About Us

Ian van der Waag is Professor in the Defense and Security Program at Rabdan Academy. He joined the Rabdan team in February 2023. He was previously Professor of Military History in the Faculty of Military Science of Stellenbosch University, at the South African Military Academy, where he taught across all academic levels, and lectured at the SA National War College and the SA National Defence College, in Pretoria, and the School of Military Science, University of Namibia, in Windhoek.

The general editor of the African Military Studies series (SUN Press), founding-director of the Southern Africa Chapter of the Second World Research Group (SWWRG – King’s College, London), and founding-director of the War and Society in Africa conference series, he serves on the editorial boards of the Journal of African Military History and the South African Journal of Military Studies. His recent publications include: A Military History of Modern South Africa (2015; 2018), In Different Times: The War for Southern Africa, 1966-1989 (co-editor, 2019), and Sights, Sounds, Memories; South African Soldier Experiences of the Second World War (editor, 2020), Prisoners and Internees, 1939-1945: The South African experience (co-editor, forthcoming 2023), Botha, Smuts and the Great War (co-author, forthcoming 2023), and co-editor of a special issue of the International Journal of Military History and Historiography on the East African campaign of the Second World War.

An avid reader and trawler of archives, he is a Regional Ambassador of The Western Front Association, and a Fellow of the Modern War Institute, USMA West Point (2020).

• PhD, University of Cape Town (June 2006)
• MA, University of Pretoria (December 1997)
• BA Hons, University of Port Elizabeth (March 1987)
• BA, University of Port Elizabeth (December 1985)
• Certified Copy-editor, University of Cape Town (2020)

• Military History
• Military Strategy and Theory
• Geopolitics 

• Modern history with a two-world-wars, Anglo-Dominion military focus
• Mutually reciprocal impacts between wars and societies
• Historiography of warfare
• Soldier narratives

Books and edited collections




•  Botha, Smuts, and the Great War (Helion, Wolverhampton Military Studies, forthcoming 2023). Co-authored with Antonio Garcia.
•  Prisoners and Internees, 1939-1945: The South African experience (Stellenbosch: Stellenbosch University Press, forthcoming 2023). Co-editor.
•  Sights, Sounds, Memories: South African Soldier Experiences of the Second World War (Stellenbosch: Stellenbosch University Press, 2020). Sole editor. ISBN 978-1-928480-90-7.
•  In Different Times: South Africa’s Border War in Retrospect (Stellenbosch: Stellenbosch University Press, 2019). Co-edited with Albert Grundlingh. ISBN 978-1-928480-34-1.
•  A Military History of Modern South Africa (Casemate: Philadelphia and Oxford, 2018), revised. ISBN 978-1-61200-582-9.
•  A Military History of Modern South Africa (Cape Town and Johannesburg: Jonathan Ball Publishers, 2015). ISBN 978-1-86842-418-4.
•  A History of the South African Defence Force Institute, 1914-1990 (Pretoria: MPU, 1990, second edition 1991). ISBN 0-621-12917-8.

 

 

Special issues of journals

 

• “The East African Campaign of the Second World War”, guest co-editor for the International Journal of Military History and Historiography, Brill, Leiden (forthcoming second quarter 2023).
•  “South Africa and the Two World Wars”, guest editor of the Special Issue, South African Journal of Military Studies, vol. 42, no. 3 (2015).
•  “The South African armed forces, a century’s perspective”, guest editor of the Special Centenary Issue, South African Journal of Military Studies, vol. 40, no. 3 (2012).
•  “African Warfare”, Proceedings of 2nd War and Society in Africa Conference, 12-14 September 2001, selection of papers published in South African Journal of Military Studies, vol. 31, no. 2 (2003).
•  “South Africa at War in the Twentieth Century”, Proceedings of 1st War and Society in Africa Conference, 4-6 September, published as a special issue of South African Journal of Military Studies, vol. 30, no. 2 (2000).




