Mfecane Aftermath: Reconstructive Debates in Southern African History
About this ebook
Considerable dynamic debate has focused on the idea that this period – the ‘mfecane’- left much of the interior depopulated, thereby justifying white occupation. One view is that ‘the time of troubles’ owed more to the Delagoa Bay Slave trade and the demands of the labour-hungry Cape colonists than to Shaka’s empire building. But is there sufficient evidence to support the argument?
The Mfecane Aftermath investigates the very nature of historical debate and examines the uncertain foundations of much of the previous historiography.
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About the author
Carolyn Hamilton is the South African Research Chair in Archive and Public Culture at the University of Cape Town. She is the author of Terrific Majesty, and co-editor of Refiguring the Archive, The Cambridge History of South Africa and Babel Unbound.
Thomas Dowson was a Researcher in the Rock Art Research Unit, Department of Archeology, University of the Witwatersrand. He is currently Rock Art Research Fellow in the Department of Archeology at the University of Southampton.
Elizabeth Eldredge is Asscciate Professor of History at Michigan State University.
Norman Etherington is Professor of History at the University of Western Australia and a Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences in Australia.
Jan-Bart Gewald is Professor of African History and Director of the African Studies Centre Leiden Leiden University.
Simon Hall is an Associate Professor and Head of the Department of Archaeology at UCT.
Guy Hartley is a PhD candidate in the Department of History at the University of Cape Town.
Margaret Kinsman is an educationalist working in Cape Town. Her research interest is in the southern Tswana 1780-1880, with a particular focus on the social history of the period and the changing position of women
Andrew Manson is Research Professor in the Faculty of Human and Social Sciences, North-West University
John Omer-Cooper was Professor of History at the University of Otago.
Neil Parsons is a freealance writer and former co-editor of the Journal of Southern African Studies.
Jeff Peires is Professor of History at the University of Fort Hare and a former Member of Parliament.
Christopher Saunders is Emeritus Professor in the History department at the University of Cape Town and is involved with the Archive and Public Culture Research Initiative.
Alan Webster was a teacher Stirling High School in East London and at Rhodes University.
John Wright is Emeritus Professor of History at the University of KwaZulu-Natal and a research associate in the Archive and Public Culture Research Initiative at the University of Cape Town.
Dan Wylie is a lecturer in the English Department at Rhodes University, Grahamstown. He has published three books on the Zulu leader Shaka; a memoir, Dead Leaves: Two years in the Rhodesian war (2002); and several volumes of poetry.
