Hermann Giliomee

seriousness of the subject matter, nor indeed the writer's own underlying intention of utilising the occasion of the 'flogging' and related events as a vehicle for highlighting the various contradictions, weaknesses and symptoms of decline inherent in the southern African imperial mission by that time. The related theme of Anglo-South African relations, in terms of the conditional position of the British on the ground in South Africa, is therefore also addressed and is informed by interrelated issues such as the incorporation of the Bechuanaland Protectorate into the South African union, the 'native' administration debate and with it the appropriate role of African chiefs, contemporary social and political attitudes towards interracial sex and miscegenation, and last but not least the debate over the direction of desperately needed economic development in the protectorate. Such period discourse not only contributes to the contextual backdrop of the actual events but in many ways provides the underlying motivational forces of the story's main protagonists. If in the penultimate chapter the final outcome of these events appears somewhat anticlimatic it is because in many ways this is really only a single chapter in the history of Botswana's national self-determination. For this reader the actual climax of the book lies in its conclusion. The final chapter is as stimulating as it is revealing of the author's wider understanding of and interest in the period under review. The consistent passion and enthusiasm that Crowder brings to this story display the confidence and promise of future work from a man whose life was sadly ended in its intellectual prime. Yet this book is a worthy epitaph. Not only is it a valuable contribution to our understanding of colonial history in south Africa, it will also serve as a scholastic and literary benchmark to future generations of historians intent on providing not only high-quality historical investigation but history that is also accessible to a wider audience.

This book is a biography of the Afrikaner people. A historian and journalist who was one of the earliest and staunchest Afrikaner opponents of apartheid, Hermann Giliomee weaves together life stories and historical interpretation to create a narrative history of the Afrikaners from their beginnings with the colonization of the Cape of Good Hope by the Dutch East India Company to the dismantling of apartheid and beyond. The Afrikaners emphasizes the crucial role played by historical actors without underplaying the impact of social forces over which they had little control. Throughout their history, Giliomee's Afrikaners are both colonizers and colonized. Actual or virtual servants of the Dutch East India Company, the Dutch "burghers" nonetheless owned slaves and commanded servant labor. The British conquests of 1795 and 1806 extended the rights of British subjects to Afrikaners, even as they took away the Afrikaners' political autonomy and confirmed an economic and cultural subordination that was only partly alleviated by their dominance of South African politics in the latter part of the twentieth century. Demographically squeezed between far more numerous Africans (and other nonwhite groups) and their more affluent and culturally confident English compatriots, the Afrikaners forged a language-based national identity in which die-hard defense of privilege and opposition to various forms of British domination are inextricably intertwined with fears about cultural and even physical group survival. This nationalism underlay the Great Trek, in which Afrikaners opposed the abolition of slavery and legalized racial discrimination by the British; the irony of their becoming the twentieth century's first fighters against imperial domination in the Boer War; and the Afrikaners' rise to political dominance over their English rivals and nonwhite South Africans alike, even as they remained economically and culturally subordinate to the former. This same language-based nationalism spawned the blunders and horrors of apartheid, but it also led the Afrikaners to relinquish power peacefully when this seemed the safest route to their survival as a people.While documenting and in important ways revising the history of the Afrikaners' pursuit of racial domination (as well as British contributions to that enterprise), Giliomee supplies Afrikaners' own, often divided, perspectives on their history, perspectives not always or entirely skewed by their struggle for privilege at Africans' expense. The result is not only a magisterial history of the Afrikaners but a fuller understanding of their history, which, for good or ill, resonates far beyond the borders of South Africa."

The battle of Andringa Street : a student Riot at Stellenbosch, 1940 A student riot that took place in July 1940 in the town of Stellenbosch has long been the subject of anecdotes told by white alumni and residents of the town rather than of serious analyses by scholars. Yet the event is of exceptional interest as it represents one of the few cases in South Africa where a white riot can be said to have taken place. White students attacked coloured residents living in the main part of the town, invading their houses, smashing crockery and assaulting occupants. The article argues that the riot occurred in the context of the National Party's attempt to disenfranchise the coloured voters, Parliament's decision of 1939 to declare war, and a regulation compelling citizens to hand in arms. The violence of the Andringa Street events foreshadowed the structural violence of apartheid, introduced a decade later. Vir baie jare lank was die botsing in Julie 1940 tussen wit studente en br...

