The Cape Of Good Hope

History of Swiss emigration to South Africa, together with genealogies of immigrant descendants.

Crossing the remote, southern tip of Africa has fired the imagination of European travellers from the time Bartholomew Dias opened up the passage to the East by rounding the Cape of Good Hope in 1488. Dutch, British, French, Danes, and Swedes formed an endless stream of seafarers who made the long journey southwards in pursuit of wealth, adventure, science, and missionary, as well as outright national, interest. Beginning by considering the early hunter-gatherer inhabitants of the Cape and their culture, Malcolm Jack focuses in his account on the encounter that the European visitors had with the Khoisan peoples, sometimes sympathetic but often exploitative from the time of the Portuguese to the abolition of slavery in the British Empire in 1833. This commercial and colonial background is key to understanding the development of the vibrant city that is modern Cape Town, as well as the rich diversity of the Cape hinterland. Published by Bucknell University Press. Distributed worldwide by Rutgers University Press.

The Smallest Kingdom is an illustrated account of the botanical exploration of South Africa's Cape Floral Kingdom and the plants that this region has given to the gardens of the world over the last four centuries. Over Kew's 250 year history, Cape plants and their collectors have contributed greatly to the establishment of the Royal Botanic Gardens,Kew as the pre-eminent centre for botanical research. The book is illustrated throughout with full colour botanical paintings, and will appeal to conservationists, gardeners, botanists, historians, botanical artists, naturalists, and visitors to the Cape.