+27 21 959 2946library@uwc.ac.za
The library collects books to support your studies. Level 8 of the library is where you will find History books on the shelves. For eBooks, you can access them via uKwazi.
The tabs on this page highlight three categories of books available: New History Books, Reference Books and Textbooks.
The video below will guide you on how to search for books and articles on uKwazi. For a more detailed guide try our uKwazi interactive tutorial.
Museum times : changing histories in South Africa by
Museums flourished in post-apartheid South Africa. In older museums, there were renovations on the go, and at least fifty new museums opened. Most sought to depict violence and suffering under apartheid and the growth of resistance. These unlikely journeys are tracked as museums became a primary setting for contesting histories. From the renowned Robben Island Museum to the almost unknown Lwandle Migrant Labour Museum, the author demonstrates how an institution concerned with the conservation of the past is simultaneously a site for changing history
Visitors to the house of memory : identity and political education at the Jewish Museum Berlin by
s one of the most visited museums in Germany's capital city, the Jewish Museum Berlin is a key site for understanding not only German-Jewish history, but also German identity in an era of unprecedented ethnic and religious diversity. Visitors to the House of Memory is an intimate exploration of how young Berliners experience the Museum. How do modern students relate to the museum's evocative architecture, its cultural-political context, and its narrative of Jewish history? By accompanying a range of high school history students before, during, and after their visits to the museum, this book offers an illuminating exploration of political education, affect, remembrance, and belonging.
Violent resistance : militia formation and civil war in Mozambique by
Chapter 1 introduces the topic and relevance of the book, links the arguments to previous work and provides an overview of the book's chapters. Chapter 2 contains a theoretical framework to analyze how militias form. It also introduces a definition and typology of militias, introduces the theory that guides the subsequent analysis, and provides an overview of the research design of the study
Bhimrao Ramji Ambedkar and the question of socialism in India by
This book offers a reading of Bhimrao Ambedkar's engagement with the idea and practice of socialism in India by linking it to his lifelong political and philosophical concerns: the annihilation of the caste system, untouchability and the moral and philosophical systems that justify either. Rather than view his ideas through a socialist lens, the author suggests that it is important to measure the validity of socialist thought and practice in the Indian context, through his critique of the social totality. The book argues its case by presenting a broad and connected overview of his thought world and the global and local influences that shaped it. The themes that are taken up for discussion include: his understanding of the colonial rule and the colonial state; history and progress; nationalism and the questions he posed the socialists; his radical critique of the caste system and Brahmancal philosophies, and his unusual interpretation of Buddhism.
Extinct Monsters to Deep Time : conflict, compromise, and the making of Smithsonian's fossil halls by
Extinct Monsters to Deep Time is an ethnography that documents the growing friction between the research and outreach functions of the museum in the 21st century. Marsh describes participant observation and historical research at the Smithsonian's National Museum of Natural History as it prepared for its largest-ever exhibit renovation, Deep Time.' As a museum ethnography, the book provides a grounded perspective on the inner-workings of the world's largest natural history museum and the social processes of communicating science to the public.
Making Intangible Heritage by
In Making Intangible Heritage, Valdimar Tr. Hafstein--folklorist and official delegate to UNESCO--tells the story of UNESCO's Intangible Heritage Convention. In the ethnographic tradition, Hafstein peers underneath the official account, revealing the context important for understanding UNESCO as an organization, the concept of intangible heritage, and the global impact of both. Looking beyond official narratives of compromise and solidarity, this book invites readers to witness the diplomatic jostling behind the curtains, the making and breaking of alliances, and the confrontation and resistance, all of which marked the path towards agreement and shaped the convention and the concept. Various stories circulate within UNESCO about the origins of intangible heritage. Bringing the sensibilities of a folklorist to these narratives, Hafstein explores how they help imagine coherence, conjure up contrast, and provide charters for action in the United Nations and on the ground. Examining the international organization of UNESCO through an ethnographic lens, Hafstein demonstrates how concepts that are central to the discipline of folklore gain force and traction outside of the academic field and go to work in the world, ultimately shaping people's understanding of their own practices and the practices themselves. From the cultural space of the Jemaa el-Fna marketplace in Marrakech to the Ise Shrine in Japan, Making Intangible Heritage considers both the positive and the troubling outcomes of safeguarding intangible heritage, the lists it brings into being, the festivals it animates, the communities it summons into existence, and the way it orchestrates difference in modern societies.
Patrimonialities by
With empirical touchstones from Europe, North America, Africa, Asia and the Pacific, the authors argue that heritage and property represent different approaches to subject formation, produce distinct bodies of expertise, and belong to different rationalities of government in a global patrimonial field: that cultural property is a technology of sovereignty, part of the order of the modern liberal state, but cultural heritage a technology of reformation that cultivates responsible subjects and entangles them in networks of expertise and management. While particular case trajectories may shift back and forth from rights-based claims and resolutions under the sign of cultural property to ethical claims and solutions under the sign of cultural heritage, the authors contend that there is significant analytical purchase to be gained from their distinction. Using a critical, comparative approach, they make the case for a historically grounded and theoretically informed understanding of the difference between the two terms.
Physical Reference Books
Compact Oxford English Dictionary for Students by 
Africa by Electronic Reference Books
Chambers Dictionary of World History. [3rd ed.] by 
Historical Dictionary of Mozambique by 
Encyclopedia of African history by 
Encyclopedia of South Africa by 
National geographic almanac of world history (3rd Edition) by 
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The library 
runs training and orientation sessions on a variety of library topics, including how to use uKwazi. These are usually advertised or you can check when the next session is and book yourself, using this link:
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