The Surplus People Project Report, Forced Removals in South Africa (Cape Town and Pietermaritzburg, 1983), 5 volumes; vol 1, General Overview, pp. xxi+120; vol 2, The Eastern Cape, pp. xix+388; vol 3, The Western and Northern Cape and Orange Free State, pp. xvii+197; vol 4, Natal, pp. xviii+572; vol 5, The Transvaal, pp. xv+365; R75 a set or R15 for

'Wretched folk, ready for any mischief': Die staat se stryd om armblankes en militante arbeiders saam te snoer, 1890-1939 In die studie word aandag gegee aan die armblanke-verskynsel in die laat negentiende en vroee twintigste eeu. Daar word gelet op die wyse hoe bevoordeling van hierdie groepering dikwels ten koste van die swartmense plaasgevind het. Suid-Afrika, strydig met die algemene opvatting, is gelee in 'n landstreek wat nie heeltemal vir die boerdery geskik is nie. Gevolglik het verarming plaasgevind en boerende mense was toenemend verplig om aan 'n verstedelikingsproses deel te neem. Die proses was traumaties vir die Afrikaners. Die Afrikaners wat deel van die stedelike proletariat geword het, was in baie opsigte net soos hulle bywoner-ekwivalent op die platteland behoeftig en deel van 'n agtergeblewe segment van die blanke bevolking wat onder omstandighede soos die Rebellie van 1914-5 en die Randse Staking van 1922 bepaalde sentimente gekoester het. Die Paktregering het met die beleid van 'beskaafde arbeid' die weg voorberei om die blankes te akkommodeer Terselfdertyd moes nywerheidsontwikkeling bevorder word. Die Carnegieverslag in die dertigerjare het 'n treffende indruk van die armblankes geskep. Die regering het te midde van ekonomiese herstel, na die depressie en 'n ekonomie wat besig was om vir 'n oorlog voor te berei, daarin geslaag om werkloosheid onder die blankes te verminder. The article deals with the manner in which the Afrikaner poor whites in the last decade of the nineteenth century started the process of gravitating towards the urban centres where they became part of an urban proletariat. Political and community leaders tried to ensure a preferential dispensation for them in comparison with the blacks of South Africa. Attention is given to the process of industrialisation and the manner in which it was possible for the government to promote industrial development and provide these people with employment.

In 1954 Hendrik Verwoerd, one of the main architects of the apartheid system, said that blacks ought not to be trained above certain “forms of labour”. These words, often quoted out of context, are commonly interpreted as based on a view of black inferiority and as designed to keep blacks in a position of servitude. This note argues that other considerations should also be taken into account, including the need for providing appropriate labour on a mass basis in an industrialising society and for establishing control over urbanised black youths.

Few conflicts have had such a sustained and dramatic impact on public and political opinion as those in South Africa, the Middle East and Northern Ireland. The essays in this comparative analysis examine such key themes as group values, the armed struggle, the role of security forces, reform and revolution, and tackle such difficult concepts as nationalism, ethno-nationalism and the mythology of the cause. In addition to these in-depth studies, the book also suggests a number of initiatives based on acceptable compromises rather than desirable solutions.

The current troubled state of the Afrikaners and Afrikaans The rise of the Afrikaners as a politicised ethnic group that captured the state, under the leadership of the National Party, and of Afrikaans as a public language was one of the most prominent features of twentieth century South African history. During the 1970s NP rule started to come under severe pressure as a result of its apartheid policy and it handed over power in 1994. Over the next twenty years the civil service was radically transformed, English became the de facto official language. Afrikaners not only had to deal with the sudden loss of state power but a declining demographic base. Afrikaans-medium secondary schools and universities had to admit large numbers who preferred to receive their instruction in English. An opportunity in 2001 to safeguard Afrikaans at two universities was squandered. In technical and educational colleges the state simply phased out Afrikaans instruction. Whites in the upper echelons bec...