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The Cambridge History of South Africa. Volume 1: From Early Times to 1885. Edited by Carolyn Hamilton, Bernard M. Mbenga, and Robert Ross. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010. xviii + 480 pp. Figures. Maps. Contributors. Notes on Terminology. Notes. References. Index. $120.00. Cloth.
The Cambridge History of South Africa. Volume 2:1885-1994. Edited by Robert Ross, Anne Kelk Mager, and Bill Nasson. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011. 650 pp. Contributors. Acknowledgments. Statistical Appendix. Bibliography. Index. $165.00. Cloth.
If an archival discovery is the grand gesture of authority for the historian, the kind of text presented here as The Cambridge History of South Africa, with its sweeping synthesis from "early times" to 1994, is the grand gesture of authority for the discipline. The gift represented by these two volumes resembles the satisfaction we feel when we can stand atop a monument (or in this case, perhaps, what several authors in the volumes call the South African "miracle") to look out at the horizon, take in the grand view, and then look back at where we have come from. In this case there is satisfaction in being able to hold in our hands, in two substantial and dense volumes, the "complete" history of South Africa-if not a "master narrative," at least "a reasonable summation of the current state of knowledge" (vol. 1, xiv). In this, the Cambridge History of South Africa is true to its goal, of producing "broad essays that cover a given field of history at any given point and that serve as a starting point for those who need to gain access to the established historical scholarship on a given country or field of inquiry" (vol. 2, 1).
The Cambridge History is an authoritative, coherent, and comprehensive account which, in the arrangement of its chapters, follows a rough chronological outline (with many detours). It rejects a teleological reading of apartheid and colonialism more broadly as a tale foretold and, at least to a certain extent, takes account of the unevenness, complexity, and ambiguity of history. With some exceptions, however (in essays, for example, by Paul Landau, Tlhalo Radithlahlo, and Deborah Poseí), it remains firmly grounded in what the editors of the second volume call "one of the most dynamic and innovative fields of African historical...