146 mm x 160 mm, softcover, 128 pages RRP: R150, ISBN 978-1-4152-0086-5 Publication date: October 2009, Category: History Description An asteroid the size of Table Mountain crashed into what was to become South Africa over 2 billion years ago, marking the spot. The country’s history since then has always been robust and full of energy. Francis Wilson's Dinosaurs, Diamonds & Democracy takes you in record time from that moment, when the earth’s richest gold reefs were shaped, to the advent of democracy in 1994, another event that stunned the world. Along the way you will encounter some of the most ancient dinosaurs on record, the very first people on the planet, and the first cultures. You will see outsiders moving in to reshape history: hunters and gatherers, cultivators and herders, iron-workers from the north, and immigrants from Europe and Asia. They fought and made peace; they stumbled upon gold and diamonds; they rose to the heights of excellence and sunk to the depths of oppression, until on one day they all queued as equals to elect a government. That is the story marked by dinosaurs, diamonds and democracy. From Dinosaurs, Diamonds & Democracy, page 12 Let’s start at the site of the small town of Vredefort, 120 km south-west of Johannesburg. Here, around 2.02 billion years ago, an enormous asteroid, somewhat larger than Cape Town’s Table Mountain, came hurtling in from space at approximately 100 times the speed of sound and hit the ground with a force estimated to have been 7 or 8 billion times greater than that of the atomic bomb which destroyed Hiroshima in 1945. The asteroid turned the earth inside out as the pressure of its impact caused soil and rock to rebound from 20 km below the surface. The rock and soil formed a dome in the centre of the crater, which itself settled into a relatively shallow basin with a diameter of 250 to 300 km. To read on For a list of endnotes and sources, click here. Read an article by Francis Wilson in the Cape Times. Read a review. Read a review in the Daily News. Read a review by Kayang Gagiano in Sawubona here. To buy this book www.exclusivebooks.com www.kalahari.net home   writers   books   contact   buy   rights all content © Umuzi, Random House Struik this website designed and maintained by Guanaco.co.za