 

Chapters in books

 

• (With Kent Fedorowich) ‘The War Behind the Wire: Internment and Incarceration in South Africa, 1939-47’. In: I. van der Waag, K. Fedorowich, and E. Kleynhans, eds. Prisoners and Internees, 1939-1945: The South African experience (Stellenbosch: Stellenbosch University Press, forthcoming 2023).
•  ‘POW Narratives: “Sufferers’ Tales” – and Escape Stories.’ In: I. van der Waag, K. Fedorowich, and E. Kleynhans, eds. Prisoners and Internees, 1939-1945: The South African experience (Stellenbosch: Stellenbosch University Press, forthcoming 2023).
•  (With Kent Fedorowich) ‘The South African Rebellion, 1914-1915: Internal Conflict and the Counterinsurgency Campaign’, in Gareth Curless and Martin Thomas, eds. The Oxford Handbook of Colonial Insurgencies and Counter-Insurgencies (Oxford: Oxford University Press, forthcoming 2023).
•  ‘South African Manpower and the Second World War’. In: Douglas E. Delaney, Mark Frost, and Andrew L. Brown, eds. Military Manpower and the Armies of the British Empire in the Two World Wars (Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press, 2021).
•  ‘Introduction: Wars are fought, and lived, by real people.’ In: I. van der Waag, ed. Sights, Sounds, Memories: South African Soldier Experiences of the Second World War (Stellenbosch: SUN Press, 2020).
•  ‘Literary imaginings: Personal narratives and the “Springbok Tale”?’ In: I. van der Waag, ed. Sights, Sounds, Memories: South African Soldier Experiences of the Second World War (Stellenbosch: SUN Press, 2020).
•  ‘Eric Axelson and the writing the History of the 6th SA Armoured Division in Italy, 1943-1945’. In: I. van der Waag, ed. Sights, Sounds, Memories: South African Soldier Experiences of the Second World War (Stellenbosch: SUN Press, 2020).
•  ‘South Africa’s Border War in Retrospect’ (with A. Grundlingh). In: I. van der Waag and A Grundlingh, eds. In Different Times: The War for Southern Africa, 1966-1989 (Stellenbosch: Sun Press, 2019).
•  ‘SAWI! Leisure, comforts and military canteens in the SADF’. In: I. van der Waag and A Grundlingh, eds. In Different Times: The War for Southern Africa, 1966-1989 (Stellenbosch: Sun Press, 2019).
•  ‘Military Science’ (with N.M. van der Waag), in A.M. Grundlingh and H.F. Oosthuizen, eds. Stellenbosch University 100: 1918-2018 (Stellenbosch: Stellenbosch University, 2018).
•  ‘The Influence of terrain and climate on military operations in South Africa’, in Jacques Bezuidenhout and Hennie Smit, eds. African Military Geosciences: Military History and the Physical Environment (Stellenbosch: SUN Press, 2018): 7-45.
•  ‘South Africa and the making of military officers, 1902-1948’, in Douglas E. Delaney and Robert Engen, eds. Military Education and Empire 1854-1948 (Vancouver: University of British Columbia Press, 2017).
