South African history will never be the same again ... Shunning the predictable, Max du Preez has put on his investigative journalist’s cap and examined our past from a fresh perspective. The result is a collection of extraordinary and mostly unknown stories, all meticulously researched and written in an engaging and lively style. Instead of regurgitating the story of Jan van Riebeeck’s arrival at the Cape, he tells the tales of a Portuguese viscount killed on a Cape beach in 1510, of the Khoikhoi chief who was kidnapped and taken to England in 1610, and of the saucy goings-on between slave women and their European settler lovers. There’s the story of King Moshoeshoe’s remarkable conduct when cannibals ate his beloved grandfather, and Shaka’s sexuality is explored via his relationship with his mother and the woman who loved him without ever touching him. Sidestepping the old clichés about the Anglo-Boer War, Du Preez recounts the story of an Afrikaner broedertwis - General Christiaan de Wet and his brother Piet, who joined the British forces and fought his own people. The reader is taken through every stage of our history, up to the story of apartheid South Africa’s nuclear bombs, and the secret dealings and intrigue during the negotiations leading up to the 1994 elections. This is South African history as you’ve never seen it before: a colourful mosaic of our rich heritage.

The sequel to the bestselling Of Warriors, Lovers and Prophets, this is a collection of more fascinating, colourful - and mostly unknown - historical tales, all meticulously researched and written in a lively and engaging style. There are stories of Khoikhoi who tried - with mixed fortunes - to integrate into early Cape colonial society, and eccentric Europeans who ventured to the turbulent interior. Readers will meet the Xhosa mystic and war-doctor Makhanda, who nearly succeeded in taking Grahamstown from the British in 1819; and the chieftainess Mantatisi, who led her people to military victories during the upheavals of the nineteenth century. Also featured are the Johannesburg-based Foster Gang, who were indirectly responsible for the killing of Boer hero Koos de la Rey; and the men who pulled off the biggest jewellery heist of the time, stealing Bridget Oppenheimer’s jewels in 1956. Of Tricksters, Tyrants and Turncoats spans more than three hundred years of history, concluding with an account of the man who exposed South Africa’s controversial arms deal. Once again, Max du Preez brings the past to life, proving that history can be more interesting - and more fun - than fiction.

The 1936 Berlin Olympics brought together athletes, politicians, socialites, journalists, soldiers and artists from all over the world. But behind the scenes, they were a dress rehearsal for the horrors of the forthcoming conflict. Hitler had secretly decided the Games would showcase Nazi prowess and the unwitting athletes became helpless pawns in his sinister political game. Berlin Games explores the machinations of a wide cast of characters, including sexually incontinent Nazis, corrupt Olympic officials, transvestite athletes and the mythic figure of Jesse Owens. By illuminating the dark, controversial recesses of the world's greatest sporting spectacle, Guy Walters throws shocking new light on the whole of Europe's troubled pre-war period.

At the outbreak of the Second Anglo-Boer War in 1899, a large number of Hollanders and Dutch expatriates joined the Boers, their reasons ranging from loyalty to their common ancestry to strong anti-British sentiments and a search for adventure. Brothers in Arms documents the trials and tribulations of these volunteers – most of them unaccustomed to the harsh landscape and climate of South Africa. Quotations and personal anecdotes from their diaries and memoirs vividly bring to life their hardships on commando, the thunder and chaos of battle, and the trauma of comrades falling around them. Some of the prominent figures in the book are Cornelius van Gogh, brother of the painter Vincent van Gogh; the Dutch artist Frans Oerder, who became the Transvaal’s first official war artist; Jochem van Bruggen, four-times winner of the coveted Hertzog Prize for Afrikaans literature; and Rev. Herman van Broekhuizen, who played rugby for South Africa in 1896 and later served as South African ambassador in The Hague. Brothers in Arms covers the full spectrum of the Hollanders’ roles as soldiers at the various battle fronts, ambulance personnel and military attachés, and their life in prisoner-of-war camps overseas.

