Best southern africa history books according to redditors

We found 8 Reddit comments discussing the best southern africa history books. We ranked the 7 resulting products by number of redditors who mentioned them. Here are the top 20.

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Top Reddit comments about Southern Africa History:

u/Springbok_RSA · 10 pointsr/CombatFootage

Thanks man, appreciate that.

Ja I have read several books on the war, I'll list them all so you can maybe pick one up one day.

The South African Border War 1966-1989 by Leopold Scholtz - I highly recommend this book. This is the book that really got me to understand the overall picture of the war although reading the other books and online material as well as speaking to relatives that fought in the war helped fill in the gaps for me.

32 Battalion by Piet Nortje - This book is also excellent. Goes into a lot of detail about personal accounts and experiences of members of 32 Battalion. They were tough buggers, 32Bn was made up of many Angolan nationals that were once part of the FNLA but were cut off and abandoned by their leader Holden Roberto so Jan Breytenbach trained them and thus 32 Battalion was born. Sad what happened to these poor guys after the war... The ANC just prior to coming to power demanded they be disbanded 1993. There is footage of their last parade and disbandment on Youtube. They were real battle hardened soldiers... They deserved better.

Zulu Zulu Foxtrot by Arn Durand - This is a book about his experience in the police COIN unit called Koevoet. These okes were hard as nails driving Casspirs over the enemy insurgents and tied them to their vehicles after killing them. Brutal... There is no such thing as a gentleman's war. No side played fair. SWAPO conducted many atrocities and Koevoet did the same. So it is futile for either side to claim evil yet SWAPO often complained to the UN about Koevoet and when South Africa complained to the UN about SWAPO atrocities which fell on deaf ears. The political bias was clearly evident and is revealed and mentioned many times in every book I've listed here.

Teenage Safari by Evan Davies the memoirs of a 61 Mech mortar man. 61 Mech was South Africa's iron fist our primary mechanized unit. They were the ones that smashed the Angolan and Cubans on the ground time and time again. They were primarily used for conventional battles although they did see some action against SWAPO as well which was almost exclusively COIN/guerrilla warfare.

LZ HOT! by Nick Lithgow - Memoirs of a South African Air Force helicopter pilot. He flew SAAF Alouette III gunships as well as Puma and Atlas Oryx transport helicopters. He also did a stint on the border as part of the infantry prior to receiving pilot training IIRC.

Eye of the Firestorm by Roland de Vries - This is a long one... The memoirs of a Commander of 61 Mech. There is a lot more to say about this book but my comment is getting quite long! It's very detailed and goes into the whole history of 61 Mech and the overall war itself. Though is quite complicated to read at times due to the complex nature of the war and all the operations, units involved and so on.

Recce by Koos Stadler - A book about the Recces (South African Special Forces) and Koos Stadler a very renowned Recce. The accomplishments and actions of the Recces are something else entirely... Ranging from sitting right inside enemy camps to gather intel for weeks if not months on end. To directing artillery and airstrikes strikes over enemy positions deep inside Angola, cutting off supply lines to destroying the SWAPO headquarters, shooting down Russian transport aircraft such as Antonov AN-12's with Soviet officers on board. There are many insane stories about the Recces a truly hard bunch as well as a small unit being only a few hundred members strong IIRC.

Mobility Conquers: The Story of 61 Mechanised Battalion Group 1978-2005 by Willem Steenkamp (Author), Helmoed-Römer Heitman (Author) - Haven't read this one either also very expensive! But apparently a very in depth book about South African mobile warfare doctrine during the Border War.

Mobile Warfare for Africa by Roland de Vries - Haven't read this either but should be a good one since Roland de Vries is one of the founding fathers of South African mobile warfare doctrine and tactics during the Border War.

u/x_TC_x · 8 pointsr/WarCollege

Part 2

In Angola, and for most of the Op Carlotta, the MMCA and the FAR had roughly the same number of troops like the SADF, yet they had to maintain three frontlines: one in the Cabinda enclave, against the FLEC; another north of Luanda, against the FNLA; and the 600-kilometres long one south of Luanda, against the SADF and UNITA. Still, and together with Angolans (few times also 'despite' the latter), they smashed the FLEC; beat back the FNLA and stopped the South African advance (Pretoria subsequently withdrew its troops, when these failed to reach Luanda by the Angolan Independence Day, and the USA then withdrew their support). In the case of the SADF's attack on Cassinga, the GT-2 was rushed to the battlefield without any preparation, and suffered havy losses to the SAAF air strikes and ambushes by the paras.