•  ‘The First World War in Africa: Impact and Consequences’, in António José Telo, ed. A Grande Guerra e a Construção do Mundo Moderno (Lisbon: Academia Militar, 2016).
•  ‘Military Culture and the South African armed forces, a historical perspective’, in F. Vreÿ, A. Esterhuyse, T. Mandrup, eds. On Military Culture; Theory, Practice and African armed forces (Cape Town: UCT Press, 2013).
•  ‘The Angolan Civil War 1975-2002’, in Gordon Martel, ed. The Encyclopaedia of War, 6 vols (Wiley-Blackwell, 2011). This was updated for Gordon Martel, ed. Twentieth-Century War and Conflict; A Concise Encyclopedia (Oxford: Wiley Blackwell, 2014).
•  ‘The South African Military and Post-Conflict Integration in the Twentieth Century’, in Peter Dennis and Jeffrey Grey, eds. Victory or Defeat? Armies in the Aftermath of Conflict (Big Sky Publishing, NSW, 2010): 193-226.
•  ‘Rural struggles and the politics of a colonial command: The Southern Mounted Rifles of the Transvaal Volunteers, 1905-1912’, in Stephen Miller, ed. Soldiers and Settlers in Africa, 1850-1918 (Leiden: Brill, 2009): 251-85.
•  ‘Water and the ecology of warfare in southern Africa’, in J.W.N. Tempelhoff, ed. African Water Histories: Transdisciplinary discourses (Vanderbijlpark: 2005): 117-32.
•  ‘Contested histories: official history and the South African military in the 20th century’ in J. Grey, ed. The Last Word? Essays on Official History in the United States and British Commonwealth (Westport, Connecticut and London: Praeger, 2003): 27-52.
•  ‘Hugh Wyndham, Transvaal Politics and the Attempt to Create an English Country Seat in South Africa, 1901-14’ in K. Fedorowich and C. Bridge, eds. The British World: Diaspora, Culture and Identity (London: Frank Cass, May 2003): 136-57.
•  ‘War Memories, Historical Consciousness and Nationalism: South African History Writing and the Second Anglo-Boer War, 1899-1999’ in J. Crawford and I. McGibbon, eds. One Flag, One Queen, One Tongue’: New Zealand, the British Empire and the South African War (Auckland: Auckland University Press, 2003): 180-204.
•  ‘South Africa’ in J. Beaumont, ed. Australian Defence: Sources and Statistics; The Australian Centenary History of Defence, vol VI (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001): 633-39.
•  ‘South African State and State-Sponsored Military Historical Research, 1924-1995’ (with Dr Jan Ploeger) in Robin Higham, ed. Official Military Historical Offices and Sources, Vol 1: Europe, Africa, the Middle East and India (Contributions in Military Studies, Kansas State University and Westport, Connecticut: Greenwood Publishing Group, 2000): 261-288.
•  ‘South Africa and the Boer Military System’ in P. Dennis and J. Grey, eds. The Boer War; Army, Nation, Empire (Canberra: Army History Unit, 2000): 45-69.
•  ‘The writing of military history in South Africa’ in C.J. Nöthling, ed. South African Military Yearbook (Pretoria: 1997).

