N. Bhebe, Ed. Junior Certificate History
of Southern Africa.
Book I. Southern African Societies
before the Scramble.
   Heinemann Educational Books, London 1979. Reprinted 1980.
                           144 Pp. P5.50
In laudable fashion, this first of the three volumes
pioneers the localisation of the Junior Secondary history
curriculum in Bot~wana, Lesotho and Swaziland.     The Junior
Certificate Series is the result of cooperation among
scholars, teachers and the examination boards in the Boleswa
countries and represent a wholesome response to the growing
desire among these countries to stimulate pupils' interest in
their own history.    This Series is being constructed on the
sound premise that youngsters are likely to understand the
world better if they first know well their national and
regional environment.    Book I focuses on the peoples of
Southern Africa to the late nineteenth century.     Book 2,
edited by L.D. Ngcongco and already in print, continues the
story through the Scramble, colonial rule and the nationalist
period.   Book 3, being edited by P.M. Pule, will connect the
Southern African experience to major currents of world
history.
Upon first reading, scholars and teachers will realise that
the Boleswa Junior Certificate Series is considerably more
than a local or regional response to curriculum imbalance.
For one it represents the cutting edge of curriculum changes
that originated in African countries to the North and, ever
since, have been moving steadily South. Within Africa, where
white control has been more tenacious than in other parts of
the continent, putting black Africans centre stage in the
history classrooms on the borders of the Republic of South
Africa represents the last but one advance.    Together with
students and teachers north of the Limpopo, Boleswa secondary
students will now benefit, for the first time, by reading
about Africans instead of natives, civilisations and states
instead of primitive societies, and persons worthy of admira-
tio~ and emulation who are not white to a man. And just as
importantly, students will discover that they have not only
their own history of which to be proud, but their own
historians as well.    Apart from Neil Parsons, whose valuable
contribution to Southern African history is widely acknow-
ledged, Book I is the work of African scholars, teaching
either at the University of Botswana and Swaziland or at
secondary schools in Boleswa.
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Another achievement of this small volume is the extensive
African experience contained within.      In little more than 140
pages, thirteen short chapters manage to convey considerable
historical depth and breath.    Parsons' chapters on the Iron
Age and pre-nineteenth century political economies summarise
major developments in Southern Africa over two millenia and
provide an excellent backdrop for the more localised and
ethnic subject matter that constitutes the design of the
volume: Mphakalasi writes on the San and Khoikhoi; Ngcongco
on the Tswana, Xhosa and Griqua; Pule on the Sotho and Zulu;
Bhebe on the Swazi and Shangane and, with MOyo, on the
Ndebele.   These chapters are supplemented by Bhila's on the
Portuguese and Manyane's on the Dutch and British.       The
historical quality of individual chapters ranges from ex-
cellent to mediocre; taken as a whole they are very good
indeed.   As a collection, moreover, they are unique.      Usually,
books for the junior level are scaled-down versons of senior
secondary or university texts, but Book I is as original
in content as it is in design.      The present generation of lay
readers will likely turn to this volume until something
comparable at their level is on the market.
Chances are, in fact, that the adult reader is going to enjoy
this book much more than the 12 and 13-year olds for whom
it is intended.   It has been some time since I taught history
at secondary schools in Nigeria and the United States, but
from my experience and the comments of teachers already
using this text, I expect that junior secondary Boleswa
scholars who use this book are in for a tough time.       The fact
is that too few chapters have been written with the young
reader in mind.   The few that have - and Pule's pieces on
the Sotho and Zulu deserve special commendation     - have been
written not coincidentally by history masters themselves.
They relate a modest amount of factual detail with a clearly
stated account that has a beginning, middle and end.       The
professional historians writing in this volume, on the other
hand, serve up too much fact with too little thematic
development.   In moving through Ngcongco's 12-page chapter
on the Tswana, for example, the young reader has eight
separate Tswana dynastic histories and in excess of two
hundred different personal, ethnic and place names with
which to grapple.   Expecting Tswana, much less Swazi or
Sotho, students just out of primary school to keep track of
so much detail - or even worse, memorise it - is fair to
neither student nor teacher.    Young students, who more
readily conceptualise history as story, are simply going to
get discouraged.   And when reading, as in Parsons' chapter,
that "many people with one language or religion thought of
themselves as one big family which we call a nation, and
were willing to be governed by a ruling class in a big state"
                                136


 (p. 34), they are simply going to get confused.     If the Series
 is to achieve its objective of motivating youngsters to study
their own past, then future editions of Book I will have to
undergo revision.
Other changes, too, should be considered.     The design of
chapters along ethnic lines neatly links Book I with the JC
syllabus, but the absence of regional and thematic chapters
for the period since 1800 leaves large gaps and dislocates the
chronology of Southern African history.    There are dangers,
too, in stressing historical ethnicity in a region still
troubled by apartheid and separate development.     Although the
authors cannot change the JC syllabus, a compromise should be
possible.   Certainly a chapter on ,the Mfecane is a must if
students are to grasp fully the extent of the impact of
Shaka's revolution.    Such a chapter could absorb much of the
material on the Zulu, Shangane, Ndebele and Griqua and free
valuable space to discuss, for example, Afrikaaner-African
relations in the Western and Eastern Transvaal.     For necessary
reasons, chapters on the Swazi and Sotho must remain, but the
chapter on the Tswana should include fuller reference to the
non-Tswana in present-day Botswana.    And, though the editor
is to be praised for want to show "African societies developing
in the absence of whites", the Afrikaaners and the "Great
Trek" deserve more space, and earlier on, than accorded in the
present edition.    Hopefully, the San and Khoikhoi will be
given a bit more history, too, and portrayed as participants
in the history of Southern Africa.    The structure of chapters
needs to be made uniform, and greater attention paid to in-
cluding in the maps all place names and peoples mention(d in
the text.
Weaknesses aside, Book I remains an exceedingly good value
for the money.   It is also handsomely turned out: well
illustrated, clearly printed, and, for a paperback, sturdily
bound.
                  R.F. MORTON
                               137