Institute of Contemporary History, University of the Orange Free State, South africa

Extract

Our rapidly changing world and the unique place South Africa, with her heterogeneous population, occupies among the nations make it necessary for South Africans to account for their place and role in the world situation. One event follows another so rapidly that the average individual simply cannot keep abreast of the times. It follows that there is a need for a responsible interpretation of events, preferably in such a manner as to fill the needs of both the academic who wishes to study the situation and the man in the street. Not only must facts be supplied in a scientific manner, but they should also be interpreted in their historical sense.

South Africans have lagged behind in their efforts to enter the field of contemporary historiography. Neither the lack of distance between events and the writer describing them, which could obscure his perspective and judgement, nor the lack of historical sources ought to be allowed to hamper exponents of contemporary historiography in South Africa.