The Oxford Handbook of South African History

by Magaziner, Daniel

• ISBN13: 9780190921767
• ISBN10: 0190921765
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2026-03-13
• Publisher: Oxford University Press

Summary

In the late 20th century, South Africa was the focal point of the one of the most contentious political struggles of the post-colonial era. Now a generation removed from the end of apartheid, the country has established a democratic political system, while at the same time grappling with the major issues of the 21st century, including globalization, economic inequality, regional conflicts, and climate change.

This narrative has often been told through the lens of the colonial era, with a heavy emphasis on the political context. The Oxford Handbook of South African History tells this story by cultivating new directions in scholarship that continue to revise how we understand the South African past. Scholars and students in this field have pushed for a history of the country that is more open to new voices, and more receptive to those who have been the most affected by the rapid changes in the last few decades. Thus, rather than providing a standard chronological history, the Handbook's thematic approach explores the connections between the precolonial era, the age of empire, and the modern age. These chapters are bookended by an ambitious opening section on historiography, and a closing section that discusses the impact of the past on timely issues such as HIV/AIDS, land reform, and post-apartheid reconciliation. In doing so, the Handbook sets a new standard for synthetic histories of the region.

Author Biography

Daniel Magaziner teaches South African, African and Global history at Yale University. A specialist in intellectual and cultural history, he has written three books published both in the United States and South Africa: The Law and the Prophets: Black Consciousness in South Africa, 1968 - 1977 (Ohio University Press / Jacana Media, 2010); The Art of Life in South Africa (Ohio University Press / University of KwaZulu-Natal Press, 2016); and Available Light: Omar Badsha and the Struggle to Change South Africa (Ohio University Press (2024) / Jacana Media (2025)). He lives in Brooklyn, New York.

Table of Contents

Part I. Historiographical Orientations

1. Intuiting the Archive: When the Women Are Unidentified
Athambile Masola

2. Historical Memory-Making in South Africa
Robyn Autry

3. Queering South African History
Zintombizethu Matebeni and Peace Kiguwa

4. South African Environmental Histories
Jonathan Cane

Part II. Sources and Methods for Deeper Pasts

5. Archaeology and History of the Subcontinent: Unraveling the South African Past
Foreman Bandama

6. Trade, Slavery, and Islam in the Cape Colony
Saarah Jappie

7. The Politics of Chiefs and Commoners Before the 1830s
Raevin Jimenez

8. Mobility Histories of the Northern Cape in the Long 19th century
Andrea Rosegarten

Part III. Creativity, Conflict, and Cataclysm in the 19th Century

9. Settler Colonialism in the Eastern Cape and Beyond, 1800-1880s
Anne Kelk Mager

10. Conquest, Continuity, and Creation: Contesting Identities in Nineteenth-Century Natal
T.J. Tallie

11. Race and the Making of South African Christianity
Elizabeth Elbourne

12. South African Urbanization and Industrialization to 1948
Jonathan Hyslop

Part IV. Disunited South Africa

13. South African War, Union, Segregation
Goolam Vahed

14. Between Splitting and Lumping: The Naming and Framing of Coloureds and Indians Before Apartheid
Ashwin Desai and Goolam Vahed

15. Translators, Translation, and Literature in Nineteenth- and Twentieth-Century South Africa
Hlonipha Mokoena

16. Settler-colonial Nationalism and the Politics of Land, Labour, and Language in the Nineteenth-century Cape Colony: Towards an Alternative Afrikaner Biography
Mariana Kriel

17. "New African" Culture and Sociopolitical Life in Early to Mid Twentieth-Century South Africa
Janet Remmington

Part V. The 20th-century Racial State and Its Antagonists

18. Segregated Landscapes in South Africa, 1800-1994
Tara Weinberg

19. Afrikaner Nationalism and White Politics, 1910-1948
Albert Grundlingh

20. The Nazaretha, Zionists, and Other Rebels in Segregated South Africa
Lauren V. Jarvis

21. "African Redemption": Transnational Prophesies of Deliverance in Segregationist South Africa
Robert Trent Vinson

22. African Nationalism, Non-Racialism, and Pan-Africanism
Jon Dylan Soske

23. Women and Popular Politics in Twentieth-Century South Africa
Meghan Healy-Clancy

24. The Apartheid Project
Stephen Sparks

25. Cultural Histories of South Africa
Liz Gunner

Part VI. Struggles, Victories, and Compromises

26. The Rise and Demise of Cross-Cultural Artistic Expression and Interracial Creative Collaboration, circa 1920-1970
Vusumuzi R. Kumalo and Benjamin N. Lawrance

27. Political Violence and the Liberation Movements: 1960-1990
Thula Simpson

28. Different Faces of Exile: The International Dimensions of South African History and Historiography after 1948
Christopher J. Lee

29. The Historiography of the South African Sports Boycott
Sean Jacobs

30. Apartheid and the Bantustans: From Reserves to Reincorporation
Laura Evans

31. Comparative Student Movements in South Africa: Social Movement Theory Perspectives
Xolela Mangcu and Anne K. Heffernan

32. Rethinking Representations of Trade Unionism in South Africa
Camalita Naicker

33. Christianity, Islam, and the Antiapartheid Movement
Phillippe Denis

34. Politics and Youth in 1980s South Africa
Emily Bridger

35. Compromise, Conflict, and Promise in the Making of South African Democracy
Faeeza Ballim and Jill Kelly

Part VII. The Presence of the Past

36. South Africa in Africa, from Apartheid to Post-Apartheid
Olusola Ogunnubi

37. Health Justice, Activism, and the Crisis of HIV/AIDS in South Africa
Mandisa Mbali

38. Land and Reparation Politics and Policy after Apartheid
Thuto Thipe

39. Post-Apartheid Politics in South Africa: Caught between Dominance and Betrayal
Sisonke Msimang