Whither South Africa?

Abstract

The voluminous literature on South African developments shows every sign of increasing as events outpace it. All of the books, to use the words of the editors of Negotiating South Africa's Future, present a mixture of analysis, hope, despair and political posturing (I). Nearly all of the authors under review failed to anticipate the government's post-1989 election reforms. Finally, all of the works suffer in varying degrees from typographical and factual errors. For purposes of this review, the books are placed in three broad categories, although there is considerable overlap.