01968nam a22001937a 4500 3228 20250401084253.0 250331b sa ||||| |||| 001 0 eng d 9781776190355 pbk RDA OCLC E 940.5368 STEY Steyn, Richard 192436 Seven votes, how WW11 changed South Africa forever. Richard Steyn. Johannesburg; Jonathan Ball Publishers; 2020. 327 pages 23 cm If a mere seven more MPs had voted with Prime Minister JBM Hertzog in favour of neutrality, South Africa’s history would have been quite different. Parliament’s narrow decision to go to war in 1939 led to a seismic upheaval throughout the 1940s: black people streamed in their thousands from rural areas to the cities in search of jobs; volunteers of all races answered the call to go ‘up north’ to fight; and opponents of the Smuts government actively hindered the war effort by attacking soldiers and committing acts of sabotage. World War Two upended South Africa’s politics, ruining attempts to forge white unity and galvanising opposition to segregation among African, Indian and coloured communities. It also sparked debates among nationalists, socialists, liberals and communists such as the country had never previously experienced. As Richard Steyn recounts so compellingly in 7 Votes, the war’s unforeseen consequence was the boost it gave to nationalism, both Afrikaner and African, that went on to transform the country in the second half of the 20th century. The book brings to life an extraordinary cast of characters, including wartime leader Jan Smuts, DF Malan and his National Party colleagues, African nationalists from Anton Lembede and AB Xuma to Walter Sisulu and Nelson Mandela, the influential Indian activists Yusuf Dadoo and Monty Naicker, and many others. ddc BOOK 174 Sanet Schoeman 174 Sanet Schoeman 773681 773680 0 0 ddc 0 0 900 STANRL amer Non_Fiction 2025-04-01 0 940.5368 STEY 3322803186454 2025-04-01 2025-04-01 BOOK 0 0 ddc 0 0 900 STANRL DAGGL Non_Fiction 2025-04-01 0 940.5368 STEY 3322803186455 2025-04-01 2025-04-01 BOOK