Informative and portable, this guide offers a brief yet lively introduction to the life and reign of Shaka Zulu, the most influential leader of South Africa’s Zulu Kingdom. As it challenges the previous historiography of the early king, this account reassesses the white resources and delves into a large body of previously-neglected Zulu historical records. Revealing a complex, tough leader—who was neither illegitimate nor sexually deviant, neither mass murderer nor seamlessly successful military genius—this handbook sheds light on the existing myths surrounding Shaka and reconsiders his place in South African history.

Abraham and Constand Viljoen were identical twins who took starkly different paths in life. One was a deeply religious man, who opposed apartheid; the other was a man of war, who became head of the SADF. But together they would play a crucial role in preventing South Africa from descending into civil war. In the early 1990s, Constand came out of retirement to head the Afrikaner Volksfront, which opposed the negotiations with the ANC and made plans for military action. Realising that war would destroy their country, Abraham approached his estranged brother and urged him to consider the alternative: talks with the ANC. What followed was a series of secret meetings and negotiations that ultimately prevented civil war. Brothers in War and Peace documents the crucial yet largely unheralded role the Viljoen brothers played in ensuring peace in South Africa. Based on interviews with the brothers and other key political figures, the book gives new insights into a time when the country’s future was on a knife-edge.

This collection contains true accounts of people, events and incidents that shaped the future of South Africa. Now no longer skewered by political agendas, they may be correctly told, bringing history back into balance.

In 1992, a gang leader was shot dead by an ANC member in Kroonstad. The murder weapon was then hidden on Antjie Krog’s stoep. In Begging to Be Black, Krog begins by exploring her position in this controversial case. From there the book ranges widely in scope, both in time - reaching back to the days of Basotho king Moshoeshoe - and in space - as we follow Krog’s experiences as a research fellow in Berlin, far from the Africa that produced her. Begging to Be Black is a book of journeys - moral, historical, philosophical and geographical. These form strands that Krog interweaves and sets in conversation with each other, as she explores questions of change and becoming, coherency and connectedness, before drawing them closer together as the book approaches its powerful end. Experimental and courageous, Begging to Be Black is a welcome addition to Krog’s own oeuvre and to South African literary non-fiction.

Max du Preez has one hell of a story to tell. In his career as a renegade reporter, he’s survived three dismissals, seven libel suits, thirteen criminal cases, four aeroplane crashes, a bombing, two assassination attempts and was a regular on right-wing hit lists. He was in Soweto on 16 June 1976, witnessed the debauched parties of apartheid cabinet ministers, and stepped over dead bodies in a bombed Angolan village. He looked into apartheid killer Dirk Coetzee’s eyes and published his story of police death squads, and when he visited Vlakplaas himself, he was lucky to get out alive. Max is best known as founder and editor of the Afrikaans newspaper Vrye Weekblad, and for his weekly television report on the Truth Commission and the programme Special Assignment. His story takes you on a remarkable journey, from the contradictions of history to the triumphs and troubles of the present, from the halls of parliament to the desert of Namibia, from burning townships to the headquarters of covert operations. You’ll meet generals and guerrillas, presidents and hit men. And its all reported with the straight-shooting, uncompromising, outspoken frankness that has won him admiration and got him into trouble with the new government as well as the old. Pale Native is a story filled with drama, about the risks of investigative journalism in the front line. It’s controversial, because Max, as always, is not afraid to expose what others want hidden from view. It’s insightful, giving a fascinating analysis of southern African politics from a skilled reporter who has seen it first hand.

This book highlights original and traditional African strategies for conflict resolution, based on four Basotho cultural concepts: namely, Botho (or unity of being), Pula (or universalism), Khotso (or communalism), and Nala (or humanism). In doing so, it provides the missing psychological and African cultural pieces in the puzzle of conflict and conflict resolution This paradigm, “AfroSymbiocity”, is Sub-Saharan African in scope, but will have universal relevance. The book transcends theory by demonstrating the application of traditional African peace and conflict resolution strategies through considering a historical personage, King Moshoeshoe, who effectively used authentic African conflict resolution strategies to forge harmony in Southern Africa, in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The book represents a major contribution to research and literature in peace and conflict studies, and will be vital for students, researchers, and professionals in peace studies, national and international decision makers, and bodies which strive for world peace.