Botha, Smuts and the First World War
Antonio Garcia and Ian van der Waag, Botha, Smuts and the First World War (Johannesburg: Jonathan Ball, 2024) MEMORIALS to generals Louis Botha and Jan Smuts have not fared well in recent years; removed or […]
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=Crash and Burn: A CEO’s Crazy Adventures in the SA Airline Industry
Glenn Orsmond, Crash and Burn: A CEO’s Crazy Adventures in the SA Airline Industry (Johannesburg: Jonathan Ball, 2024) FOR nearly thirty years I was regularly told that higher education needed to follow a business model. […]
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=Saving South Africa: Lessons from the uMngeni Municipality Success Story
Chris Pappas and Sandile Mnikathi, Saving South Africa: Lessons from the uMngeni Municipality Success Story (Johannesburg: Pan Macmillan, 2024) IT is hard to imagine two people less alike in appearance. One is white, short and […]
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=Prisoners of Jan Smuts: Italian Prisoners of War in South Africa in WWII
Karen Horn, Prisoners of Jan Smuts: Italian Prisoners of War in South Africa in WWII (Johannesburg: Jonathan Ball, 2024) RELUCTANT soldiers who readily surrendered, then enjoyed a largely contented and creative life in South African […]
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=The First Black Dominican Sisters in Natal (1922‒39): At the Crossroads of Race and Gender
Philippe Denis, The First Black Dominican Sisters in Natal (1922‒39): At the Crossroads of Race and Gender (Pietermaritzburg: University of KwaZulu-Natal Press, 2023) THE KEY event of this book is the rushed and slipshod transfer […]
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=Breaking the Bombers: How the Hunt for Pagad Created a Crack Police Unit
Mark Shaw, Breaking the Bombers: How the Hunt for Pagad Created a Crack Police Unit (Johannesburg: Jonathan Ball, 2023) THE NEGOTIATED political settlement of the early 1990s opened up South Africa in more ways than […]
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=Capture in the Court: In Defence of Judges and the Constitution
Dan Mafora, Capture in the Court: In Defence of Judges and the Constitution (Cape Town: Tafelberg, 2023) THIRTY years down the line from its first democratic elections, the political landscape of South Africa may best […]
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=20 Battles: Searching for a South African Way of War, 1913-2013
Evert Kleynhans and David Brock Katz, 20 Battles: Searching for a South African Way of War, 1913‒2013 (Johannesburg: Delta Books, 2023) THE PURPOSE of this book, written by military scientists and historians, is to identify […]
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=The Thabo Bester Story: The Facebook Rapist, the Celebrity Doctor and the Escape from Cell 35
Marecia Damons and Daniel Steyn, The Thabo Bester Story: The Facebook Rapist, the Celebrity Doctor and the Escape from Cell 35 (Cape Town: Tafelberg, 2023) IT is tempting to regard this story as truth stranger […]
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=Back to the Front: A Memoir
Leon Levy, Back to the Front: A Memoir (Johannesburg: Jacana, 2023) BOOKENDING a life seems an appropriate approach to memoir, although in this case Leon Levy does it unevenly. Born in 1929, he left South […]