The Cuban generals in Angola were quick in recognizing the importance of air power and manoeuvre. Furthermore, they insisted on not scattering MMCA's and FAR's troops amid allied forces. Correspondingly, they usually didn't move their troops outside the range of their combat aircraft, and they nearly always deployed them at least in company-sized formations. Finally, they had a major issue with the leadership of the MPLA (which, after Neto's death, converted into a gang of corrupt opportunists, that couldn't care less about what was going on in Angola south of Namibe, and east and south-east of Huambo).

But, when they moved, then often in a fashion that prompted South Africans into thinking 'it must've been East Germans' that were in command. Actual situation was such that troops were few, supplies meagre, and distances immense. Mind that everything - except for water and some of the food - had to be brought to the country, and then distributed to the units often deployed hundreds of kilometres away from each other. Still, whenever a Cuban unit was threatened by the enemy, the FAR's reaction can only be described as 'vicious'.

In offensive operations, the Cuban commanders frequently applied the so-called 'Auftragstaktik'. A 'classic' example for such operations would be the advance of the 2 Bon I (an Angolan motorised infantry battalion led by the Cubans) east and north-east of Luanda, in December 1975 and January 1976: acting entirely on his own (after receiving the order to move out, of course), and out of radio-range to his superiors, the Cuban commander of that unit outflanked any of FNLA's positions recognized on time and, even if advancing very cautiously, found a 'gap' in these and then run something like 300 kilometres deep into the enemy territory, thus collapsing the entire insurgent position in north-western Angola.

In defensive operations, the Cubans proved though opponents, that had to be destroyed in order to fall back. Their commanders usually applied quite 'classic' methods, like 'two up and third in reserve' - i.e. two elements would hold the frontline, and the reserve launching flanking counter-attacks.

IMHO, it's the Cuban COIN methods that experienced the biggest development over the time. No matter how little means they've got assigned, generals like Tomassevic proved highly successful, actually. Their major problem was that their and allied COIN units and garrisons were de-facto left on their own device (at least by the MPLA), and scattered all over central, eastern and southern Angola. Thus, they were easy pickings for the insurgents: whenever the UNITA attacked them, it took days for help to arrive. Even so, during the battle of Cangamba, in 1983, they performed stellar, holding their positions (and thus maintaining cohesiveness of their Angolan allies, too), even when their defence perimetre was penetrated by insurgents in multiple places. They were not too shy from heliborne deployment of special troops deep within insurgent-controlled territory, adapting their units and equipment to local requirements: actually, it's rather so that the Cuban deployment of MRAPs based on chassis of the Soviet-made Ural trucks and formation of special units for COIN operations remains next to unknown in the West.

Overall, this is actually a very interesting topic, that's experiencing something like 'boom' lately, foremost thanks to 'opening' of Cuba and thus the availability of a host of publications released by local veterans, but also the availability of official documentation. My references are corresponding. For political aspects of most of these affairs - and that based on Cuban documentation - see such (meanwhile 'classic') works by Piero Gleijeses like

u/JoeHill23 · 4 pointsr/FULLCOMMUNISM

Great video comrade. A few things:
-Would have been great if you discussed the myth of the empty land and Boers moving inland due to british abolition of slavery
-You might have wanted to go into more detail about division within the ANC over joining with the communist party, Africanists such as Sobukwe opposed it
-You might of gone into more detail as to the nature of Apartheid policies
-Sharpeville was a protest organised by the local Pan-Africanist Congress not the ANC

  • MK never achieved successful "continuous guerilla warfare", only small scale semi-regular attacks by the 80s, however this was never likely to overthrow the state.
    -ANC are now pretty neoliberal and refuse to pursue comprehensive wealth distribution.

    Here are a few sources on South Africa I find useful:
    Apartheid, 1948-94 Dubow,
    South Africa History Online,
    A-Level revision guide.

