Front cover image for Imagining the Cape Colony : history, literature, and the South African nation

Imagining the Cape Colony : history, literature, and the South African nation

"David Johnson considers a variety of writers, from European intellectuals Camões, Southey, Rousseau and Adam Smith to travel writers like François Levaillant and Lady Anne Barnard, and from the diaries of settler rebels and early African nationalists to the courtroom testimonies of African slaves and farm workers. These are combined with discussions of the many subsequent literary works and histories of the Cape Colony. By returning to the writing of and about the Cape Colony from 1770 to 1830--when modern definitions of 'nation' and 'colony' were both constituted and contested--this book addresses current debates about settler nationalism, anti-colonial resistance and the imprint of 18th-century colonial histories on contemporary neo-colonial politics. By imagining the post-apartheid South African nation, Johnson critically re-reads the history of the Cape Colony, paying particular attention to the extensive commentaries on literature and history associated with the Thabo Mbeki presidencies."--Publisher's website
Print Book, English, ©2012
Edinburgh University Press, Edinburgh, ©2012
History
viii, 222 pages ; 25 cm
9780748643080, 9780748664894, 9780748650873, 9780748650897, 9780748650880, 0748643087, 0748664890, 0748650873, 074865089X, 0748650881
730413651
Remembering the Khoikhoi victory over Dom Francisco de Almeida at the Cape in 1510 : Luís de Camões and Robert Southey
French representations of the Cape 'Hottentots' : Jean Tavernier, Jean-Jacques Rousseau and François Levaillant
The Scottish enlightenment and colonial governance : Adam Smith, John Bruce and Lady Anne Barnard
African land for the American empire : John Adams, Benjamin Stout and Robert Semple
Historical and literary reiterations of Dutch settler Republicanism
Literature and Cape slavery
History and the Griqua nation : Andries Waterboer and Hendrick Hendricks