 

 

Journal Publications (Recognised, refereed)



•  ‘Zulu agents and colonial spies: Secret Intelligence in Colonial Natal, 1903-1910’, Small Wars & Insurgencies (projected for a special issue on small wars in Southern Africa).
• ‘“Almost entirely a medical war”: The South African Medical Corps in East Africa, 1940-1941’, International Journal of Military History and Historiography (submitted, accepted subject to minor revision). This output forms part of a special issue of six articles I am guest co-editing.
• ‘“A man who wants constant watching”: Karl Hens (1872-1948) and the politics of wartime internment in South Africa, 1914-1918’, Immigrants & Minorities (submitted, accepted subject to minor revision).
•  ‘Rewriting South Africa’s First World War’, International Journal of Military History and Historiography (submitted, subject to review).
•  ‘The Union War Histories and the Battle for the History of the Second World War in South Africa’, Wiedza Obronna (Warsaw), vol. 274, no. 1 (2021), ISSN: 2658-0829 (Online), 0209-0031 (Print), Journal homepage: http://wiedzaobronna.edu.pl
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.34752/2021-a274
•  ‘Recording the Great War: military archives and the South African official history programme’, Scientia Militaria: South African Journal of Military Studies, vol. 44, no. 1 (2016): 81-110. Republished with permission in Nuova Antologia Militare, Rivista Interdisciplinare della Società Italiana di Storia Militare (Rome), n. 1 (2020): 3-53.
•  ‘South African defence in the Age of Total War, 1900-1940’, Historia, vol. 60, no. 1 (2015): 129-155.
•  ‘The battle of Sandfontein, 26 September 1914; South Africa, military reform and the German South West Africa campaign, 1914-15’, First World War Studies, vol. 4, no. 2 (2013): 141-165. DOI: 10.1080/19475020.2013.828633.
•  ‘All splendid, but horrible’: South Africa’s Second “Little Bit” and the War on the Western Front, 1915-1918’, Scientia Militaria; South African Journal of Military Studies; Special Centenary Issue, vol. 40, no. 3 (2012): 71-108.
•  ‘Between History, Amnesia and Selective Memory: The South African Armed Forces, A Century’s Perspective’, Scientia Militaria; South African Journal of Military Studies; Special Centenary Issue, vol. 40, no. 3 (2012): 1-12. (with Deon Visser)
•  ‘The origin and establishment of the South African Engineer Corps, 1918-1939’, Journal of Contemporary History, vol. 37, no. 2 (2012): 1-31.
•  ‘Life in a South African Household, 1909-1923: Changing Patterns in Leisure and Servitude’, South African Review of Sociology, vol. 42, no. 2 (2011): 8-28. DOI: 10.1080/21528586.2011.582343.
•  ‘Smuts’ Generals: Towards a first portrait of the South African high command, 1912-48’, War in History, vol. 18, no. 1 (2011): 1-29. DOI: 10.1177/0968344510382605.
•  ‘“The thin edge of the wedge”: Anglo-South African relations, dominion nationalism and the formation of the Seaward Defence Force in 1939-40’, Contemporary British History, vol. 24, no. 4 (2010): 427-449. DOI: 10.1080/13619462.2010.518409.
•  ‘War, popular memory and the South African literature of the Angolan Conflict’, Journal of Contemporary History, vol. 34, no. 1 (2009): 113-40 (co-authored with G.E. Visser).
•  ‘Wyndhams, Parktown, 1901-1923: Domesticity and Servitude in an early twentieth-century South African Household’, Journal of Family History, vol. 32, no. 3 (2007): 259-95. DOI: 10.1177/0363199007300998.
•  ‘Boer generalship and the politics of command’, War in History, vol. 12, no. 1 (2005): 15-43. DOI: 10.1191/0968344505wh306oa.
•  ‘Hugh Wyndham, Transvaal Politics and the Attempt to Create an English Country Seat in South Africa, 1901-14’, Journal for Imperial and Commonwealth History, vol. 31, no. 2 (2003): 136-57. DOI: 10.1080/03086530310001705646.
•  ‘Refighting the 2nd Anglo-Boer War: historians in the trenches’, Journal for Contemporary History, vol. 27, no. 2 (2002): 184-210.
•  ‘Hugh Archibald Wyndham, 1877-1963: His ancestry and family connections’, Historia, vol. 47, no. 1 (2002): 315-44.
•  ‘War, Sex and Politics: The South African Medical Section in Korea, 1950-1953’, Historia, vol. 46, no. 1 (2001): 92-108.
•  ‘The Union Defence Force Between the Two World Wars, 1919-1939. Scientia Militaria, vol. 30, no. 2 (2000): 183-220.
•  ‘An Australian war correspondent in Ladysmith: The siege report of Donald Macdonald of the Melbourne Argus’, Scientia Militaria, vol. 30, no. 1 (2000): 86-91.
•  ‘Van Ryneveld vs Blaine: the UDFI as a civil-military relations football, 1939-1945’, Scientia Militaria, vol. 30, no. 1 (2000): 33-43.
•  ‘The Union Defence Force and the struggle to establish a South African canteen system, 1914-1916’, Historia, vol. 43, no. 2 (1998): 40-54 (with Fransjohan Pretorius).
•  ‘Traces of a military trading organisation; archives appertaining to the South African Defence Force Institute’, South African archives journal, vol. 32 (1990): 54-64.

 

 

Conference and Seminar Papers: International

 

