336pp.,b/w & colour illus., maps, paperback, Cape Town, 2020

Describes how the Khoisan and Xhosa people were dispossessed and subjugated from the time that Europeans first arrived until the end of the Cape Frontier Wars (1799-1878).

"Told from the perspective of loss of land, this book opens a new chapter in our reimagination of the past, illuminating the characters of resistance over a period of a hundred years, and making sense of today's reality. This is truly an excellent book." Tembeka Ngcukaitobi, author of The Land is Ours

"This book puts the current debates on land reform in South Africa in their proper historical - and bloody - context. It is a triumphant achievement from a master historian and a master storyteller." Bongani Ngqulunga, author of The Man Who Founded the ANC

"This book is an immensely readable and valuable account of a brutal process - the conquest and dispossession of the Khoisan and amaXhosa on the frontiers of colonial expansion during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries ... it is a timely reminder of the centrality of land as a source of power, wealth and conflict in South African society." Nigel Penn, author of The Forgotten Frontier: colonist and Khoisan on the Cape's northern frontier in the 18th century

John Laband is Professor Emeritus of History, Wilfrid Laurier University, Canada, a research associate in the Department of History, University of  Stellenbosch, and a fellow of the University of KwaZulu-Natal. His recent books include The Assassination of King Shaka, The Battle of Majuba Hill: the Transvaal Campaign 1880-1881 and The Eight Zulu Kings from Shaka to Goodwill Zwelithini.