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The Covenant

James A. Michener,

Larry McKeever (narrator)

4.20 · Rating details · 20,254 ratings · 505 reviews

James A. Michener’s masterly chronicle of South Africa is an epic tale of adventurers, scoundrels, and ministers, the best and worst of two continents who carve an empire out of a vast wilderness. From the Java-born Van Doorn family tree springs two great branches: one nurtures lush vineyards, the other settles the interior to become the first Trekboers and Afrikaners. The ...more

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Paperback, 1240 pages

Published January 9th 1992 by Mandarin (first published January 1st 1980)

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· 20,254 ratings · 505 reviews

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Jun 12, 2011 Jeanette (Ms. Feisty) rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: africa, five-star-fiction, historical-fiction, cultural-and-social-commentary, all-fiction

I never believed I could understand the complicated, bloody, perplexing history of South Africa. Leave it to Michener to prove me wrong. This was published in 1980. I wish Jimmy was still around to provide a follow-up from 1980 to the present.
1235 pages! And it only took me 8 1/2 weeks. This is my big accomplishment for the year. It may even be the longest book I've ever read. If I don't get through anything else on my 2011 challenge shelf, that will be okay. ...more

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May 21, 2020 Brett C rated it really liked it

Shelves: historical-fiction

This is great if you enjoy James Michener's books. His style reads and flows almost like a history textbook but is filled with characters and events that add to the overall narrative. This one was similar to 'Alaska' because the plot starts out in prehistoric South Africa and gradually moves into the 20th century. What makes it unique is the narrative has characters with dialogue, interaction, and continual transitions into the future. The books follows prehistoric man, the history of the variou ...more

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Oct 17, 2007 Becky rated it it was amazing

My favorite Michener. The story behind South Africa. And when I say behind, that is truly Michener's style. He starts with the beginning of time, how the earth was formed, the first people to populate the area, and on to the present day. An incredible amount of information, but entertaining to read as he masterfully follows several families whose lives cross again and again over centuries.

...more

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Jun 07, 2009 Daniel Villines rated it it was amazing

I first read The Covenant nearly twenty years ago. The book was recommended to me by a South African associate when I mentioned that I was traveling to South Africa for an upcoming vacation. At the time, apartheid had already died a surprisingly peaceful death and Nelson Mandela had completed a relatively quiet and apparently successful five years in office as the first president of a new government. At the time, I took the book very superficially. After all, the entire content of The Covenant h I first read The Covenant nearly twenty years ago. The book was recommended to me by a South African associate when I mentioned that I was traveling to South Africa for an upcoming vacation. At the time, apartheid had already died a surprisingly peaceful death and Nelson Mandela had completed a relatively quiet and apparently successful five years in office as the first president of a new government. At the time, I took the book very superficially. After all, the entire content of The Covenant had happened in the past.

With this second reading, some twenty years later, my older mind was awed by the mountain of South African history that parallels that of the United States. Both nations overran and subjugated their native inhabitants, both nations established governments that placed power exclusively in the hands of their colonists, and both governments codified their beliefs in white supremacy.

The laws in effect in both nations were similar in their desire to repress those with non-white backgrounds. The difference was that South Africa needed to be more draconian. South Africa was repressing a majority of its people while the United States focused on a minority. In both cases, however, the beliefs that drove these injustices were fueled by greed, self-serving religious interpretations, and peer-based circular reasoning.

In 1994, more than a decade after the story in The Covenant ends, reality landed in the lap of the white South African government. And to its credit, their leaders cooperated with the majority of South Africans to bring about a peaceful end to their institutional racism. Some may argue that the US did the same thing much earlier. However, the reality is that freedoms in the US allowed for the circumvention of laws by pushing minority repression underground. Racially discriminatory laws were transformed into racially biased unwritten codes of conduct that still permeate US society today.

In continuing with the parallels between the two countries, the most alarming aspect of this book is the process that the South African minority used to enact their racial agenda. As white Americans slowly diminish into a new minority, their actions look very much like those of the South African minority of the past. They are using the constructs of government to secure power including gerrymandering control of state legislatures and congressional districts, passing laws aimed at disenfranchising non-white voters, and electing nationalists leaders who display a obvious racial favoritism towards the emerging white minority.

South Africa could serve as a tangible model for the new white minority in the US to gain control of the nation. And even more concerning is that the government of the United States still possesses a built in favoritism towards the rural states where most of the new minority reside; a favoritism that is not unlike the one that existed in South Africa prior to 1994.

