African Travel: Recommended Safari Reading material

Suggested Reading prior to an African Safari - Recommended Books on Africa Field Guides

History:
BEINART, William: Twentieth-Century South Africa, Oxford University Press, 1994.
(A succinct and authoritative account by a recognised scholar.)

DeWET, Chistian Rudolf: Three Years War, Constable, 1902.
(A lively account of the South African War 1899-1902 by one of the leading Afrikaner generals.)

HEPPLE, Alexander: Verwoerd, Penguin, 1967
(An excellent biography of the architect of apartheid.)

INNES, Duncan: Anglo American and the Rise of Modern South Africa, Heinemann,1984
(A densely-argued, scholarly analysis of the place and influence of this major industrial conglomerate.)

KRUGER, Rayne: Good-bye Dolly Gray, Pan Books 1974
(A lively and clear account of the Anglo-Boer war. (1899-1902

LODGE, Tom: Black politics in South Africa since 1945, Longman,1983
(A Comprehensive history up to the early years following the Soweto school insurrection of June 1976.)

MOSTERT, Noel: Frontiers, Pimlico, 1991
(The most authoritative and best-written history of the Xhosa and the 19th century frontier wars.)

NASSON, Bill: Abraham Esau's War - A Black South African War in the Cape, 1899-1902, Cambridge University Press, 1991.)
(The part played by Black South Africans in the wars)

O'MEARA, Dan: Volkskapitalisme - Class, capital and ideology in the development of Afrikaner Nationalism 1934-48, Ravan Press, 1983.
Sophisticated Marxist concepts verses economic strength within the Afrikaner community.

PAKENHAM, Thomas, The Boer War, Weidenfeld and Nicholson, 1979.
(One of the best popular accounts of the 1899-1902 war.)

PLAATJE, Solomon: Native Life in South Africa, P S King, London 1916
(An account of a journalist and political agitator during the struggle when black South Africans were forced off their land.)
Reader's Digest Illustrated History of South Africa,1994, Reader's Digest Association.

REITZ, Denys: Commando: A Boer Journal of the Boer War, Faber and Faber,1929.
(A classic Boer account of the South African War 1899 - 1902.)

SIMONS, H J and R E: Class and Colour in South Africa, 1850-1950, Penguin,1969
(A Thorough analysis of the rise of South Africa as an economic power.)

THOMPSON, Leonard: The Political Mythology of Apartheid, Yale University Press,1985 (The ideology underlying Afrikaner nationalism.)

Van ONSELEN, Charles: The seed is mine - The life of Kas Maine, a South African Sharecropper, Hill and Wang, 1996. (A biography of an unknown black South African and the way that racialism distorted a whole society.)

WARWICK, Peter: Black People and the South African War1899-1902, Raven Press, 1983 (The unaccounted role that blacks played in the South African War.)

WHEATCROFT, Geoffrey: The Randlords, Weidenfeld, 1985.
(An entertaining history of the early white mining entrepreneurs.)

WILLAN, Brian: Sol Plaatje, South African Nationalist,1876-1932, Heinemann 1984.
(An early account of black African nationalist development.)

WORDEN, Nigel: The Making of Modern South Africa, Blackwell, 1994.

Personal Accounts:
BIKO, Steve: I Write What I Like, Heinemann, London, 1978.
(A selection of writings)

BREYTENBACH, Breyten: The true Confessions of an Albino Terrorist, Faber, 1984
(A leading Afrikaner author's radical opposition against apartheid.)

CUMMING, R G: Five Years of a hunter%27s Life in the far interior of South Africa, John Murray, 1851.( An entertaining account of a soldier-turned-game-hunter.)

FIRST, Ruth: One Hundred and Seventeen Days, Penguin, 1965
(An Autobiographical account of the prison detention of a journalist and political activist.)

HOOPER, Charles: Brief Authority, Collins, 1960.
(A South African born Missionary relates how apartheid destroyed a peaceful rural community.)

