The Afrikaners: Biography of A People, the first comprehensive history of the Afrikaner people based on--and critical of--the most recent scholarly work, draws on the author's own research and interviews conducted with leading political actors. Hermann Giliomee weaves together life stories and interpretation to create a highly readable narrative history of the Afrikaners.

The revised and expanded edition also offers a fresh contextualization of apartheid, its paradoxes and its complex effects, and of the increasingly fraught relationship between the ANC government and the...