The story begins 15,000 years ago with a clan of small brown people- the San, later called "Bushmen". A beautiful lake, long the center of their lives, is drying up, and they must move across a hostile African desert to seek better conditions. The hardships overcome by this intrepid band- hunters, wanderers, artists- are minor compared with what will eventually confront those who come after them. Some of these are next shown in the 15th century toiling in the gold mines that enrich the black empire of Zimbabwe. They are overseen by Nxumalo, who has achieved power and fortune in that great city and who is an ancestor of one of the three principal families in this book. The first European settlement in South Africa is a Dutch out post established in 1652 at the Cape of Good Hope. An original settler at the Cape is Willem van Doorn. Born in Java to a prominent Dutch family, he is a member of the first of the ten generations of Van Doorns who dominate this novel and an early contributor to the racial mixture that will later be despised and repressed as the Coloureds. He is a pioneer in the eastward movement which spreads his family and their countrymen to the Indian Ocean. For a century and a half there is little to deter the enemy; the San and the Khoikoi ("Hot-tentots") are destroyed or pushed aside, and other European immigrants quickly assimilated. But the end of the 18th century brings more formidable obstacles; the Boers' expansion to the east is encroaching on the territories of potent black tribes like the Xhosa and the Zulu; and in 1795 the English occupy the Cape, soon ceded to Great Britain by Holland. Early 19th century English settlers arrive, causing different conflicts, leading to the Boer War (1899-1902). The military victory of the British is converted by the Boers into a political triumph.20th century approaches its end, they have become a rich, powerful, independent nation. Apartheid comes about, difficult to oppose., ISBN13: B0013YOAFI ISBN10: B0013YOAFI Material Type: hardcover