The Covenant, as a work of historical fiction, is very long (like this review). However, the long detailed history imparted by Michener all leads up to the book’s ending at the zenith of apartheid and the beginnings of its downfall. The book gives the reader a true sense of the beliefs and fallacies that were fermented and reaffirmed over centuries in the minds of the Afrikaners who ended up governing the nation, and leaves no room for speculation as to why apartheid came into being. ...more

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Dec 08, 2014 Allison Corin rated it it was amazing

This is a difficult book to review. As with all Michener books, it is well researched and written.

Anytime I recommend one of his books, I must verify that the intended reader loves history, loves reading, and is willing to hunker down and delve through slow stories to enjoy the incredible wealth of knowledge that can be gained from his stories. The covenant is no different. To read this story takes a level of patience and desire that most books, even most historical novels, do not require.

That ...more

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Jul 18, 2012 Johnny D rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

I promised myself when I considered writing a review of this gigantic tome ...

Woah there buddy, isn't it a little redundant to be calling a tome gigantic? If it's a tome it is gigantic by its very definition, or are you saying that it's especially large, even for a tome?

Alright, so when I was considering writing a review of this tome, I made a promise to myself not to use the word epic.

Newsflash, genius, you are writing a review and you just used the word epic. Mission failed, promise to self br ...more

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Nov 07, 2012 Jonathan Dunsky rated it it was amazing

James Michener's epic book on South-Africa. It tells the story of that land from the early settlements by the Dutch, through the expansion of it by English immigrants and others, to the South-Africa of the Apartheid age, shortly before it was eliminated.

The tumultuous and violent history of South-Africe is told with Michener's careful research and adherence to detail. The people and their struggles and the values that drove them enrich the story and add the personal touch to the sweeping changes ...more

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Oct 03, 2019 Will Semin added it

Essential.

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Oct 10, 2018 Blaine DeSantis rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

I admit, I am a Michener fanatic! I read this book when it first came out and so much of it just stuck with me over the years that I decided to reread it. First of all, 1240 pages! Wow, wow, wow!!! Michener crams this book with outstanding usage of the history of the county and then blend his fictitious families to be part of those events. Did a ton of fact-checking as I went along and he was spot on with his history - having the internet made it easy for me to do this. He allows us to see Afric ...more

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Aug 17, 2007 Lys rated it it was amazing

A bible of a book - both in terms of size and contents - that retells the history of South Africa through the stories of both fictitous and historic characters. A truly ambitious endeavour in true Michener style, which had a profound effect on me when I read it at the age of 16 - and still does! The book ends in the 1980s, and I am still amazed at Michener´s insight into the shaping of post-apartheid South Africa.

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Jun 30, 2017 Jacques Bezuidenhout rated it really liked it · review of another edition

tl;dr - Read the book, don't listen to the audio

I listened to the Audiobook (if you can even call it that).
It is actually a 1993 tape recording with a monotonous narrator that cannot pronounce a single word related to the Dutch, Afrikaners, Xhosa, Zulu.
Being about 60 hours of audio, it gets a bit tedious being told to reverse, or turn the tape around every 30 minutes.
And if the narrator wasn't bad enough on his own, you had this static (sea shell) type background throughout the whole book.
I tru ...more

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Mar 31, 2009 Stephen rated it really liked it

It was very interesting to read this book which ended in 1980. As of 2009 we can now look back at what happened to South Africa and it is wonderful to see that of the 2 scenario's that Michener thought most likely the (relatively) bloodless one emerged. I especially enjoyed his section on South Africa under apartheid. It is a reminder to me of how stupid, brutal and ineffective it was a system. The whites now like to complain about Affirmative Action and BEE but looking at the system that we put ...more

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Mar 13, 2017 June rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: historical-fiction

Remarks:
Religion (destroy?) vs. Education (enlighten?)
Old and New Testament, Paganism - in evolution and civilization
Art and War - in remembrance, progression and humanity

I'm less a history buff than a fiction aficionado, not equipped to verify or criticize the historical facts and associated reasoning. I immersed in the ocean of millennial saga, surrender to his craft, not getting drowned but in fascination.
Less words given to blacks (and colored) than to whites, but they are the ones who le ...more

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Feb 20, 2013 Rachelle rated it liked it

This is not a new book, but I'm glad I've found it as James Michener is a master storyteller. In history classes we were taught drips and drabs of our history, so it was interesting to see how it all fits together. This historical novel is obviously based on fact, but the author's own storyline is cleverly interwoven. It gives one a comprehensive account of how South Africa came into being, the different role players involved as well as the dynamics of this multi-cultural and multi-faceted count ...more

