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During the twentieth century, and especially after the Afrikaner National Party came to power in 1948, the ruling white minority in South Africa constructed one of the most rigid modern systems of racial discrimination. Many aspects of apartheid were entrenched in law, and the state was able to suppress, temporarily, political opposition. At their most ambitious, apartheid policies were designed to curtail African urbanisation, corral as much of the African population as possible in separate, ethnically defined homelands, and lead these to independent nationhood. Yet from the 1970s, social and economic change, together with new forms of African political opposition, increasingly eroded the central pillars of the system. The Afrikaner Nationalists first attempted to contain these forces by reform, and then, from the late 1980s, to negotiate a settlement that might protect the positions of whites in the society. While  South African society teetered on the brink of civil war during the period of transition, the transfer of power to a democratically-elected African National Congress government was relatively peaceful in a comparative context. In legal terms, at least, the society was deracialised in 1990s. 

This option explores the historiography of apartheid and the transition. Many of the central problems echo wider historiographical debates: how should scholars balance, and interweave, material and ideological factors in explaining apartheid and its demise; in which ways did race and ethnicity become such central organising concepts in a modern society and how were they challenged;  should we see this late twentieth century revolution as stemming primarily from global forces, or from internal opposition; what is the character of the transition, and how has social transformation been constrained; how do we understand the newly emerging African ruling group and the patterns of cultural change in South Africa? How are understandings of South African history changing in the post-apartheid era?

These issues will be discussed in eight two-hour seminars, preceded by an overview lecture. Students will be expected to read for each seminar, to make short presentations, and to produce three extended essays of about 4,000 words on topics of their choice.     

1. Introductory discussion: Explaining apartheid and its demise: racial ideologies, migrant labour, urbanisation, internal opposition, external forces.
2. The nature of apartheid and white power: land, labour and politics, c.1948-75
3. External pressures, sanctions and reform, 1970s and 1980s.
4. African urban society and insurrection, 1976-1994
5. The political and economic settlement, 1990-1996
6. Land reform
7. The Truth and Reconciliation Commission
8. Mandela and Mbeki as political leaders: democratisation

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