This article examines some of the core holdings within the Archive for Contemporary Affairs at the University of the Free State, Bloemfontein, South Africa. Prominent amongst this material are the papers of the National Party (NP), the political party that formalised the structures of apartheid. Paying particular attention to the papers of what Hermann Giliomee has termed ‘The Last Afrikaner Leaders’ alongside recently acquired material concerning post-colonial politics, we argue for the importance of this archive for scholars studying Afrikaner nationalism, at both national and regional level, the rationales and discourses of apartheid and the history of the country more broadly.

As the Portuguese settlement of Macau came to occupy an important position in the emerging global commercial web, it became a crossroads where peoples from disparate parts of the world—in particular, Portuguese and Chinese—came together to engage in a profitable trade. Historians have often treated Macau as a prototypical example of cross-cultural interaction and hybridity: a point where East and West converged and blended; an “Intercultural City,” in the words of one scholar. Yet, the notion of Macau as a place of intermingling and blending obscures some of the ways in which Macau's inhabitants did not quite “come together.” Here, I focus on the asymmetry in linguistic communication that developed in Macau: members of Macau's Portuguese mercantile elite did not become fluent in any of the Chinese dialects, and did not learn how to read or write the Chinese script, while a number of the Chinese who came to live in Macau—whether as merchants, tradesmen, labourers, servants, or slaves—became proficient in Portuguese. Drawing from a range of sources in Portuguese and Chinese, I argue that this asymmetry developed for several reasons, including the difficulty of the Chinese language, the Chinese government's approach to foreign relations and maritime, and the political and economic power of the Portuguese within their Lusophone enclave. I also consider how the Portuguese reliance on others for assistance with cross-cultural communication—most notably, Jesuit missionaries and Chinese jurubaças (interpreters)—shaped the evolution of the multicultural community.

This article explores the private trade networks of English East India Company merchants on the west coast of India during the first half of the eighteenth century. Existing studies of English private trade in the Indian Ocean have almost exclusively focused on India's eastern seaboard, the Coromandel Coast and the Bay of Bengal regions. This article argues that looking at private trade from the perspective of the western Indian Ocean provides a different picture of this important branch of European trade. It uses EIC records and merchants' private papers to argue against recent metropolitan-centred approaches to English private trade, instead emphasising the importance of more localised political and economic contexts, within the Indian Ocean world, for shaping the conduct and success of this commerce.

During the eighteenth century, the global environment of imperial competition and cooperation encouraged the circulation of highly qualified mapmaking personnel from the service of one ruler to the other, thus contributing to the dissemination of cartographic knowledge. This article examines the career of military engineer and mapmaker Michel Angelo de Blasco (1697-1772), whose life in the service of the Habsburg Monarchy and the Portuguese Empire illustrates the importance of trans-imperial approaches to the history of cartography. As Vienna and Lisbon sponsored large mapmaking enterprises, including border demarcations and military surveys, skilled cartographers became precious resources for these empires. However, in the case of de Blasco, the invaluable service done in Brazil for the Portuguese monarch, made him both sought-after as a potential information source for the Habsburg monarchs and unemployable due to the risk of a diplomatic conflict. The efforts of de Blasco to transition back into the service of Vienna included the unauthorised submission of cartographic material. Additionally, the details of the negotiations regarding this mapmaker's possible transfer reveal the processes of institutionalisation and centralisation Habsburg cartography underwent during the time of Maria Theresa (1740-80).

During the second half of the eighteenth century, the first Muslim rulers of Mysore—Haidar ‘Ali (c. 1720-82) and his son Tipu Sultan (c. 1750-99)—were amongst the first South and West Asian rulers to unleash a process of administrative, socio-economic and military protomodernisation. Haidar, a rather cautious and pragmatic autocrat who could neither read nor write, ruled within the framework of the traditional Mughal system of governance. Highly skilled in administrative, military and diplomatic realms, he initiated the proto-modernisation of the army and took some important measures towards the establishment of a central state. In turn, Tipu was an educated autocrat, fond of administrative, socio-economic, military, and technological inventions and innovations which he intended to use in the struggle against the British occupying forces in South India. In the extant literature, Tipu is either being idealised as an “enlightened” ruler or described as a pre-modern despot. Few scholars have given a balanced account of his rule by depicting both his autocratic style of leadership, as well as the pragmatic features and proto-modernising aspects of his rule. This article is concerned with the biographic and historical background of Haidar ‘Ali and Tipu Sultan and aims to furnish a concerted account of their rule by consulting fresh printed and unprinted primary sources in English, French and German.

Even before signing the pact between Japan and Germany, Japanese musicians performed in the concert halls of the Third Reich. In particular, there was an active demand due to propagandistic performances such as German–Japanese concerts or concerts for German soldiers on the Eastern front or occupied territories. This study describes the activities of two “Japanese” conductors who became members of the Reich Chamber of Culture and performed with the Berliner Philharmonic orchestra: Ahn Ekitai (Iktae) from colonial Korea and Konoye Hidemaro, a high-ranking Japanese peer. Extracted from documents of the German–Japanese Society at the Federal Archives Koblenz (Germany), this article explores the cultural and political functions that these conductors faced in terms of German war propaganda and how their different musical compositions, both named “Etenraku”, related to propagandistic values. This essay further shows that Ahn, whom Koreans considered a patriot and fighter against Japanese colonial power in Europe for a long time, was active as a Japanese conductor in the Third Reich, calling Konoye's assertion that he was pursued by the Nazis into question.