Research Notes Special Collection: the Cold War in Southern Africa

In 2005 Cold War History published my research notes on South African archives in Pretoria. A great deal has changed since then: there has been a decline in archivist knowledge of the holdings in the South African National Archives, and problematic cataloguing. The archives in the then-Department of Foreign Affairs have been moved, and there have been significant changes in access procedures at the Department of International Relations and Cooperation. All in all, the research environment in South Africa is now more challenging. However, as these research notes make clear, scholars are being resourceful and consulting a wide range of different holdings, accompanied by new conceptual approaches, to enhance our understanding of the complexities of the regional Cold War in Southern Africa. We hope that this collection of Research Notes provides a useful resource for scholars analysing the ‘battle of race and class’ in the southern Africa region.