Radio War Nerd #289 — The ANC Insurgency Against Apartheid South Africa
Guest: Steve Davis, historian
Recorded: July 23, 2021
Nelson Mandela became a living legend after his release from prison in 1990, when he led South Africa from apartheid to black majority rule. Mandela's image transformed as well, from leftist African guerrilla leader, to avuncular racial strife healer. Historian Steve Davis joins us to recover the history of the African National Congress's insurgency from 1960-1990, and to discuss the rhetoric of key texts that have defined the insurgency, the ANC, and Mandela.
Steve Davis is associate professor of history at the University of Kentucky.
Buy Steve's book "The ANC's War Against Apartheid: Umkhonto we Sizwe and the Liberation of South Africa".
Read Steve's article on Nelson Mandela's American-ghost-written autobiography: "Struggle History and Self-Help: The Parallel Lives of Nelson Mandela in Conventional and Figurative Biography".
Check out the Bitter Aloe Project website ( www.bitteraloeproject.com ) — which uses machine learning models to extract names of individuals, locations and organizations from a huge listing of human rights violations in apartheid-era South Africa.
Total time: 1:47:33
Comments (13)
I really enjoyed this discussion, the Bitter Aloe project sounds interesting but its website is unintelligible to me
Terrific guest and episode. E grande John--mi fa piacere che stai prendendo lezioni in italiano. Maybe you can do an ep on the Italian Wars or Guelphs and Ghibellines with Annibale while you're over there.
Grazie. Non ho capito mai la guerra tra i guelfi e i ghibellini. Ma vorrei imparare di piu' sulla guerra.
Tremendous
Absolutely.
Re the Provos and informers: Freddie Scappatici (head of IRA's internal security unit) Dennis Donaldson (senior aid to Gerry Adams, since killed), were two. There were certainly many more who have not been allowed to come to light. The anti-agreement republicans will tell you that McGuinness was too, but I wouldn't give that much .credibility.
Really interesting episode, cheers.
A book recommendation for the war nerd: The Perfect War: Technowar in Vietnam by James William Gibson. If you ever plan to make podcast(s) about the Vietnam War, I recommend you read this book.
OK! I'll read it.
I would like a podcast episode about the following: Kalinga War, Albigensian Crusade, Manchu conquest of China, and anti-Francoist insurgency in Spain 1939-1975
We'll see what we can do.
🙏🙏🙏
New RWN!!!!1!!