This is a full-color, illustrated, super condensed history of South Africa from prehistoric times to the present. 3.5 billion years of South African history is condensed into 18,000 words and 140 pictures. In this unique potted history, Francis Wilson takes you from prehistoric times when dinosaurs infinitely older than the Jurassic juveniles ruled the subcontinent, to the time when mankind's ancestors first saw beyond the boundaries that separate the animal kingdom from humankind, to the earthbound cultures of the first peoples, to the arrival of southbound peoples from deepest Africa and the landing of pale people on the shores, to the ensuing conflicts over centuries, to the discovery of the planet's treasure trove underneath the soil, to the wealth that built modern South Africa, with all of its shadows, and to the most fabled triumph of freedom in modern history. This is a lavishly illustrated, full-color, small-format guide, with loads of additional nuggets on the side.
Author Biography
Francis Wilson was trained in Physics (UCT) and Economics (Cambridge). For the past 38 years, he has led and teaches in the School of Economics at UCT, apart from sabbaticals in Lyon (working in a lorry factory), Sussex (IDS), Balliol, New Delhi (JNU), Harvard, All Souls and Princeton. In 1975 he founded SALDRU, the Southern Africa Labour & Development Research Unit which he directed until 2000 when he started Data First, a resource unit for Information Research & Scientific Training.
