Book reviews/Boekbesprekings

Abstract

Since the appearance of the f irst genera l works on South African h i s to ry in the ear ly decades of the 20 th cen tury , no tably those by S F N Gie, Eric Walker , A J H van der Walt, J A Wild and A L Geyer and C W de Kiewiet , s u r v e y h i s to r i e s of a s imi la r n a t u r e h a v e p ro l i f e ra ted . The g e n e r a l w o r k s of Monica Wi l son and Leonard T h o m p s o n (Oxford History), and of C F J Muller and F A v a n Jaarsve ld , fol lowed in the 1960s. Since the 1980s, and especial ly in the 1990s, we had a regular flow of h is tor ies by h i s to r ians such as Rodney Davenport , Nell Pa r sons , J D Omer-Cooper, Nigel Worden, Chr is topher Saunders (Reader's Digest Illustrated History), Rober t Ross and others . By the end of the cen tu ry there were a lmos t a dozen to choose f rom in bookshops . General histor ies have been prescr ibed over the years by un ivers i ty p rofessors , and in the process m a n y up-and-coming h i s to r i ans were exposed ei ther to a ' l iberal Engl ish ' v iew of South African h i s to ry or an Afrikaner n a t i o n a l i s t pe r spec t ive . In la te r y e a r s (from the 1970s), w h e n revis ionis t h is torians added the d imens ion of class, au tho r s of genera l w o r k s ( re luc tan t ly at first) added Marxis t , neo-Marxis t or o ther theoretical s t r a n d s to their analyses . T o w a r d s the end of the 20 th cen tu ry a n e w t r end emerged: the wr i t ing of the h is tory of South Africa in tha t century . The i n g r e d i e n t w a s t e m p t i n g : a p a r t h e i d evolved and was demol i shed by its end. Afr ikaner n a t i o n a l i s m had r eached i ts h ighes t p innacle and s ta r ted i ts d o w n w a r d curve. African na t iona l i sm had s lumbered (and a lmos t died); had been revived and repressed; and eventua l ly b e c a m e t r iumphant . Of the few genera l s tud ies on 20thcen tu ry South Africa, wh ich include those by B J Liebenberg and S B Spies and by Wil l iam Beinart , J a m e s Barbe r ' s is the latest . Barber, a respec ted Bri t ish political sc ient is t , specif ies in the subt i t le tha t South Africa in the twentieth century is a political h is tory . Many h i s to r i ans m a y find tha t par t icu lar approach problemat ic . Can a h i s to ry of South Africa in the 20 th cen tu ry be 'polit ical '? Is there not too m u c h in terac t ion be tween social, economic and polit ical forces to l imit the field to political his tory? Are these dynamic forces not too en tangled to have a demarca ted po l i t i c a l h i s t o r y ? B a r b e r h a s h a r d l y t o u c h e d u p o n s o m e c ruc ia l i s s u e s in m o d e r n South African h is tory , par t icular ly in the period up to 1961. Examples are c h e a p l a b o u r deba te , as wel l as the re la t ionship be tween apar the id and capital ism. Can these i s sues real ly be disentangled f rom political h is tory? I believe not . Since the au tho r did not add res s these i s sues , works on the topic by Mar i an Lacey, Saul Dubow, Deborah Posel and Doug Hindson are not l i s ted in his bibliography. I t is a pi ty tha t more a t tent ion ha s not been afforded to these aspects . After all, the audience for th is book includes scho la r s and ser ious s tuden t s , not only the genera l read ing public. There are also o the r o m i s s i o n s and shor tcomings . One m i s s e s a pene t ra t ing ana lys i s of Afrikaner na t iona l i sm as the engine of Afrikaner political power . Nor have the roo t s of the m u c h d i s c u s s e d apar the id ideology and policy been exp lo red a d equa t e ly . The role of wh i t e l iberals h a s been unde rp layed th roughou t