Negotiating the Past: The Making of Memory in South Africa

Abstract

Nations as well as individuals are in many ways the sum of their memories, which are shaped by perception as much as by events. This collection of essays by South African academics looks at the ways the country is dealing with its past, a complex mixture of colonialism, slavery, apartheid, struggle, and guilt. The emphasis is on how that past is being perceived and moulded in the post-apartheid era.