![]() The social history of the western and north western Cape has rarely been as interestingly presented as it is in these two books. ![]() Although in many ways, the managerial superstructure of the Cape was similar to that of a Dutch city, the cosmopolitan and diverse nature of its population meant that a variety of identities and cultures co-existed alongside each other and found expression in a variety of public forms. Nigel Penn, Rogues, Rebels and Runaways: Eighteenth-Century Cape Characters (Cape Town, David Philip, 1999), viii + 195pp., 12.95 paperback, ISBN 0 86486 386 1. ![]() The unique society and culture that developed at the Cape was influenced by both these worlds. During that century, about one-third of the colony’s population lived in Cape Town, a cosmopolitan harbor city with a large transient, and overwhelmingly male, population which remained connected with both the Atlantic and Indian Ocean worlds. The colony continued to expand throughout the 18th century due to continued immigration from Europe and the rapid growth of the settler population through natural increase. The corollary of this development was the subjugation of the indigenous Khoikhoi and San inhabitants of the region, and the importation and use of a relatively large slave labor force in the agrarian and urban economies. ![]() Within a few years, this outpost developed into a fully-fledged settler colony with a “free-burgher” population who made an existence as grain, wine, and livestock farmers in the interior, or engaged in entrepreneurial activities in Cape Town, the largest settlement in the colony. In 1652 the Dutch East India Company founded a “refreshment station” in Table Bay on the southwestern coast of Africa for its fleets to and from the East Indies. ![]()
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![]() ![]() She began her own investigation, one that drew her back to Maine, deep into the darkness of a small American town. It was not her mother’s death she wanted to understand, but her life. She dreamed of a trial, but when the day came, it brought no closure. ![]() In that time, Sarah rebuilt her life amid abandonment, police interrogations, and the exacting toll of trauma. But that moment of darkness foreshadowed a much larger one: two days later, Crystal was murdered in their home in rural Maine. When Sarah Perry was twelve, she saw a partial eclipse she took it as a good omen for her and her mother, Crystal. A fierce memoir of a mother’s murder, a daughter’s coming-of-age in the wake of immense loss, and her mission to know the woman who gave her life. A New York Times Book Review Editors’ Choice. ![]() ![]() Parks reimagines Lincoln’s legacy through a black man in whiteface who remains long after the historical Lincoln’s death to sit and accept endless reiterations of enacted violence and hatred on his behalf. But the simplified and romantic depiction of Abraham Lincoln as the Great Emancipator obscures the history of the real man. ![]() Abraham Lincoln represents a mythological figure in the national imaginary of American, and particularly African American history. Parks’s signature style involves rhythmic dialogue and heightened dialect, which is less overt in Topdog/Underdog than some of her more esoteric works but still evident in its language structure and unique use of punctuation. ![]() Topdog/Underdog shows how history, whether personal, familial, or cultural, shapes the present. Corey Hawkins and Yahya Abdul-Mateen II star as clashing brothers in the Broadway revival of Suzan-Lori Parks’s Pulitzer-winning play, which now feels out of step with our times. ![]() ![]() The final scene ends with Booth cradling his brother’s body and screaming. At the end of the play, Booth lives up to his name when, after Lincoln wins his inheritance in a round of three-card monte, Booth shoots Lincoln from behind and kills him. ![]() |