HUDDLESTONE, Trevor: Naught for your Comfort, Hardingham & Donaldson, 1956.
(Father Huddleston's memoir of Sophiatown in the 1950s.)

JACOBSON, Dan: Time and Time Again, Andre Deutsch,1985.
(An account of the early life of a South African-born novelist.)

LELYVELD, Joseph: Move Your Shadow, Michael Joseph, 1986
(1980s South African correspondent of The New York Times newspaper.)

MANDELA, Nelson: Long Walk To Freedom, Little, Brown and Company, 1994.
(Mandela's Autobiography)

MATTERA, Don: Gone With The Twilight, Zed Books,1987.
(A story of Sophiatown)

MODISANE, Bloke: Blame Me on History, Thames & Hudson 1963.
(A personal account of growing up under Apartheid)

PATEL, Essop: The World of Nat Nasaka, Raven Press, 1975.
(Collected writings of great 20th century black South African journalists.)

TROLLOPE, Anthony: South Africa, London, 1877.
(Travels in South Africa during the discovery of diamonds.)

WALLIS, J P R: Fitz - The Story of Sir Fitzpatrick, Macmillan, 1995.
(A Biography of the author of Jock of the Bushveld and political figure in the early days of the union of South Africa.)

WOODS, Donald: Asking For Trouble, Gollancz, 1980.
(The editor of the Daily Dispatch in East London in 1977, when he became subject to a banning order and eventually had to flee the country.)

Culture and Literature:
BOSMAN, Herman Charles: Bosman At His Best; a choice of stories and sketches, culled by Lional Abrahams. Human & Rousseau, 1965 ( Authentic white South African literature focusing on the light side of life of early Afrikaners.)

BRINK, Andre and COETZEE, J M:A Land Apart, A South African Reader, Faber, 1986.(Stories And Poetry.)

COUZENS, Tim and Patel, Essop:The Return Of The Amanzi Bird, Black South African Poetry 1891-1981, Raven Press, 1982. (A key anthology of black South African poetry.)

CRWYS-WILLIAMS, Jennifer: Penguin Dictionary of South African Quotations, Penguin Books 1994

FITSPATRICK, Sir Percy: Jock of the Bushveld, Longmans, Green and Co. 1907. (A gripping account of early life in the lowveld.)

GORDIMER, Nadine: The Essential Gesture, Jonathan Cape,1988. (A collection of her lesser-known political writing - her novels won her the Nobel Literature prize.)

MACLENNAN, Ben: Apartheid, The Lighter Side, Chameleon Press, 1990. ( (The best examples of inadvertent humour during apartheid.)

MALAN, Rian: My Traitor's Heart, Bodly Head, 1990. (A white liberal puts his country under a microscope)

MZAMANE, Mbulelo: Hungry Flames and Other South African short stories, Longman, 1986.

MYEMBEZI, C L S: Zulu Proverbs, Witwatersrand University Press, 1954

PATON, Alan: Cry, The Beloved Country, Jonathan Cape, 1948 (A critical moral indictment of apartheid)

SCHREINER, Olive: The Story of an African Farm, 1883 ( A novel set in the semi-desert region of the Great Karoo.)

SHARPE, Tom: Riotous Assembly, Secker & Warburg, 1971 (His black comedy was hated by the apartheid regime.)

Outdoor and Nature:
ESTES, Richard D: The Safari Companion, Russel Friedmann Books, 1993
(An excellent behavioural guide to watching African Mammals)

HUGHES, HANDS, KENCH et al: South African Wine, Struik,1992

LEVY, Jaynee: Complete Guide to Walks and Trails in South Africa, Struik, 1993

NEWMAN, Kenneth: Newman's Birds of Southern Africa, Southern Book Publishers, 1996

STUART C & T: Field guide to Mammals of Southern Africa, Struik Publishers, 1992
Wild Flowers of South Africa, National Botanical Gardens of South Africa, Kirstenbosch,
Struik Publishers, 1993

VAN WYK, P: Photoguide to Trees of South Africa. Struik Publishers, 1993

RECOMMENDED READING AND COMPANION LIST