Dept. of Historical Studies, University of Cape Town
        <BILLN@beattie.uct.ac.za>

H-NET BOOK REVIEW
Published by H-SAfrica, January 2001

Roger B. Beck. _The History of South Africa._ The Greenwood Histories of the
Modern Nations. Westport, Connecticut, and London: Greenwood Press, 2000.
xxx + 248 pp. Timeline, maps, bibliographic essay and index. $35.00 (cloth),
ISBN 0-313-30730-X

Reviewed for H-SAfrica by Bill Nasson <BILLN@beattie.uct.ac.za>,
Department
of Historical Studies, University of Cape Town


Roger Beck, an American scholar known for some good writing on South
Africa's pre-industrial past, has produced a new general history of the
country in a textbook series of 'national histories' targeted at students
and 'interested laypeople.' These, in the view of the Series Editors, are
citizens of 'a superpower whose influence is felt all over the world' yet
'who know very little about the histories of the nations with which the
United States relates'. The stated intention of these volumes is to provide
a general historical lens which focuses particularly on the 'modern era' in
the life of selected nations, as the recent past has 'contributed the most
to contemporary issues that have an impact on U.S. policy'. Those of us a
long way from Brandeis and Berkeley or Purdue and Princeton can be thankful
to publishers like Greenwood for doing their bit to keep educated Americans
and their field intelligence operatives on their best behaviour. Who knows,
if the day comes when the last embassy staff are airlifted from their
Pretoria rooftop, left behind in the library will be a copy of Professor
Beck's _History of South Africa_. In Saigon it was Barrington Moore's
_Social Origins of Dictatorship and Democracy_, but that is a story probably
best left to Oliver Stone.


This is, then, a book with two kinds of interest. One is as a
straightforward overview history of South Africa for an American readership.
The other is as a new concise historical narrative of South Africa. On the
first count, Roger Beck has done a good job of an introductory text on South
Africa for a target audience. The book has a long reach, from pre-human
ancestral habitation several million years ago to the advent of the Mbeki
presidency. Its ten core narrative chapters are clearly set out and
sub-headings flag key issues, such as the economy and the shifting stages
and periodisation of apartheid. Care has gone into providing various layers
of accessible and useful reference information. These include a substantial
timeline, solid index, concise annotated bibliography, crisp summary of
current national features (900 species of birds, snow a rarity), glossary,
and maps, although the book is too short on graphic illustration. The author
also provides a nice list of South Africa's Notable People, listing some of
the usual suspects. Disappointingly, it omits the notorious poisoner, Daisy
de Melker. Professor Beck brings together a fair wealth of information and
detail with ease and writes with fluency and authority, making his _History
of South Africa_ a clear and easy read.


Wedded to a politically-driven narrative, the author provides a reliable
version of the familiar South African story, starting with the precolonial
past, running through Dutch and British colonial periods, pondering the
balance between African kingdoms, Afrikaner states and British imperialism,
charting the mineral revolution and the the completion of imperial conquest,
and chronicling the segregationist and apartheid twentieth-century, before
rounding off with the coming of majority rule.


For all the virtues of a familiar story told well enough, there are
oversights and lapses. The weight attached to a political interpretation
means that social and cultural aspects of the South African story are rather
neglected. Readers who learn that English is the majority language of
Coloured people should try the farms and townships of the Western Cape. As
the Cape Corps, Coloured troops were armed in the First World War, and were
not wholly restricted to non-combatant service. It is stretching things to
suggest that in the 1970s 'many mines' made an effort to replace male
migrant housing with family accommodation for workers. For an appraisal
ending in 1999, the absence of any reference to South Africa's AIDS crisis
is quite odd, as is the absence of any analysis of the strains and
contradictions besetting the ANC government. Still, such questionable points
are inevitable in any introductory synthesis of this kind.


On the second question, the book's standing as an up-to-date, concise
history of South Africa for the reader who does not wear checked golfing
trousers, the obvious question is this. Given that in recent years we have
had meaty concise histories from Nigel Worden, William Beinart and Robert
Ross, is there room for another (lightish) history which essentially retells
the standard South African story? Bringing in the jury on this is difficult.
Still, for a non-specialist wanting a neat historical outline which takes
South Africa up to the end of the 1990s, Professor Beck's volume provides an
easy enough narrative. A word of caution. This is not a book to judge by its
cover**, which looks to be aimed at some sort of 'retro-chic' look, just the
ticket for Barnes and Noble when Dwight Eisenhower became president. Here,
it just makes Roger Beck look as if he were publishing alongside Arthur
Keppel-Jones.



[** Editor's note: for the benefit of those who may not have seen the
book cover, it features the title set in a black box with a white border,
with the South African flag inserted above right, and the series emblazoned
across a green map of the globe--P.L.]


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