• ‘Memory culture in the South African armed forces: The Springboks of the Two World Wars’, Kolloquium: DFG Forschergruppe Military Cultures of Violence, Universität Potsdam Am Neuen Palais, Potsdam, Germany, 7 July 2022.
•  ‘The Union War Histories and the Battle for the History of the Second World War in South Africa’, International Seminar: Military Anthropology, Split-Shift Prospect, hosted by the War Studies University, Warsaw, Poland (online), 8 April 2021.
•  ‘South African Soldiers and the Memory of the Great War’, Conference: The British Empire and Dominions at War, 1914-19, Co-hosted by the National Army Museum, the British Commission for Military History, and the Western Front Association, London (online), 12-13 June 2021.
•  ‘Re-imagining South Africa’s Second World War’, University of Potsdam (online), research seminar, 26 April 2021.
•  ‘The South African mobilisation of 1914 and the failure of the first invasion of German South West Africa’, The Western Front Association (online), 11 March 2021.
•  ‘Audience and the Battle for the History of the Second World War in South Africa’, International Society of Military Sciences (online), Finnish National Defence University, Helsinki, October 2020.
•  ‘South Africa and the Korean War’, 21st Hwarangdae International Symposium (online), Korea Military Academy, Seoul, 23-24 Sep 2020.
•  ‘Writing South Africa’s First World War’, International Symposium: The Aftermath of the First World War in Southern Africa: Repercussions and Transformations, University of South Africa (Unisa), Pretoria, 12-13 November 2018.
•  ‘South African manpower and the Second World War’, History Symposium, Royal Military College, Kingston, Ontario, Canada, 8-9 November 2018.
•  ‘The influence of terrain and climate on military operations in South Africa’, 12th International Conference on Military Geosciences: The scope, reach, and impact of Military Geosciences, Stellenbosch, 23 June 2017.
•  ‘Staffing and strafing: The South African high command and the outbreak of the First World War’, 84th Annual Meeting of the Society for Military History: “Global War: Historical Perspectives”, 30 March – 2 April 2017, Jacksonville, FL, hosted by the Institute on World War II and the Human Experience and the Department of History, Florida State University.
•  ‘South Africa and the making of military officers, 1902-1948’, History Symposium, Royal Military College, Kingston, Ontario, Canada, 5-6 November 2015.
•  ‘Hitler’s Springboks: South African renegades and the politics of collaboration and treason, 1939-1948’, 1944: Seventy Years On, Royal Military Academy Sandhurst, UK, 14-17 April 2014.
•  ‘The South African High Command in 1914’, The Art of Leadership, National University of Ireland, Maynooth, 28-30 October 2011.
•  ‘The South African Military and Post-Conflict Integrations in the Twentieth Century’, Victory or Defeat? Armies in the Aftermath of Conflict, Chief of Army History Conference, Convention Centre, Canberra, Australia, 30 Sep – 1 Oct 2010.
•  ‘South Africa in the Age of Total War, 1900-1945’, Small States in the Age of Total War, conference, Royal Military Academy, Breda, The Netherlands, 26-27 Nov 2008.
•  ‘War, popular memory and the literature of the Angolan Conflict: An exploratory study of the South African literature’ (with Deon Visser), 33rd Congress of the International Commission of Military History (Regions, Regional Organisations and Military Power), Cape Town, 13-17 August 2007.
•  ‘The thin edge of the wedge: Anglo-South African relations and the formation of the Seaward Defence Force in 1939-40’, 5th War and Society in Africa Conference (The Second World War, Armed Forces and Southern African Society, from 1939 to the present), Faculty of Military Science, University of Stellenbosch, Saldanha, 13-15 Sep 2006.
•  ‘All splendid, but horrible: South Africa’s Second “Little Bit” and the Battle of the Somme’, The Somme: 90 years on, conference, co-hosted by the School of History, University of Kent, and Defence Studies Department, King’s College, London at the Joint Services Command and Staff College, Shrivenham, and held in Canterbury, 17-19 July 2006.
•  ‘Insurgency and Counterinsurgency in Southern Africa, 1900-1902: ‘lessons’ for Iraq’, The Rise of the Military Profession, 72nd Annual Meeting of the Society for Military History, Charleston, South Carolina, 24-27 Feb 2005.
•  ‘Water and the ecology of warfare in Southern Africa’, Flows from the past: A Trans-disciplinary Conference on the History of Water in Africa, International Water History Association, The North-West University: Vaal Triangle Campus, 8-10 Dec 2004.
