His MA study from the University of Cape Town was published in 1991 under the title The Decline of Urban Slavery at the Cape, 1806-1834. He did his PhD thesis at Cambridge, UK on racial ideology in 19th century colonial South Africa under Professor John Iliffe. His most recent books are Bushmen in a Victorian World: The Remarkable Story of the Black-Lloyd Collection of Bushmen Folklore (Capetown, 2006) with Keith Dietchl and An Eloquent Picture Gallery: The Portrait Photographs of Gustav Theodor Fritsch, 1863-1866 (Johannesburg, 2008). He is currently researching the work of women anthropologists in Southern Africa, 1910-1950.