there is a fair amount of reading to be done just on SA alone, Dutch / English occupancy, discovering diamonds unsurprisingly a big fight, it goes on - throw in massive inter tribal hatred between Black nationals as well as white settlers and ever shrinking natural resources, its a bit of a powder keg.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_South_Africa
http://www-cs-students.stanford.edu/~cale/cs201/apartheid.hist.html
http://www.indyweek.com/triangleoffense/archives/2010/07/08/a-short-history-of-the-dutch-in-south-africa-1652-2010