MAVERICK AFRICANS, the shaping of the Afrikaners

326pp., paperback, Cape Town, 2020

Historian Hermann Giliomee analyses historical forces that have shaped the Afrikaner nation, like the legal position of Afrikaner women, the expanding frontier that gave rise to individualism and republicanism, the struggles around race inside the Dutch Reformed Church, the alleged civil service purges after 1948, the Nationalist corruption, the 'Absa lifeboat' and the quality of Afrikaner leadership.

"One need not agree with all of Giliomee's contentions to be impressed by the fairness of his judgements and the quality of his writing." Richard Steyn, Financial Mail

Hermann Giliomee was born in the Eastern Cape in 1938. He was Professor in Political Studies at the University of Cape Town from 1983 to 1998. From 1995 to 1997 he was President of the South African Institute of Race Relations. He is currently an extraordinary professor and research associate in the Department of History at the University of Stellenbosch. Giliommee was a Fellow at Yale, Cambridge and the Woodrow Wilson Center in Washington DC. His books include The Afrikaners - biography of a people, The Last Afrikaner Leaders and The Rise and Demise of the Afrikaners.