"The human population of Southern Africa is very diverse, and yet there are important senses in which it must be studied as a whole. This book, written by an historian and a social anthropologist, is an interdisciplinary attempt at understanding the history and contemporary situation of the Tswana and Southern Sotho people of Southern Africa, and thereby to a large extent the situation of rural Southern Africa generally. The Sotho-Tswana are today distributed mainly between Lesotho, Botswana and, within South Africa, the 'homelands' of BophuthaTswana and Basotho QwaQwa...."--Back cover