•  ‘Smuts’ Generals: An intimate portrait of the South African high command, 1912-48’, 4th War and Society in Africa Conference (Strategy, Generalship and Command in southern Africa: past, present, future), co-hosted by the School for Security and Africa Studies (Faculty of Military Science) and the African War Studies Network, Saldanha, 4-6 Sep 2003.
•  ‘Sieges in Southern African history’, 3rd War and Society in Africa Conference (Workshop on Sieges in South African History), co-hosted by the Faculty of Military Science, University of Stellenbosch and the Department of History, University of Warwick at the SA Military Academy, Saldanha, 19-20 Sep 2002.
•  ‘Hugh Wyndham (1877-1963): South African official historian and military thinker’, War and Remembrance: Constructing the Military Past and Future, 69th Annual Conference of the Society of Military History, Madison, Wisconsin, Apr 2002.
•  ‘“A farmhouse on the veldt”: Hugh Wyndham, Transvaal politics and the creation of a lifestyle of choice in South Africa, 1901-1908’, The British World Conference, University of Cape Town, 9-11 Jan 2002.
•  ‘Boer generalship and the politics of command’, 2nd War & Society in Africa Conference (African warfare), Faculty of Military Science, University of Stellenbosch (SA Military Academy), Saldanha, 12-14 Sep 2001.
•  ‘War, Sex and Politics: The South African Medical Section in Korea, 1950-1953’, 1st War and Society in Africa Conference (South Africa at War in the Twentieth Century), Military Academy, Saldanha, 4-6 Sep 2000.
•  ‘The Union Defence Force between the Two World Wars, 1919-1939’, 1st War and Society in Africa Conference (South Africa at War in the Twentieth Century), Military Academy, Saldanha, 4-6 Sep 2000.
•  ‘“Breaking the dominions of Afrikanerdom”: The impact of the Second Anglo-Boer War upon South African society’, The Boer War: Army, Nation and Empire, Annual Chief of Army History Conference, Canberra, Australia, 3-6 Nov 1999.
•  ‘South Africa and the Boer Military System’, The South African War Seminar, Australian War Memorial, Canberra, Australia, 3 Nov 1999.
•  ‘The opposing forces, 1899’, The First Test: New Zealand and the South African War, University of Waikato, Hamilton, New Zealand, 26 Oct 1999.
•  ‘War Memories, Historical Consciousness and Nationalism: South African History Writing and the Second Anglo-Boer War, 1899-1999’, ‘One Flag, One Queen, One Tongue’: New Zealand and the South African War, Wellington, New Zealand, 21-22 Oct 1999.
•  ‘War potential, military power and the 2nd Anglo-Boer War: a few tentative remarks on the opposing forces, 1899’, The Anglo-Boer War 1899-1902; A reappraisal, University of the Orange Free State, Bloemfontein, 12-14 Oct 1999.
•  ‘Contested histories: official history and the South African military in the 20th century’, Workshop on official histories in the 20th century, Australian Defence Force Academy, University of New South Wales, Canberra, 1 Oct 1998.
•  ‘South Africa and peace-keeping operations; the Korean War revisited’, UN Conference on International Peace and Security; the African Experience, Institute for Security Studies and the Faculty of Military Science, University of Stellenbosch at Saldanha, 21-23 Sep 1998.
•  ‘Major J.G.W. Leipoldt; a portrait of a South African surveyor and intelligence officer, 1912-1923’, Surveying Tomorrow’s Opportunities, Annual Conference of the International Federation of Surveyors (FIG) hosted at the Faculty of Engineering, University of Natal, ICC, Durban, 25-28 Aug 1997.
•  Conference and Seminar Papers: National
•  ‘Zulu agents and colonial spies: Secret Intelligence in Colonial Natal, 1903-1910’, Seminar: Intelligence History in South Africa: Current Approaches, Trends, Issues, 5-6 September 2022.
•  ‘Crime behind the Wire: treason, collaboration, theft, and murder’, Lecture on South African prisoners of war during the Second World War, South African Military History Society (online), 11 August 2022.
•  ‘“Almost entirely a medical war”: The South African Medical Corps in East Africa, 1940-1941’, South African Military History Society (online), 14 Oct 2021.
•  ‘No. 4448 L/Cpl Job Maseko: the story of a South African hero’, Public Lecture and Dialogue on Job Maseko, Ditsong Museums of South Africa, Tobruk Day, 21 June 2021.
•  ‘Writing Wars: History and the South African military’, Nelson Mandela University (online), 20 April 2021.
•  ‘Eric Axelson and the History of the 6th SA Armoured Division in Italy, 1943-45’, Seminar on Africa and the Second World War: The Soldiers’ Experience, Stellenbosch University, 6 September 2019.
