• Abyss: The Cuban Missile Crisis 1962

    Max Hastings, Abyss: The Cuban Missile Crisis 1962 (London: William Collins, 2022) IT is generally agreed that the Cuban missile crisis of October 1962 was the closest the planet has come in the nuclear age […]

     
  • Shutting down civil liberties in South Africa

    OVER the years the South African definition of long weekend has expanded. Traditionally, it involved a Monday or Friday public holiday. But nowadays only a rare Wednesday holiday does not create a long weekend. President […]

     
  • Farm Killings in South Africa

    Nechama Brodie, Farm Killings in South Africa (Cape Town: Kwela Books, 2022) AMONG some white South Africans there is a belief that a genocide (volksmoord) is being perpetrated against them and showing up as an […]

     
  • Fruit of a Poisoned Tree

    Antony Altbeker, Fruit of a Poisoned Tree: A True Story of Murder and the Miscarriage of Justice (Johannesburg: Jonathan Ball, new ed., 2022) IN Stellenbosch in 2005 a 22-year-old student, Inge Lotz, was fatally beaten […]