Dept of History, University of South Africa
        <LAMBEJ@unisa.ac.za>

H-NET BOOK REVIEW
Published by H-SAfrica@h-net.msu.edu (January, 2001)

Rodney Davenport and Christopher Saunders. _South Africa: a Modern History_
5th ed. London: Macmillan Press and New York: St Martin's Press, 2000. xxx
+ 807 pp. Tables, graphs, figures, maps, bibliographical notes and
index.  (cloth), ISBN 0-333-79222-X; (paper), ISBN 0-333-79222-8.

Reviewed for H-SAfrica by John Lambert, <lambej@unisa.ac.za>, Department
of
History, University of South Africa.


          'Standard text brought up to date'


The first edition of Rodney Davenport's _South Africa: a Modern History_
appeared in 1977 and was immediately acclaimed as the standard textbook on
South African history. Since then a generation of undergraduate students in
the English-speaking world have found the succeeding editions indispensable
to understanding both the South African past and present. But as succeeding
editions appeared, so the pithy account which characterized the first
edition tended to become lost in a wealth of detail. By the time the fourth
edition appeared in 1991, the volume had increased to 662 pages. As a
result, although the book remained a text constantly to be used and
consulted, its usefulness as a survey of South African history was being
called into question. While ideal for individual periods or individual
themes, the student coming fresh to South African history was now often
directed to more accessible texts. The elegance of Davenport's prose and
the insights he offered on the past, however,  ensured  that the book would
remain the most important text on South African history. Equally important,
each new edition incorporated into the existing text many of the latest
interpretations and findings, and offered succinct evaluations of much
recent scholarship.

When the fourth edition appeared in 1991 it took the story of the past up
to the dismantling of the apartheid state and the momentous happenings of
1990; the unbanning of the African National Congress (ANC), Pan-Africanist
Congress (PAC) and South African Communist Party (SACP) and the release
from prison of Nelson Mandela.

So momentous have the events of the last decade of South African history
been that the fifth edition has scrapped the last two chapters of the
fourth edition (on the political economy of South Africa in the 1980s).
Part of the material in these chapters has been included in a new final
section, 'Challenge and response,' whose three chapters devote an extra 140
pages to the text. This pushes the size of the book up to almost 850 pages
and, at the same time so increases its price as to offer another reason why
history departments are wary of  prescribing it for their  undergraduate
students. This is most regrettable as the new edition provides most
stimulating insights on the 1990s, while incorporating  much of the latest
scholarship into the previously published text on the earlier period.

This edition also marks a departure from the previous editions in that
Christopher Saunders of the University of Cape Town has joined Davenport in
the writing of the new chapters and the revision of the existing fourth
edition. So happy is the marriage of the two styles that at no stage is the
reader conscious of any unevenness resulting from the joint authorship.

The new edition follows its predecessors in its meticulous commitment to
assimilating the latest scholarship. As a result the treatment of issues
such as the relationship between settlers and the Khoisan, slavery, the
_mfecane_, the Anglo-Boer War, and the activities of the ANC in exile are
far more nuanced than they were ten years ago. But, as is probably
inevitable in any undertaking of this magnitude, some sections have
received less attention than others. Sections on nineteenth-century Natal,
for example, do not incorporate the latest scholarship on the African
homestead economy, land tenure or the growing tensions which led to the
1906 Bhambatha rebellion. And, as the text becomes more bulky so the danger
grows of unnecessary errors occurring. Page 235, for example has the
Bhambatha rebellion taking place during the premiership of FR Moor and,
four lines later, of Charles Smythe. Errors such as this could be avoided
by more rigorous editing and proofreading.

Of more concern are the errors which are now creeping into the
bibliographical notes. The cross-referencing has become unwieldy and
confusing, and entries are not always accurate or appropriate. To give
KwaZulu-Natal examples again. The reference in 4.6 (northern Nguni) to JB
Wright's work on the Zulu refers the reader to 4.1 on the Tswana; the
reference in 6.5 (African administration in Natal) to my work on colonial
Natal refers the reader to 7.7 on the Zulu Kingdom where no references are
included.

Scholars familiar with previous editions will turn  to the new chapters to
see how the authors have coped with the exceptionally difficult task of
unravelling, and making coherent, the events of the 1990s. This has been
done exceptionally well. Chapter 19 provides a succinct account of the
political developments of the decade while chapters 20 and 21 incorporate
material from the previous edition in two outstanding new overview chapters
focusing on economic and social policies.

Chapter 20, 'Towards the sharing of South Africa,' begins with an excellent
overview of the land question during the twentieth century, followed by
discussions of mining, trade and labour relations. It ends with an account
of the attempts to impose urban segregation and at the first stirrings of
doubt as to the feasibility of segregation. Chapter 21, 'Body, mind and
spirit: a quest for humane values' I found a particularly absorbing if
depressing chapter. It begins by tracing the development of health care
until the idealistic plans of the new post-1994 government to ensure
adequate health facilities for all were undermined by the realities of
HIV-AIDS, corruption and inadequate funding. In this chapter the authors
relentlessly remind their readers of the human tragedies imposed on South
Africans by the apartheid state. A mere ten years after the final collapse
of apartheid it seems incomprehensible that any government could have
considered racially divided health and social welfare policies.  The
chapter continues with discussions of sport,  education and religion before
concluding with an overview of the truth and reconciliation process.

In conclusion, the fifth edition of _South Africa: a Modern History_
remains as indispensable to southern Africanists as were its predecessors.
It remains an ideal reference work and should be owned by any serious
student of South Africa's past.

             Copyright (c) 2000 by H-Net, all rights reserved. This work
             may be copied for non-profit educational use if proper
             credit is given to the author and the list. For other
             permission, please contact H-Net@h-net.msu.edu

Humanities & Social
Sciences Online

Copyright © 1995-2006 - Contact Us
RSS | Validate: XHTML | CSS