Winston Churchill said that history would be kind to him - because he intended to write it. I'm sure Dr Danie Craven had the same idea. When my brother and I were learning to dummy and to side-step, if not tackle (which we mostly left to the tougher Afrikaner boys), we also devoured tomes on Springbok rugby history. Every one of them seemed to have been written by the Doc.Later, when I got to know the old man a little, I found he could quote verbatim from the Springbok rugby history books he'd written 50 years or so before. Needless to say, I hung on his every word.Over the past few weeks the Doc's history lessons have come in useful. A few of us have been involved in compiling the Sunday Times e-book, 50 Years of South African Rugby, which will be free in this Sunday's edition.In compiling the book it's been helpful to consult works old and new on Springbok rugby. Two that have been especially useful were Beyond the Tryline and Great Springbok Rugby Tests.The former appeared ahead of the 1995 Rugby World Cup in South Africa and is for the serious student of the game. Historians André Odendaal, Albert Grundlingh and Burridge Spies take you well beyond the touchline, never mind tryline. Odendaal has written a chapter that should be read by all those who think black players are Johnny-come-latelys to this allegedly white-man's game of rugby.Great Springbok Rugby Tests (publisher Don Nelson) is less demanding but a lot of fun. Paul Dobson, who is the Doc's best successor as chronicler of Bok rugby, has singled out 108 Tests, charting the progress of our favourite team from 1891 to last year's victory over the All Blacks at Ellis Park.What the Sunday Times book does, I hope, is bring you the best of both these worlds. Inevitably, there is the politics; it's inseparable from our rugby. Then there are the games themselves, but going back 50 years instead of 125, the last half-century having been a significant era. In that time, white rugby began to acknowledge the unfairness of its collaboration with apartheid, achieve unity (still a brittle business) and go boldly into the professional age which - I like to think - the Doc, who pre-deceased it, would have embraced despite all his innate conservatism.Mostly the book is a nostalgic look at some magnificent - at times, even heroic - Springbok performances. These are brought to you through the reports of the men who were sent to cover the matches for the Sunday Times and, since 2007, also for The Times. Many were written years ago yet still come across as fresh and remain fascinating for the drama, glory and even distress they captured.As with Churchill, history has treated the Boks kindly. Even in defeat - such as the humiliation at the hands of the all-conquering British & Irish Lions of 1974 - there is usually sympathy for the Boks.There will be chapters to add to this book, over the next few weeks especially. Whether they will tell of glory or reflect distress is hard to tell. The only accurate prediction is that most of the matches at the Rugby World Cup starting next week will be riveting. And knowing a bit about what came before can help put them in context...