Matric History: Independent Africa (Angola, Congo) and South Africa 1970s & 1980s

For many years, UNITA leader Jonas Savimbi was known for his charisma, charm and brio: he convinced millions of his fellow countrymen and also international statesmen that he was Angola's and the West's best hope for democratic rule. More than 30 years after writing a sympathetic biography of Savimbi, Fred Bridgland sets the record straight. Based on new evidence that has come to light, he reveals the rebel leader's murderous legacy. In the 1970s and 1980s, when Angola was a hotbed of the Cold War, few people would have believed that Savimbi was a manipulative and paranoid tyrant prepared to kill anyone he viewed as a threat to his power. Tito Chingunji, the brilliant young foreign secretary of Savimbi's UNITA movement, who approached Bridgland to write the original biography in the early 1980s, risked his life to help Bridgland tell the true story of what was going on behind the scenes. This is an account of the intense friendship that developed between the two men, the adventures they shared and the terrifying challenges they faced as they revealed Savimbi's true face.

Read more less

FINALIST FOR THE CUNDILL PRIZE FOR HISTORY ‘Not only deserves the description “epic”, in its true sense, but the term “masterpiece” as well’ Independent This gripping epic tells the story of one of the world’s most critical failed nation-states: the Democratic Republic of Congo. Interweaving his own family’s history with the voices of a diverse range of individuals – charismatic dictators, feuding warlords, child soldiers, and many in the African diaspora of Europe and China – Van Reybrouck offers a deeply humane approach to political history, focusing squarely on the Congolese perspective and returning a nation’s history to its people.

Read more less

'If Steve Biko were alive today, we would have a country that gladly embraces African culture as the dominant driving force for how society is organised ...' In 1968, two young medical students, Steve Biko and Mamphela Ramphele, fell in love while dreaming of a life free from oppression and racial discrimination. Their love story is also the story of the founding of the Black Consciousness Movement (BCM) by a group of 15 principled and ambitious students at the University of Natal in Durban in the early 1970s. In this deeply personal book, Hlumelo Biko, who was born of Steve and Mamphela's union, movingly recounts his parents' love story and how the BCM's message of black self-love and self-reliance helped to change the course of South African history. Based on interviews with some of the BCM's founding members, Black Consciousness describes the early years of the movement in vivid detail and sets out its guiding principles around a positive black identity, black theology and the practice of Ubuntu through community-based programmes. In spiritual conversation with his father, Hlumelo re-examines what it takes to live a Black Consciousness life in today's South Africa. He also explains why he believes his father - who was brutally murdered by the apartheid police in 1977 - would have supported true radical economic transformation if he were alive today.

Read more less

1986 was a pivotal year in South African history. It was the year of the vigilante, the year of the necklace – but also the year the talking began.Drawing on newspaper articles, memoirs, and little-known histories, William Dicey presents a compelling diary of a very bad year. He focuses on ordinary people, showing what life was actually like under an authoritarian regime – from the six hours a day that black workers in KwaNdebele spent on buses to the rebel sporting tours that provided a distraction for white South Africans. Some stories foreshadow the miracle of 1990 – for instance, the deputy commander of Pollsmoor Prison takes Nelson Mandela on a scenic drive around Cape Town, years before his eventual release. Other stories shine a light on our current conflicts. Written in crisp prose, 1986 is a model of historical excavation, deftly evoking the spirit of the times.

Read more less