The State of Africa PLUS Diamonds, Gold and War by Martin Meredith. Two bestsellers for R160

The State of Africa: A History of Fifty Years of Independence

Wars, revolutions and upheavals, corruption, crime, famine and poverty, mismanagement, chaos and woes without end. 

Why do all these adjectives describe the dark continent to a T? Is Africa's backwardness the result of the so-called Scramble for Africa, when European powers staked claims to virtually the entire continent? Why are things not better even fifty years after independence? As Bob Geldof of Band Aid fame (raising money to combat famine in Ethiopia) said: "You cannot even begin to understand contemporary African politics if you have not read this fascinating book." With black and white photographs, maps and an index.

First published 2005 in Great Britain by The Free Press, London. This softcover edition published 2006. Condition: Good.

Diamonds, Gold and War: The Making of South Africa

The prize was great ... not just land, but the riches it held. 

Southern Africa was one regarded as a worthless jumble of British colonies, Boer republics and African chiefdoms; a troublesome region. But in 1871, everything changed: Prospectors chanced upon the world's richest deposits of diamonds. Fifteen years later, an itinerant digger stumbled across the rocky outcrop of a gold-bearing reef on a ridge known as the Witwatersrand. Beneath lay the richest deposits of gold ever discovered. What followed was a titanic struggle by the British to gain supremacy over Southern Africa and by the Boers to preserve the independence of their republics. It culminated in the costliest, bloodiest and most humiliating war that Britain had waged in nearly a century. With black and white photographs, maps and an index.

This edition published in South Africa in 2008 by Jonathan Ball Publishers, Jeppestown. Condition: Good.