The Mirror at Midnight: A South African Journey

By Adam Hochschild

Book Overview

History lies heavily on South Africa, and Adam Hochschild brings to bear a lifetime's familiarity with the country in an eye-opening work that blends history and reportage. Hochschild looks at the tensions of modern South Africa through a dramatic prism: the pivotal nineteenth-century Battle of Blood River -- which determined whether the Boers or the Zulus would control that part of the world -- and its contentious commemoration by rival groups 150 years later. This incisive book offers an unusual window onto a society that remains divided. In his epilogue, Hochschild extends his view to the astonishing political changes that have occurred in the country in recent years -- and the changes yet to be made.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0670835390
• ISBN13: 9780670835393
• Release Date: November 1990
• Publisher: Viking
• Length: 309 Pages
• Weight: 1.35 lbs.
• Dimensions: 20.0" x 20.0" x 20.0"

Customer Reviews

Unraveling the complexities of South Africa

I read this book while I was visiting South Africa and I would encourage it for anyone who is interested in an overview of life under apartheid. It was published just before apartheid ended, so the reader must look to other sources for a post apartheid look at South Africa, but I found this book to be well written, insightful, and interesting. South Africa is a very complex culture and that complexity is not always portrayed in American media. Hochschild lived in South Africa and his love for the people is evident in this work.