Description
Book SynopsisThe death of Botswana’s last founding father, Sir Ketumile Quett Masire, in June 2017, marked the end of an era. Since the release of the Fourth Edition of Historical Dictionary of Botswana in 2008, Botswana has gone through its most turbulent and divided decade to date. Throughout September 2016, when Botswana celebrated its 50th anniversary of independence, all the successes of the Seretse and Masire era were sources of massive national pride. Botswana had expanded provisions of electricity, water, education, and health services to almost all of its people and become a model nation that owned its natural resources and plowed the profits back into the nation’s development. Despite these successes, Botswana has a high unemployment rate (about 20 percent) and a much larger cohort of the underemployed. This fifth edition of Historical Dictionary of Botswana contains a chronology, an introduction, appendixes, an extensive bibliography, and more than 700 cross-referenced entries on important personalities and aspects of the country’s politics, economy, foreign relations, religion, and culture. This book is an excellent resource for students, researchers, and anyone wanting to know more about Botswana.
Trade ReviewThe "Historical Dictionary" series is a valuable reference source for college and university libraries without international research collections, particularly for Africa, for which information is not often easily accessed. . . . This is the fifth edition of the dictionary, the last published in 2008. The authors are recognized historians of Botswana, and both were involved in earlier versions. This edition includes numerous new entries, and most previous entries were updated reflecting important recent scholarship, particularly in the area of prehistory. Cross-referencing increased, which is important because of issues of language diversity. The most valuable addition was a significantly expanded bibliography. Recommended. * CHOICE *
Known for their bibliographies sections in this series, this book is no exception with both print and electronic resources in both general and very specialized subject areas (such as arts and crafts, literature and folklore, sciences, women and gender, and economics to name a few). An excellent resource on one of the many modern-day countries in Africa. * American Reference Books Annual *
Table of ContentsEditor’s Foreword Preface Reader’s Note Acronyms and Abbreviations Chronology Introduction THE DICTIONARY Appendices A National Elections B Demographic Trends Based on National Census Data C Botswana’s Indigenous Languages Glossary Bibliography About the Author
