The Oxford History of South Africa


The Oxford History of South Africa is a two volume history of South Africa published by Clarendon Press in 1969 and 1971. The publication of the work marked a watershed in the historiography of South Africa by for the first time giving indigenous Africans a central role in the history of the country.

Background

Until the 1960s, the history of South Africa was predominantly seen through a white colonialist lens that concentrated on white political history since the beginning of European settlement and tended to ignore earlier events and the history of the black majority. It was also a history written predominantly by whites and taught in white-dominated universities.

Volumes