•  ‘Rewriting South Africa’s First World War’, History Symposium, Suid-Afrikaanse Akademie vir Wetenskap en Kuns, Pretoria, 25 Jan 2019.
•  ‘The Profile of the Afrikaner Rebel of 1914-15’, Unsettling Stories and Unstable Subjects, 25th Biennial Conference of the Southern African Historical Society, Stellenbosch University, 1-3 July 2015.
•  ‘South African soldiers and collaboration with the Third Reich, 1939-1948’, Unsettling Stories and Unstable Subjects, 25th Biennial Conference of the Southern African Historical Society, Stellenbosch University, 1-3 July 2015.
•  ‘The Sanūsi and the War in North Africa, 1911-1917’, The Great War in Africa, 6th War and Society Conference, Stellenbosch University, 28-30 June 2015.
•  ‘Preparing for victory? The German South West Africa campaign and the Union Defence Force, 1912-1915’, Stellenbosch History Seminar, 16 Sep 2014.
•  ‘South Africa and the First World War: the gambits of 1914’, “1914” Symposium of the History Commission of the Suid-Afrikaanse Akademie vir Wetenskap en Kuns, Pretoria, 31 January 2014.
•  ‘No history without archives; Writing Intelligence history in South Africa’, Doing History, Biennial Conference of the Historical Association of South Africa, University of Pretoria, Pretoria, 6-7 July 2012.
•  ‘Military Culture and the South African armed forces, 1910-1961’, On Strategy: Military culture and African armed forces, 2nd South African Conference on Strategic Theory, co-hosted by Stellenbosch University and the Royal Danish Defence College, 22-23 September 2011.
•  ‘Furlough, beer and brothel: the politics of STDs in the Australian Imperial Force in Egypt and France, 1914-1918’, The Past and Its Possibilities, 23rd Biennial Conference of the Southern African Historical Society, Howard College campus, University of KwaZulu-Natal, 27-29 June 2011.
•  ‘Race, Class, and Empire in South African Domestic History’, Milestones: Commemorating South African history, Historical Association of South Africa, University of the North West, Potchefstroom, 23-25 July 2010.
•  ‘Military muddles: South Africa’s first battles of the Great War’, Milestones: Commemorating South African history, Historical Association of South Africa, University of the North West, Potchefstroom, 23-25 July 2010.
•  ‘A perfect storm: global warming, migration and international food security’, Africans Securing Africa: Strategic Challenges for Armed Forces for the Next Decade, School for Human and Resource Development of the Faculty of Military Science, Stellenbosch University, Saldanha, 16-18 September 2008 (with N. van der Waag).
•  ‘Conflict, degradation and food insecurity in Africa: towards a cyclical understanding’, Society, Power and the Environment: Challenges for the 21st Century, XIV Sociological Association of South Africa Congress, Stellenbosch University, 7-10 July 2008 (with François Vreÿ).
•  ‘Life in a South African household, 1909-1923: changing patterns in leisure and servitude’, Society, Power and the Environment: Challenges for the 21st Century, XIV Sociological Association of South Africa Congress, Stellenbosch University, 7-10 July 2008.
•  ‘The South African military in transition, 1899-1914’, Periods of transition in South Africa, National Congress & Regional Conference, South African Society for Cultural History, Wellington, 30-31 March 2007 (with H.A.P. Smit).
•  ‘Domesticity and servitude: The Wyndham households in Parktown and at Kromdraai, 1903-1923’, Centenary History Conference, University of Stellenbosch and the Historical Association of South Africa, Stellenbosch, 5-7 April 2004.
•  ‘Creating military heritage: Official history and the South African military in the twentieth century’, Heritage Creation and Research: The Restructuring of Historical Studies in Southern Africa, Biennial Conference of the South African Historical Society, Rand Afrikaans University, 24-26 June 2002.
•  ‘Refighting the 2nd Anglo-Boer War: historians in the trenches’, Anglo-Boer War Seminar, University of the Free State, Bloemfontein, 25 May 2002.
•  ‘Hugh Archibald Wyndham (1877-1963): His ancestry and family connections’, Construct and tradition: Family history and genealogy in twenty-first century South Africa, National Conference of the Genealogical Society of South Africa, Vaal Triangle Faculty of the Potchefstroom University for Christian Higher Education, Vanderbijlpark, 23-24 Sep 2001.
•  ‘Towards a narrative family history’, National Conference of the Genealogical Society of South Africa, National Cultural History Museum, Pretoria, 1992.
•  ‘The use and abuse of archives by genealogists and family historians’, National Conference of the Genealogical Society of South Africa, Pretoria, 1989.