Twentieth-Century South Africa

South Africa is consistently headline news, for positive as well as negative reasons. Its unique history this century has brought the names of its most famous political activists not only to our television sets but more permanently to names of streets and buildings throughout the West. The political events and struggles have been well-charted in history books. This new book by William Beinart is the first to look closely at the social and economic history underlying the political upheavals, and the establishment and fitful but dramatic dismantling of apartheid. It begins with the final colonial conquests at the end of the 19th century and ends with assesment of the democracy and redistribution of resources and power in the 1990s. It will establish itself as the pre-eminent short, general introduction to modern South African history.