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This is the first general history of the concentration camps of the Anglo-Boer or South African War in over fifty years, and the first to use in depth the very rich and extensive official documents in South African and British archives. It provides a fresh perspective on a topic that has understandably aroused huge emotions because of the great numbers of Afrikaners, especially women and children, who died in the camps. This fascinating social history overturns many of the previously held assumptions and conclusions on all sides, and is sure to stimulate debate. Rather than viewing the camps simply as the product of the scorched-earth policies of the war, the author sets them in the larger context of colonialism at the end of the 19th century, arguing that British views on poverty, poor relief and the management of colonial societies all shaped their administration. The book also attempts to explain why the camps were so badly administered in the first place, and why reform was so slow, suggesting that divided responsibility, ignorance, political opportunism and a failure to understand the needs of such institutions all played their part.
During the Anglo-Boer War, the conflict between the British and the Boers spilled over from the battlefield to the farmsteads of the Orange Free State and the Transvaal. The internment of women and children in concentration camps was part of a total war waged by the British Empire not only against the republican forces, but also civilians. The War at Home explores the causes and the character of these tragic wartime experiences.
This electronic version has been made available under a Creative Commons (BY-NC-ND) open access license. From the height of colonialism in the mid-nineteenth century, through to the aftermath of the Second World War, nurses have been at the heart of colonial projects. They were ideally placed to insinuate the ‘improving’ culture of their employers into the local communities they served, and travelled in droves to far-flung parts of the globe to serve their country. Issues of gender, class and race permeate this book, as the complex relationships between nurses, their medical colleagues, governments and the populations they nursed are examined in detail, using case studies which draw on exciting new sources. Many of the chapters are based on first-hand accounts of nurses and reveal that not all were motivated by patriotic vigour or altruism, but went out in search of adventure. The book will be an essential read for colonial historians, as well as historians of gender and ethnicity.
This history of the poor of Sub-Saharan Africa begins in the monasteries of thirteenth-century Ethiopia and ends in the South African resettlement sites of the 1980s. Its thesis, derived from histories of poverty in Europe, is that most very poor Africans have been individuals incapacitated for labour, bereft of support, and unable to fend for themselves in a land-rich economy. There has emerged the distinct poverty of those excluded from access to productive resources. Natural disaster brought widespread destitution, but as a cause of mass mortality it was almost eliminated in the colonial era, to return to those areas where drought has been compounded by administrative breakdown. Professor...
Martin Greshoff writes about the book he has created that contains photographs by Jan Greshoff of the iconic neighbourhood of District Six and the memoirs of some of those who lived there before it was destroyed by the apartheid regime.My uncle, Jan Greshoff, was an architect who worked in Cape Town, South Africa, from the 1960s to the 1980s. He was a private and modest man and didn't talk much about his photography. Jan had no children, and it was only after he died and his wife passed his archive of negatives on to us, his nephews and niece, that we discovered the full extent of his archive. His photographs cover many areas around Cape Town, including District Six.In common with many archi...
A pioneering account of how South Africa's three leading cities were fashioned, experienced, promoted and perceived.
"In 1890s London, the upper class Emily Hobhouse hears that women and children caught in the Boer War are having a difficult time. Concerned, she goes to South Africa ... to investigate and assist. ... [W]hat she finds is disturbing. The British Army is clearing the land and herding hundreds of thousands of people into concentration camps where the conditions are putting their lives at risk. She urges the local authorities to provide better care and support - to no avail. Deeply concerned, she returns to Britain to plead that immediate action be taken. ... She is received with studied indifference by the government and is attacked in the press. Eventually her work saves many lives, but not before tens of thousands have died. ... Though she focussed on a humanitarian cause, her heroic mission could unwittingly have brought down the British government, and her story was smothered. In this book her courageous and inspirational work is once again brought to life."--Back cover.
Stirring language and appeals to collective action were integral to the battles fought to defend empires and to destroy them. These wars of words used rhetoric to make their case. That rhetoric is the subject of this collection of essays exploring the arguments fought over empire in a wide variety of geographic, political, social and cultural contexts. Why did imperialist language remain so pervasive in Britain, France and elsewhere throughout much of the twentieth century? What rhetorical devices did political leaders, administrators, investors and lobbyists use to justify colonial domination before domestic and foreign audiences? How far did their colonial opponents mobilize a different rhetoric of rights and freedoms to challenge them? These questions are at the heart of this collection. Essays range from Theodore Roosevelt's articulation of American imperialism in the early 1900s to the rhetorical battles surrounding European decolonization in the late twentieth century.
A study of alliances between prostitutes and femminists and their clashes with medical authorities and police.