Sharpeville: An Apartheid Massacre and Its Consequences - Hardcover

Lodge, Tom

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0192801856 ISBN 13: 9780192801852

Publisher: Oxford University Press, 2011

Synopsis

On March 21, 1960, a line of 150 white policemen fired 1344 rounds into a crowd of several thousand people assembled outside a police station, protesting against the Apartheid regime's racist "pass" laws. The gunfire left in its wake sixty-seven dead and one hundred and eighty six wounded. Most of the people who were killed were shot in the back, hit while running away.

The Sharpeville Massacre, as the event has become known, marked the start of armed resistance in South Africa, and prompted worldwide condemnation of South Africa's Apartheid policies. In Sharpeville, Tom Lodge explains how and why the Massacre occurred, looking at the social and political background to the events of March 1960 as well as the long-term consequences of the shootings. Lodge offers a gripping account of the Massacre itself as well as the wider events that accompanied the tragedy, particularly the simultaneous protest in Cape Town which helped prolong the political crisis that developed in the wake of the shootings. Just as important, he sheds light on the long term consequences of these events. He explores how the Sharpeville events affected the perceptions of black and white political leadership in South Africa as well as South Africa's relationship with the rest of the world, and he describes the development of an international "Anti-Apartheid" movement in the wake of the shootings.

In South Africa today, March 21 is a public holiday, Human Rights Day, and for many people, it remains a day of mourning and memorial. This book illuminates this pivotal event in South African history.

About this title

About the Author:

Tom Lodge is Professor of Peace and Conflict Studies at the University of Limerick. He has written extensively on South African politics, including Mandela: A Critical Life.

From Publishers Weekly:

Lodge's study of the Sharpeville massacre is a meticulous but overstuffed history of the 1960 clash between black protestors and white policemen in the South African township of Sharpeville, which left 67 protestors dead and nearly 200 wounded, most shot in the back while running away. Lodge (Mandela) offers a detailed account of the causes and consequences of the massacre, credited for drawing global condemnation of apartheid, but his book also presents an expansive history of the South African liberation movement. Drawing on the papers of Robert Sobukwe, the first president of the Pan Africanist Congress, whose nonviolent protest preceded the Sharpeville massacre, Lodge creates a nuanced portrait of the less well-known revolutionary group within the context of more familiar players like the African National Congress, the international antiapartheid movement, and the South African state. The book is especially compelling when it focuses on the local history and politics of Sharpeville, and overall, Lodge's research strikes an impressive balance between documenting the historical facts of the clash and tracing the narratives and political momentum that ramified in its wake. (July)

About this edition

• Publisher: Oxford University Press
• Publication date: 2011
• ISBN 10: 0192801856
• ISBN 13: 9780192801852
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 256