills a lifetime of research, teaching and experience. The fourth edition has an update and new preface by Lynn… show more.

Thompson, professor of history at Yale University between 1969 and 1986, became the dean of South African historians, and his text remains the best one-volume history of South Africa. His early chapters provide the essential context for understanding the imperial subjugation of southern Africa in the nineteenth century, especially “The White Invaders,” “African Wars and White Invaders:  Southeast Africa, 1770-1870,” and “Diamonds, Gold and British Imperialism, 1870-1910.”