Keeping a Sharp Eye

A Century of Cartoons on South Africa's International Relations, 1910-2010

Peter Vale's recent book follows a century of South African international relation from the point of view of cartoons. Cartoonists were commenting on international relations long before the academic discipline was born, before think-tanks and the rise of experts. Instead, cartoonists offered a more subversive – and certainly more spicy – set of commentaries that constituted a "sharp eye" on foreign policy.

Drawn in jest, and sometimes in anger, political cartoons were no laughing matter, as they commented on a century that included both the horrors of war and the pleasures of peace.

This seminar gives an illustrated account of their history.

Peter Vale is professor of Humanities at the University of Johannesburg and Nelson Mandela Chair of Politics Emeritus at Rhodes University, Grahamstown. He is a fellow of the Stellenbosch Institute for Advanced Studies. Vale has published extensively (including in International Relation) and is also a frequent contributor to South African media, including several regular columns.