Negotiating the Past: The Making of Memory in South Africa

by Sarah Nuttall (editor), Carli Coetzee (Editor)

This collection of essays by South African academics looks at the ways the country is dealing with its past, a complex mixture of colonialism, slavery, apartheid, struggle, and guilt. The emphasis is on how that past is being perceived and molded in the post-apartheid era.

Genres: History, South Africa

314 pages, Paperback

First published August 6, 1998

Reviews

[Hope · Rating 3 out of 5]

A great collection of essays about South African memory. Interesting to see the comparisons to other popular memory studies fields like the holocaust and Israel.

[Will Corvin · Rating 4 out of 5]

The quality of essays vary greatly throughout the book, but overall this is a great collection for any interested in the reshaping of national narratives in South Africa since 1994. I found the end pieces on consumerism to be the least persuasive/substantive, but the beginning starts off with a bang with insights on the TRC and Afrikanerdom.

[Julia · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great read for both its content and its methodology