Bill Nasson
Bill Nasson is an Emeritus Professor in History at Stellenbosch University. He studied at the Universities of Hull and York in Britain and obtained his PhD from the University of Cambridge. He worked at UCT from 1982 until 2009 and before joining Stellenbosch was the King George V Professor of History at UCT. He has held visiting fellowships at Yale University, the University of Ilinois, the Australian National University and the University of Cambridge. In 2011 he was the Leverhulme Visiting Professor in History at the University of Kent. He is a former editor of the Journal of African History and co-editor of The Cambridge History of South Africa, Vol.2 (2011). He serves on the editorial board of the International Encyclopaedia of the First World War. In 2011 he won the Recht Malan Prize for Best Non-Fiction for The War in South Africa: The Anglo-Boer War 1899-1902, which was also shortlisted for the Alan Paton Award. He specialises in the history of war and society and his works have been translated to Dutch, German, French and Italian.
Die Kaapse slawe, 1652–1838: ’n Kultuurhistoriese perspektief by Eunice Bauermeester: book review
2022-12-12"While never sugar-coating the 'pynlike en onmenslike' practice of enslavement, Eunice Visser’s massively researched epic is a humane and haunting testimony to the unique contribution of the Cape slave experience to South Africa’s national life – the old pulse of a 'multikulturele sosiale milieu'."
kykNET-Rapportprys vir niefiksie 2022: Van Humpata tot Upingtonia deur Nicol Stassen
2022-09-24"Net soms verskyn daar ’n boek wat heeltemal ongewoon en uitsonderlik is. Nicol Stassen se Van Humpata tot Upingtonia is só ’n kultuurprestasie."
Lansdowne dearest: My family’s story of forced removals by Bronwyn Davids – a book review
2022-09-21"What makes Bronwyn Davids’s story so interesting and engaging a read is the vigour and vividness with which she recreates the ups and downs of life within the circle of her nearest and dearest in and around her Lansdowne family home."
A home on Vorster Street: A memoir by Razina Theba: a book review
2022-05-10"But it is to be commended for the scrupulous directness with which it recounts the idiosyncrasies of multigenerational living, and for what it reveals about the making of one contemporary South African memory and about how we create the stories we tell about ourselves."
Ukraine’s nightmare: The Russian Bear and its history
2022-04-06"Can a Russia without Ukraine be the Russia it thinks it should be?"
Dreaming of freedom in South Africa by David Johnson: a book review
2021-02-03"What gives his book its especially concentrated quality is its microscopic examination of a body of ideological fragments – visionary novels, poems, pamphlets, manifestos and other documents – some of them fairly trivial, it could be said. These direct our attention to an alternative tradition of South African political literature, enthusiastically radical in its stance and resolutely internationalist in its inspirational reach."
The Afrikaners: a concise history by Hermann Giliomee: a book review
2020-12-18"Now running to just over 200 pages, and wearing his immense learning much more lightly, the author’s new Concise history is more of a tapas-trek through the topic than his original pièce de résistance."
Prisoner 913: The release of Nelson Mandela by Riaan de Villiers and Jan-Ad Stemmet
2020-10-01"A detailed and intricately plotted reconstruction of the actions surrounding the eventual release of Nelson Mandela from prison, Riaan de Villiers and Jan-Ad Stemmet’s Prisoner 913 has some of the attributes of a good political or contemporary historical thriller – atmosphere, suspense, intrigue, surprise and double-dealing."
Watch where you walk – even the statues have feet of clay
2020-07-01"As with us, and those who preceded us, the time will come to face those perennial and large historical questions – who and what are we as a country and a nation? What have we been? Where are we heading?"
Book review: Verwoerd: My journey through family betrayals by Wilhelm Verwoerd
2019-09-18"Ultimately, it is about coming to terms with being the grandson of Hendrik Verwoerd."
A man of Africa. The political thought of Harry Oppenheimer: book review
2017-08-21"Kalim Rajab’s collection is a readable and even-handed account of Harry Oppenheimer as a reticent philosopher-capitalist, leading readers to view him within the limits and possibilities of his time, and to appreciate in hindsight the flawed nature of his legacy."
Jan Smuts: Afrikaner sonder grense by Richard Steyn – a book review
2017-04-07"At the heart of this absorbing portrait – within a ribcage that contains much else – lies the enigmatic contradiction of Smuts, a revolving mask that his latest biographer does a good job of lifting."
A meeting with PW Botha
2017-03-06"This is how I once met PW Botha. An odd episode, it was in the Cape Town suburb of Plumstead in 1971, or about halfway during his long term as South Africa’s scowling minister of defence."
Book review: In Our Own Skins: A Political History of the Coloured People
2016-01-19"In our own skins: Comfortable or itchy, but stuck with it."