    Hope you find this helpful, keep up the videos!
u/[deleted] · 3 pointsr/AskAnthropology

http://www.amazon.com/Pretty-Modern-Beauty-Plastic-Surgery/dp/0822348012 - Less about medicine, more of an ethanography, there was a huge brazilian population where I used to live.

>http://www.amazon.com/Improvising-Medicine-Oncology-Emerging-Epidemic/dp/0822353423 - your call, I've read others that are similar in the past (dark african hospitals, mom was a doctor, it came up) but this is apparently more popular now. 10 years ago it was the horror of aids, those books are almost unreadable, if it were any other subject you'd simply have trouble suspending disbelief. http://www.amazon.com/The-Paradox-Hope-Journeys-Borderland/dp/0520267354 is another similar book.

http://www.amazon.com/Tales-Shamans-Apprentice-Ethnobotanist-Medicines/dp/0670831379 - Is probably better if you don't want all the doom/gloom view of african medicine.

http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/10235.Mountains_Beyond_Mountains - Figure you've read this, it's highly recommended and extremely popular now, part of the whole 're-imagining medicine' movement.

>http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/161121.My_Own_Country - Speaking of my mom, she was a doctor near here, it's definitely a different world.

http://www.amazon.com/Man-Who-Mistook-His-Wife/dp/0684853949 - Read it because of the neuroscience aspect, but I suppose you could consider it a very specialized ethanography of sorts.

Honestly the most popular nowadays is probably the one about the Hmong girl in my first post. I'd recommend it more because I've known a few Hmong and the cultural differences are fascinating.

u/ruggeryoda · 2 pointsr/Rhodesia

According to Paul Moorecraft and Peter McClaughlin's "The Rhodesian War" these were intercepted on route to Uganda, not Mozambique. On a side note, these never saw combat as claimed by the book.

u/RadioFreeCascadia · 2 pointsr/MilitaryPorn

Here’s a short doc showing a normal Fireforce Operation and there’s an excellent (if long) book detailing all the actions of the Rhodesian Light Infantry you can find here.

u/Superplaner · 2 pointsr/AskHistorians

That are ELI5-friendly? No.

That are actual decent sources? Yes, I highly recommend Counter-Strike From the Sky by Woods, J.R.T (2009) but Bush War Rhodesia 1966-1980 by Baxter, P. (2014) provides a bigger picture.

In addition to that I think Rhodesian Fire Force 1966-80, Cocks, K. (2015) might be good too but honestly I've only given in a quick glance so far.

u/anriana · 0 pointsr/Anticonsumption

Chronic illnesses are increasingly problems in "small simple villages" as is diabetes, excessive fats, etc. Coca-Cola is everywhere in the world. Cancer is a multifactorial illness and caused by more than just toxic/synthetic stuffs (AND developing countries have high rates of exposure to toxic chemicals anyways).

Here is a really good book about the absolute horrors of experiencing cancer in a developing country: http://www.amazon.com/Improvising-Medicine-Oncology-Emerging-Epidemic/dp/0822353423. There are no advanced treatments. There are almost no oncologists and almost no medicine. Treatment and pain meds are rationed out to the youngest patients. Cancer is not diagnosed as often in low-income countries (mostly due to much lower average life spans and to a lack of screening for the disease), but it exists and it is awful for the people who experience it.

Secondly, please look at the etiologies of maternal mortality. This is a serious issue and cannot be solved in basic clinics at low cost. Women die in childbirth because they get married and impregnated at age 13, because they live in communities that don't allow women to seek medical treatment, because they get no prenatal care, because their genitalia has been mutilated, because they start hemorrhaging and live 5 hours from a hospital, because they need a c-section and live in a country with zero operating theatres, etc, etc.

Further, there are very few people in developing countries who can live by just gathering food for a few hours a day. Agriculture is a labor-intensive process. Odds are the typical person in this situation wouldn't be slaving 50 hrs/week -- they'd be slaving away for more.

Look, I love this story, and I love the overall message, but the point is not that people in developing countries have an idyllic life free from the horrors of modern development. That philosophy does a disservice to the very real struggles that billions of people experience.