Recent Posts

  • Nuclear Armageddon

    IT’S exactly sixty years since the Cuban missile crisis ‒ known to Russians as the Caribbean crisis. The climax lasted thirteen days and historians judge it to be the closest the world has come to […]

     
  • The Sting in the Tale: Bulelani Ngcuka

    Marion Sparg, The Sting in the Tale: Bulelani Ngcuka (Johannesburg: Jonathan Ball, 2022) PREDCTABLY, this book opens with a question: why if there was a prima facie case of corruption against Jacob Zuma as a […]

     
  • A country run by thugs

    FEW people outside Tshwane (Pretoria) will have heard of Kalafong Hospital in Atteridgeville. But it recently, and surprisingly briefly, hit the headlines when a neo-fascist vigilante outfit calling itself Operation Dudula (force out in Zulu) […]

     
  • From Georgian to Elizabethan and now Carolean

    ONE does not need to be an ardent monarchist, or even a very tepid one, to recognise the significance of the end of the 70-year-long reign of Elizabeth Regina. Its events have framed my life […]

     
  • Spoilt Ballots: The Elections that Shaped South Africa from Shaka to Cyril

    Matthew Blackman and Nick Dall, Spoilt Ballots: The Elections that Shaped South Africa from Shaka to Cyril (Johannesburg: Penguin, 2022) THERE are numerous points in this book where it feels as if journalists Matthew Blackman […]

     
  • State capture report … what next?

    POST-APARTHEID South Africa has produced some first-class heroes. Two of them are former Public Protector Thuli Madonsela and current Chief Justice Raymond Zondo. It was Madonsela’s work investigating the corruption of Jacob Zuma’s administration that […]

     
  • The Betrayal of Anne Frank: A Cold Case Investigation

    Rosemary Sullivan, The Betrayal of Anne Frank: A Cold Case Investigation (London: William Collins, 2022) ANNE Frank, author of the famous diary about life in hiding in wartime Amsterdam, was arrested on 4 August 1944, […]

     
  • Clare: The Killing of a Gentle Activist

    Christopher Clark, Clare: The Killing of a Gentle Activist (Cape Town: Tafelberg, 2022) THERE is a myth that still circulates out there, one of legions about South Africa’s history: that the transition from apartheid to […]

     
  • Count me out … the census that wasn’t

    APPARENTLY, earlier this year South Africa held a decennial national census. Well, so we thought. In tune with the times, I registered us online and identified our house on Google Maps. Then, in spite of […]

     
  • Nuclear: Inside South Africa’s Secret Deal

    Karyn Maughan and Kirsten Pearson, Nuclear: Inside South Africa’s Secret Deal (Cape Town: Tafelberg, 2022) ONE of several wives of the president tries to poison him at the behest of the CIA, but he is […]