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Mar 23, 2020 Shannon rated it liked it

Not my favorite Michener by far but there were still some really interesting stories. As with most of his books, the first half of the book was much stronger than this second half. In this book's case, the real issue for me was reading about all the racism and apartheid and general bigotry throughout the book. I never knew South Africa came from such a rough, racist background. This book taught me a lot but it was no picnic to read. ...more

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Jan 29, 2022 Janith Pathirage rated it really liked it · review of another edition

An epic historical fiction novel about South Africa from 1300s to the 1970s. This whole story revolves around 3 families who represent the 3 significant races of the country. Black South Africans, the Dutch and the English. It was fascinating to see their clash throughout the centuries for the ownership of South Africa. Some characters of the book are fictional and some are real historical figures like King Shaka of the Zulu tribe. It was so interesting to read about this half mad, warmongering ...more

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Jan 31, 2021 Nick rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: authors-michener

Really very good in places, but a bit uneven. As usual with a large Michener, the earlier chapters were better than the last few. The short chapter on prehistoric South Africa and chapters on the Trekboers, Mfecane, Shaka Zulu and the arrival of the English were really well written and worth plowing through such a long saga. The last three chapters on Apartheid were just plain tedious.

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Oct 27, 2021 David (דוד) rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: american-writing, epics, owned-read, james-michener, fiction, historical-fiction, location-africa

Average rating: 4.64

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Nov 30, 2010 Christine Ward rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: historical-fiction

The last time I read this book was about six years ago, and I remember thinking that Michener was overly sympathetic to the Afrikaners, and thus, to their cause - apartheid. Finding that morally repugnant, I decided I was done with this book and done with Michener.
Currently, I'm experiencing a Michener-revival, and after watching "Invictus", thought I'd give this book another try.
Like all Michener books, this is incredibly well-researched, and very involved, with characters that span hundreds ...more

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Aug 10, 2011 Erin rated it it was ok · review of another edition

BORING! My dad gave me this book before I left the U.S. to study in South Africa. I got a third of the way through before finally giving up. I love to read and rarely stop reading in the middle, but I found it very difficult to commit to The Covenant. The history is interesting and useful and has been a good companion to my travels in this country, but ultimately the characters are one-dimensional, and the stories seem forced, rather than developing in an organic way. The author seemed more inte ...more

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May 01, 2013 Alida rated it really liked it · review of another edition

I bought this book for 50 Cents in one of the nicest book stores ever. Too bad it's in Gold Beach, Oregon. ...more

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Sep 02, 2013 Elaine rated it really liked it

This book was published in 1980.

FACTS FROM THIS BOOK:

B.P.E.--Before the present Era. Cave paintings in South Africa carbon dated at 13000 B.P.E.

Hottentots-the native people of southwestern Africa, closely related to the Bushmen. The San people, more commonly known as Bushmen, are believed to be the earliest inhabitants of southern Africa. They have lived for 80,000 years as hunter-gatherers in the Kalahari Desert, and are well-known for their expert survival skills in a harsh environment. Their ...more

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Nov 06, 2012 Shane rated it really liked it

A panoramic novel, spanning centuries, where the tragic heroine is Mother South Africa, whose children are unable to live together in peace. I wish my school history books had been written like this, with the insertion of fictional characters to bring story and life into what is normally a dull narrative.

After a preface on the early Bushman who inhabited the land since pre-historic times, the story follows the lineage of the Afrikaner Van Doorn, English Saltwood and Zulu Nxumalo families, from t A panoramic novel, spanning centuries, where the tragic heroine is Mother South Africa, whose children are unable to live together in peace. I wish my school history books had been written like this, with the insertion of fictional characters to bring story and life into what is normally a dull narrative.

After a preface on the early Bushman who inhabited the land since pre-historic times, the story follows the lineage of the Afrikaner Van Doorn, English Saltwood and Zulu Nxumalo families, from the arrival of the first Europeans in the mid 17th century to the end of the 1970’s. Dominant members of each of these families shape and are shaped by the history of the country. There are dozens of stories within this book, tragic, dramatic, humorous and downright inhuman, all extremely interesting and well rendered. The intent of the novel in its 1100 pages seems to be to capture the history South Africa and therefore we see characters enter and exit quickly along with their stories, with only a few like Tjaart and Detleef Van Doorn, Hillary and Laura Saltwood, Jonathan and Daniel Nxumalo and the timeless General Paulus De Groot leaving larger footprints than their relatives.

