Serpentine queues, some stretching for kilometres, showed that despite the bombs of the past few days, the country's democratic resolve was in good shape. There was plenty of patience and spirits were high.

In an extraordinary and engaging account this book traces the paths South Africans have followed from pre-colonial times to the democratic present, providing fascinating personal and historical details, and raising provocative questions about the choices, mistakes, contradictions and key themes in the emergence of the complex society that South Africa is today.

• First steps
• strangers on the shore
• being in touch
• as far as the eye could see
• finders keepers
• sparks from the earth
• credit to the crown
• union spells division
• hewers of wood, drawers of water
• armed and dangerous
• storming the fortress
• end of the