Beslissing by Blouberg. Triomf en tragedie van die stryd om die Kaap

As a child in the 1920s Krynauw holidayed at Melkbosstrand, where he heard stories of a much later war from his uncle, Piet Bestbier. However, it was only on holiday visits to the area in the 1950s that he started to gather evidence of the famous early 19th century battle that took place on these West Coast dunes. By then he had begun his long career as an archivist, where he had access to British maps and other documents, but he was soon posted away from Cape Town - to Pretoria, Windhoek and elsewhere - and it was not until he retired that he was able to write the book he had been thinking about for years.

It's not for the faint-hearted: there's a good deal of Dutch and from some of the Afrikaans one might guess that Krynauw had been an archivist.

Although the book's publication was subsidised by the L W Hiemstra Trust, it could probably have been able to stand on its own, as it offers such a full and well-illustrated commentary on both the battle itself as well as the Cape settlement at the time. The to-ing and fro-ing of the English and Bataviaan governments is well covered, and there is an authoritative analysis of the difficulties of Governor Janssens as he had to face up to the nepotism and other failings of his nominal superior, Commissioner de Mist.

Considering how dramatically "Blouberg" changed the course of South African history, it seems surprising how little was written about the battle itself.

Limp covers, vii + 207 pp of text, bibliography and index + 16 inserted pp of illustrations, including maps, on art paper. Apart from an ink inscription on the half-title page, this a clean and bright copy.