The clash of white and black cultures is evident from the beginning when the Europeans land in Cape Town in the mid 17th century and migrate north as far as the boundary with Zimbabwe over generations, while the blacks in the form of the resident Hottentots, the Xhosa from across the Great Fish River, and their northern Zulu cousins separated by the Drakensburg range, all drift south seeking boundless grazing land for their herds. The Dutch Afrikaner and his nomadic cousin, the Boer, are portrayed as fierce, independent individuals, willing to fight against insurmountable odds, who in their Calvinistic faith believe that this land was given to them, by God’s covenant and that like the different colours of jelly, the various colours of race shouldn’t mix. The English, who arrive in 1805, are more interested in empire and the abolition of slavery, while the blacks simply want their land back, and the Coloureds reflect the sin of miscegenation. Mixed in with the fictional characters are real life individuals, three in particular: Shaka of the Zulu, Cecil Rhodes and Lord Kichener, men who never married, wreak havoc in the country in their misguided intention of maintaining order.

Loyalties shift between the ethnic groups during each generation as they jockey for pole position. There is even a time when the Afrikaners throw in their lot with the Germans during the two world wars of the 20th century to be rid of the British, while the Xhosa starve themselves to death under the illusion that the Russians are coming to their aid after the Crimean War. The British are no better and open concentration camps at the end of the Boer War where many women and children die of typhoid, dysentery and other diseases.

All this evolution only leads to South Africa’s darkest phase, when the Afrikaner Nationalist Party gains control in 1948 and institutes a form of Nazism called Apartheid. Horrible things happen during this time: whites have to carry Life Books with them detailing every incident in their life to protect their racial purity, Coloureds are to be deprived of their vote, blacks are given “Bantustans” (segregated homelands), transgressors of any colour are “banned” from public life indefinitely, and suspicion rules the land – for instance, the lack of freckles could imply that you are Coloured. The irony is that when racial investigations are initiated, even the “purest of the pure” are found to have some miscegenation somewhere up their family tree, making the whole issue of racial purity, in a land where early European male settlers could not find wives easily, a bit of a joke.

It’s a pity that Michener ends his narrative in 1979, with Apartheid at its worst, with scores of the best and brightest fleeing the country for places like Canada and Australia, with blacks massing for revolution over in Mozambique, and with 400 years of evolution leading the country only to its worst boiling point. God’s Covenant, indeed - Calvin would be turning in his grave!

We all know that Apartheid ended in the 1990’s and South Africa still lurches trying to find its feet under its new balance of power, and therefore this story has no ending, yet. Michener shows hope however, when he parallels Phillip Saltwood’s tireless search for diamonds, which finally yields the possibility of a find, to the search for peace in the land by its various leaders who are mining for diamonds in their fellow citizens’ souls.

As for the fate of the panoramic novel, I think it has less hope than South Africa has, given the shrinking of attention spans these days. I took nearly a month to finish this book, engrossing though it was, and am unlikely to pick up another Michener tome for a long time to come. Mich would have to drastically alter his writing strategy were he still alive today.
...more

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Apr 08, 2021 Jonathan rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: fiction, historical-fiction, south-africa

Meticulously researched, epic and mostly entertaining. Fascinating to see how a terrible interpretation of the Old Testament led to so much evil. It is too bad that it stops at 1980 (to have a book about SA with no mention of Mandela?!) but on that note it is pretty insightful about what would happen. Although I'm sure not all of Michener's judgements or descriptions are politically correct, for what it is - a historical fiction novel about SA published by an American in 1980- it's very well don ...more

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Aug 02, 2015 Carolyn Walsh rated it really liked it

