Over the decades a great deal has been written about Shaka, the most famous―or infamous―of Zulu leaders. It may come as a surprise, therefore, that even the most basic facts about his life are locked in obscurity. His date of birth, what he looked like, and the circumstances of his assassination remain unknown. Meanwhile the public image, sometimes monstrous, sometimes heroic, juggernauts on―truly a “myth of iron” that is so intriguing, so dramatic, so archetypal, and sometimes so politically useful that few have subjected it to proper scrutiny.Myth of Iron: Shaka in History is the first book-length scholarly study of Shaka to be published. It lays out, as far as possible, all the available evidence―mainly hitherto underutilized Zulu oral testimonies, supported by other documentary sources―and decides, item by item, legend by legend, what exactly is known about Shaka’s reign. The picture that emerges in this meticulously researched and absorbing antibiography is very different from the popular narrative.

Myth of Iron: Shaka in History

Biographies & Memoirs

Wylie, Dan

Historical

Ohio University Press

Road Work

Echoing Green Press

Elephants are in dire straits – again. They were virtually extirpated from much of Africa by European hunters in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, but their numbers resurged for a while in the heyday of late-colonial conservation efforts in the twentieth. Now, according to one estimate, an elephant is being killed every 15 minutes. This is at the same time that the reasons for being especially compassionate and protective towards elephants are now so well-known that they have become almost a cliché: their high intelligence, rich emotional lives including a capacity for mourning, caring matriarchal societal structures, that strangely charismatic grace. Saving elephants is one of the iconic conservation struggles of our time. As a society we must aspire to understand how and why people develop compassion – or fail to do so – and what stories we tell ourselves about animals that reveal the relationship between ourselves and animals. This book is the first study to probe the primary features, and possible effects, of some major literary genres as they pertain to elephants south of the Zambezi over three centuries: indigenous forms, early European travelogues, hunting accounts, novels, game ranger memoirs, scientists’ accounts, and poems. It examines what these literatures imply about the various and diverse attitudes towards elephants, about who shows compassion towards them, in what ways and why. It is the story of a developing contestation between death and compassion, between those who kill and those who love and protect.

Death and Compassion: The Elephant in Southern African Literature

Literature & Fiction

History & Criticism

Wits University Press

“Tick, tock, tick, tock.” Thanks to Peter Pan, this sound, if heard near water, means run: a hungry crocodile is on its way. J. M. Barrie isn’t fully to blame for spreading the word that crocodiles are our enemies, or at least the enemies of one-handed pirates—innumerable songs, stories, and legends have characterized these reptiles as a symbol of pitiless predation and insatiable appetite. Tracking twenty-three crocodilian species from India and Egypt to Africa, Australia, and beyond, Crocodile advocates that we do a complete one-eighty in our views of these magnificent creatures. Dan Wylie traces the crocodile in myth, art, and literature, demonstrating that though we commonly associate the reptiles with ferocity and deceit, they have also often been respected and revered in human history. Discussing how crocodiles were all but wiped out in the middle of the twentieth century by hunters and skin traders and are now making a comeback, he reveals that, as apex predators, they are today an increasingly important indicator of the health of an ecosystem and may outlive humans like they did dinosaurs. Presenting a concise, cogent case for why we should respect these fearsome animals, this beautifully illustrated volume is a tribute to one of the world’s ultimate survivors.

Crocodile (Animal)

Science & Math

Biological Sciences

Reaktion Books

Aristotle characterized the elephant as “the beast which passeth all others in wit and mind” and the animal has long figured in cultural artifacts, even on continents it has never inhabited. Now Elephant provides an engaging look at the elephant’s long legacy. The image of the elephant can be found throughout world cultures as a symbol of intelligence, strength, and loyalty. Wylie draws on a rich array of examples to document that symbolic power, ranging from symbols of the Hindu god of wisdom, Ganesh, to the beloved children’s works Dumbo and Babar the Elephant. Turning to the elephant’s biological history, Wylie describes the three remaining species—the African Bush Elephant, African Forest Elephant, and the Asian Elephant—and the controversial efforts for elephant conservation. With ivory poaching and human encroachment into the animal’s natural habitats, Wylie argues that we face a uniquely poignant conservation crisis in which elephants and humans both unsustainably consume limited natural resources. A compelling new entry in the Animal series, Elephant will be necessary for every animal lover’s bookshelf.

Elephant (Animal)

A guide for interpreting the mfecane's role in history Was the mfecane a figment of historians' imagination as Julian Cobbing contends? How large a responsibility do Shaka and the Zulu people bear for the social turbulence in South-central and South-east Africa in the early decades of the 19th century? These are some of the issues explored in this collection, which is designed as a response to the radical critique of Dr. Cobbing and other scholars. The mfecane, suggests Cobbing, must be seen as a myth lying at the root of a set of interlinked assumptions and distortions that have seriously twisted our understanding of the main historical processes of late 18th- and early 19th-century Southern Africa. Contributors to this collection assess the implications of this critique for scholars from a range of disciplines, notably history, anthropology, archaeology, history of art and African languages. But the book is not only about the debate over Cobbing's work; it is also an indicator of the state of current scholarship in Southern Africa in the 18th and 19th centuries and, because it raises questions about the nature of sources and, indeed, about the nature of historical debate itself, it is also about historiography. This book should provide a useful guide for students starting out in this field, as well as a resource for established scholars seeking their way through the textual intricacies of varied editions and secondary texts that become the primary sources for historiographical debate.

The Mfecane Aftermath: Reconstructive Debates in Southern African History

History

Wright, John

Hall, Simon

Dowson, Thomas

Hamilton, Carolyn

Saunders, Christopher

Gewald, Jan-Bart

Parsons, Neil

Eldredge, Elizabeth

ETHERINGTON, Norman

Hartley, Guy

Kinsman, Margaret

Manson, Andrew

Omer-Cooper, John

Peires, Jeff

Webster, Alan

Africa

It is January, 1978. Groups of nervous, dutiful white conscripts begin their National Service with Rhodesia's security forces. Ian Smith's minority regime is in its dying days and negotiations towards majority rule are already under way. For these inexperienced eighteen-year-olds, there is nothing to do but go on fighting, and hold the line while the transition happens around them. Dead Leaves is a richly textured memoir in which an ordinary troopie grapples with the unique dilemmas presented by an extraordinary period in history - the specters of inner violence and death; the pressurized arrival of manhood; and the place of conscience, friendship and beauty in the pervasive atmosphere of futile warfare.

Dead Leaves: Two Years in the Rhodesian War

Community & Culture

University Of KwaZulu-Natal Press

Over the decades we have heard a great deal about Shaka, the most famous - or infamous - of Zulu leaders. It may come as a surprise, therefore, that we do not know when he was born, nor what he looked like, nor precisely when or why he was assassinated. In Shaka's case, even these most basic facts of any person's biography remain locked in obscurity. Meanwhile, Shaka's public image is seen as either monstrous or heroic. Shaka's image is a 'myth of iron' that is so intriguing, so dramatic, so archetypal, and sometimes so politically useful, that few have subjected it to proper scrutiny. Myth of Iron: Shaka in History is the first book-length scholarly study to be published. It lays out, as far as possible, all the available evidence - mainly hitherto under-utilized Zulu oral testimonies, supported by other documentary sources - and decides, item by item, legend by legend, what exactly we can know about Shaka's reign. The picture that emerges in this meticulously researched and absorbing 'anti-biography' is very different from the popular narrative we are used to.

Univ of Natal Pr

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Books by Wylie, Dan