Stephen Hawking wrote a book a Brief History of Time, and in a sense, this is what this book is all about, a brief history or slice out of the Afrikanerpeoples existence in Southern Africa. A glimpse of their achievements, their failures and disappointments, not through the eyes of an historianbut through entering into their lives, their homes, experiencing their pain, laughing at their idiosyncrasies, walking next to them in their everydayexperiences at home, at work, at war and at play. After some deliberationit was decided that the best way to achieve this goal would be by usingthe medium of short stories, and to concentrate on the time period 1930to 2000. It is felt that future historians will recognize this period as themost dramatic and signifi cant in the rise and fall of the Afrikaner nationas well as the birth of the so called rainbow nation.