4.5 stars
When I realized this was a formidable book of almost 1200 pages I postponed reading it for several weeks. Once I started it I was fascinated by the brutal and bloody history of this beautiful country.The story is told through the lives, actions and beliefs of three extended, multigeneration families,( fictional but with some actual events) and gave me more insight as to how the reviled system of apartheid came to be. There is an Afrikaaner family (an amalgamation of mainly Dutch, Hugue 4.5 stars
When I realized this was a formidable book of almost 1200 pages I postponed reading it for several weeks. Once I started it I was fascinated by the brutal and bloody history of this beautiful country.The story is told through the lives, actions and beliefs of three extended, multigeneration families,( fictional but with some actual events) and gave me more insight as to how the reviled system of apartheid came to be. There is an Afrikaaner family (an amalgamation of mainly Dutch, Huguenot and German),an English family and a Zulu family whose history is told from their beginnings in South Africa. We also learn of the fate of the Xhosa tribe, indigenous people such as the San (Bushman) and Hottentots.
Fanatical and firmly held religous beliefs considered the Blacks inferior in ability, fit only as servants or for menial labour by the Whites.The Coloured (people of mixed race)were considered tainted by the sexual sins of their ancestors and were confined to certain jobs and separate living areas. Blacks saw their homes bulldozed and sent to segregated areas. Chinese were brought in as cheap labour, and then expelled. Indians were also considered beneath the white settlers, and limited in where they lived and what they achieved. Gandhi shows up as a stretcher bearer during the Boer War.
The Afrikaaners mostly believed they had a covenant with God to rule this country and their religious beliefs gave them the right to subject and enslave people they considered inferior. The English wanted South Africa as part of the British Empire, and bloody wars were fought with heroic actions on both sides. Sometimes their native servants accompanied them into battle fields, and there were also wars with the Zulus.
The thoughts and actions of the books charscters gave me better insight into this gorgeous, troubled country, more than history books could convey. Some of the fictional characters are based on real people and events. Throughout the book we also read about real historical characters. It added to my enjoyment to look up their photos and biographies on the internet, and also pictures and maps of the places mentioned.
The book was published in 1979 when apartheid was in force, positions of wealth and power were confined to the whites, other people were defranchised, Blacks were seeing their homes bulldozed and being sent to hovels outside the city, anyone of any race considered an agitator could be banned or imprisoned and/or tortured.
I wish there had been an addition to the book for the rapid events which occured in starting with President de Klerk negotiating with Mandela while he was imprisoned in 1990, the dismantling of apartheid, and universal voting rights, the release of Mandela from prison and his ascent to the Presidency. Would have liked to know how the book's characters thought and reacted to these changes in the structure of their society. At the end of the book it was suggested that it would take much time and patience and maybe a war for these changes to take place, and maybe their grandchildren would live to see what actually happened within 14 years of the publication of the Covenant. ...more

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Feb 06, 2016 Augusto Bernardi rated it liked it

Shelves: books, drama, african-history-culture

Great summary of the history of South Africa. It's a learning experience and wish I had read James A. Michener's books in high school history class. One thing that particularly stood out for me was that the truly violent and horrific events in the book weren't from the people I thought they were gonna be from. WE forget some parts of history sometimes. Having said all that though, I did not like that you could not connect with ANY characters in the book. By the end of the chapter, the character ...more

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Sep 11, 2019 Richard Marney rated it really liked it

Shelves: contemporary-fiction

A reread. The first time was 3 decades ago. I still have the original, much beaten-up paperback, complete with all the necessary scotch tape to keep the pages together. I found the book as enthralling as in the first reading. Since that time, the "Rainbow Nation" has been born. This event, one of the most positive moments in the 20th century, was in the back of my mind as I raced to the section of the narrative where the idea of Aparteid comes to life in an Afrikaaner kitchen (preparing gelatine ...more

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Dec 02, 2009 Nancy Chappell rated it really liked it

I know some consider Michener a lightweight - in fact I don't know anyone else who enjoys reading him - but I have enjoyed learning a bit more about complicated social histories of a particular area. Piecing together the history of the Xhosa, Zulu and other natives in southern African, as well as the Dutdh and English colonisers was very interesting to me. I am more inclined to read such a book with human stories (if fictitious), than to pick up a non-fiction on the history of So. Africa. Anyone ...more

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Mar 17, 2020 Caitlin rated it did not like it

Honestly, there's too much of this book to make anything of it. I finished it 5 minutes ago and can tell you maybe 25% of the plot(s). There were about 3 poignant moments in 1235 pages. A LOT of the characters are absolutely insufferable. It's incredibly formulaic and a bit too sympathetic towards irredeemably awful people for my taste. -1 for soulessness -2 stars for racism -1 star for time. 1 star for the bare minimum. ...more

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Apr 21, 2016 Sebastien rated it it was amazing

A truly magnificent work. This should be required reading for anyone interested in South Africa.

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About James A. Michener

James A. Michener

2,520 followers

James Albert Michener is best known for his sweeping multi-generation historical fiction sagas, usually focusing on and titled after a particular geographical region. His first novel, Tales of the South Pacific , which inspired the Rodgers and Hammerstein musical South Pacific, won the 1948 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction.

Toward the end of his life, he created the Journey Prize, awarded annually for ...more