David Welsh

On his way into Parliament on February 2, 1990, F. W. de Klerk turned to his wife Marike and said, referring to his forthcoming speech: "South Africa will never be the same again after this." Did white South Africa crack, or did its leadership yield sufficiently and just in time to avert a revolution? The transformation has been called a miracle, belying gloomy predictions of race war in which the white minority circled the wagons and fought to the last drop of blood. Why did it happen? In The Rise and Fall of Apartheid, David Welsh views the topic against the backdrop of a long history of conflict spanning apartheid’s rise and demise, and the liberation movement’s suppression and subsequent resurrection. His view is that the movement away from apartheid to majority rule would have taken far longer and been much bloodier were it not for the changes undergone by Afrikaner nationalism itself. There were turning points, such as the Soweto Uprising of 1976, but few believed that the transition from white domination to inclusive democracy would occur as soon—and as relatively peacefully—as it did. In effect, however, a multitude of different factors led the African National Congress and the National Party to see that neither side could win the conflict on its own terms. Utterly dissimilar in background, culture, beliefs, and political style, Nelson Mandela and F. W. de Klerk were an unlikely pair of liberators. But both soon recognized that they were dependent on each other to steer the transformation process through to its conclusion.

The Rise and Fall of Apartheid

Halina Birenbaum

This book is an important work in Holocaust literature and was originally published in Poland in 1967. Covering the years 1939-1945, it is the author's account of her experience growing up in the Warsaw ghetto and her eventual deportation to, imprisonment in, and survival of the Majdanek, Auschwitz, Ravensbruck, and Neustadt-Glewe camps. Since the old, the weak, and children were summarily executed by the Nazis in these camps, Mrs Birenbaum's survival and coming of age is all the more remarkable. Her story is told with simplicity and clarity and the new edition contains revisions made by the author to the original English translation, and is expanded with a new epilogue and postscripts that bring the story up to date and complete the circle of Mrs Birenbaum's experiences.

A Coming of Age Under Nazi Terror

Hope is the Last to Die

Late Professor of Moral Philosophy in the University of Edinburgh

Account of the Life and Writings of Thomas Brown, M.D.

Thomas Brown

Lectures on the Philosophy of the Mind

Lectures on the Philosophy of the Human Mind

Leopold Buczkowski

A haunting novel of Jewish, Polish, and Ukrainian resistance in German-occupied Poland.

Black Torrent

David Welsh

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