South Africa

Alexander Johnston has written a carefully thought-out and impeccable tour de force of sober and sobering analysis. He diagnoses every aspect of the contemporary South African condition with a care and commitment to research and balance that makes other scholars feel ashamed. This is without doubt the best book on South Africa since it attained majority rule. * Stephen Chan, Professor of World Politics, SOAS, University of London, UK * Alexander Johnston has produced a closely argued and well-written analysis of South Africa's development of a 'serviceable sense of nationhood'. His book is a welcome addition to the burgeoning literature on nationalism. It is innovative, scholarly and detached in tone and substance. Social scientists in a variety of disciplines will find much to admire in this genuinely pioneering study. * J. E. Spence OBE FKC, Professor in the Department of War Studies, King's College London, UK * An impressive, nuanced study of the South African case, centered on the transition from a long era of harsh authoritarian rule under an apartheid regime monopolized by the white minority to an arrangement adopted two decades ago of black-majority rule under a nominally democratic, multiracial dispensation. The author examines such factors as the perspectives and styles of black leaders Nelson Mandela and Thabo Mbeki, profound social inequity, and pervasive crime and corruption and concludes, fairly, that South Africa persists as a deeply fragmented society, a 'minimum nation' whose identity is far more one of convenience than one of stability that promotes shared values, interests, and goals. The book is well-written and reads well. It merits the attention of students and scholars and of policy makers and practitioners of the political art. Summing Up: Recommended. All readership levels. -- A. Magid, SUNY at Albany * CHOICE *