EVERY STEP OF THE WAY: THE JOURNEY TO FREEDOM IN SOUTH AFRICA

By Michael Morris

A new title from the HSRC PRESS

"History may sometimes be mistaken as a sequence of wars and peace treaties, of dates that fix people's lives in cycles of victories and defeats, of avoidable losses or unscrupulous gains. Such history overlooks the infinite details of human lives, the family life, the leisure, the private goals, the setbacks and successes of ordinary people. Yet if anything forms the past, it is the sum of these small things."

So we are reminded in the concluding section of Every Step of the Way, a fresh examination of South Africa's past that seeks to encompass something of "the sum of these small things" in the lives and impulses of lesser-known individuals, and the events that drew them into the grand narrative.

In an extraordinary, engaging and ultimately entertaining account, Every Step of the Way traces the paths South Africans have followed from pre-colonial times to the democratic present, providing fascinating personal and historical details, and raising provocative questions about the choices, mistakes, contradictions and key themes in the emergence of the complex society that South Africa is today. Subtitled The Journey to Freedom in South Africa, the book takes in the broad sweep of history - from the distant past of the hunter-gatherer and African farmer societies to colonial exploration and conquest, slavery, enforced segregation, the struggle and ultimately the decade of liberation - weaving intriguing human interest narratives into the historical chronology.