O! South Africa

This book covers a concise history of South Africa to the present beginning with unintended colonization by Holland due to a shipwreck near the southern tip of Africa. Between these two markers it touches just briefly on subjects covered more extensively by the author in his book Out of Ashes, the Boers' Struggle for Freedom During the English War 1899-1902. Then it proceeds with the country's political developments. In South Africa, as all over the world where possible, settlements began with husbandry and agriculture. Having been born on and grown up on a farm, the author is salvaging the history of farming methods with the ox, the horse, the mule, and farming implements, all of which have now long ebbed away into the distant past. The apartheid era is covered. The impractical aspect of the theory is well understood, but the author is fair, and also exposes the frequently distorted and ignorant opinions that took hold in the western world, lasting until today. The world did not know, and if it did, it ignored the massive educational programs for millions, and that, were it not for the apartheid governments, South Africa with all its mineral riches, needed in the world, with Russian involvement would be another Cuba today. Throughout pictures, that are indeed worth much more than a thousand words, highlight what is beyond words alone.