Popular Politics in the History of South Africa, 1400–1948

A history of the politics of South Africa's people from the time of their early settlements in the elevated heartlands to the dawn of apartheid.

Paul S. Landau (Author)

9780521196031, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 20 September 2010

316 pages, 2 b/w illus. 7 maps
24.2 x 16.5 x 2.2 cm, 0.6 kg

'This is a greatly ambitious and remarkably successful book. Landau has confronted most of the challenges now facing southern African historians and proposed resolutions to them. We now see that 'tribe' and 'ethnicity' are constructs dating from no earlier than the nineteenth century. For the first time Landau asks what forms of consciousness and organization preceded them. Landau takes his stand in the Highveld, reaching out both north and south. His book will have to be taken account of by every southern Africanist.' Terence Ranger, Oxford University

Popular Politics in the History of South Africa, 1400–1948 offers an inclusive vision of South Africa's past. Drawing largely from original sources, Paul Landau presents a history of the politics of the country's people, from the time of their early settlements in the elevated heartlands, through the colonial era, to the dawn of Apartheid. A practical tradition of mobilization, alliance, and amalgamation persisted, mutated, and occasionally vanished from view; it survived against the odds in several forms, in tribalisms, Christian assemblies, and other, seemingly hybrid movements; and it continues today. Landau treats southern Africa broadly, concentrating increasingly on the southern Highveld and ultimately focusing on a transnational movement called the 'Samuelites'. He shows how people's politics in South Africa were suppressed and transformed, but never entirely eliminated.

Preface: the birth of the political
1. Eyewitness engagements
2. History before tribes
3. Translations
4. The incipient order
5. Mixed people
6. Twentieth-century tribes.

Subject Areas: African history [HBJH], General & world history [HBG]