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Library Journal Review

A very good analysis of recent events in South Africa through 1986. It has a major segment on the black labor unions and the relationship between the political groups and the economy of South Africa, reflecting the author's view from the left. It includes a valuable clarification of the positions, activities, and leaders of the many sub-groups in the protest movement in South Africa, some of which are not well known abroad. The book is very strong on the details of the uprisings of 1984-86. Most of its footnotes are to liberal South African newspapers. Too detailed for the average reader, this is essential for the serious observer of South Africa. For university libraries. John Grotpeter, Political Science Dept., St. Louis Coll. of Pharmacy (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

CHOICE Review

A materialist interpretation of recent South African politics. Murray's book contains much useful information about realignment within the white community determined to maintain dominance in the face of economic change, and struggle within the black community bent on liberation from the chains of apartheid. The analysis is too cryptic and laden with jargon to be grasped easily by beginning students of South Africa, but up-to-date treatment of black trade unions, political organizations, and popular protests makes the book a valuable addition to undergraduate libraries. The work complements Tom Lodge's Black Politics in South Africa since 1945 (1983). It is more current but less clear than Heribert Adam and Hermann Giliomee's Ethnic Power Mobilized: Can South Africa Change? (CH, Mar '80), and less readable but more detailed than Leonard Thompson and Andrew Prior's South African Politics (CH, Dec '82). Upper-division undergraduates and above.-K. Mann, Emory University

Booklist Review

Scholarly and very detailed, this study combines a radical political and economic analysis of contemporary South Africa with a narrative of the 1984-86 popular black rebellion. Murray's close observation distinguishes a wide spectrum of resistance movements from the black trade unions and the United Democratic Front to the spontaneous township revolts and their spread to the smallest villages of the countryside. In discussing the relationship between race and class, Murray considers the impact of consumer, rent, and school boycotts; miners' strikes; escalating guerrilla warfare; and people's courts. He also shows how the recent revolts differ from the 1976 Soweto uprisings, and he looks at regional differences and factional struggles. Though his emphasis is on black resistance, he analyzes the rise of white power and the government's current counteroffensive. Drawing extensively on local and international newspapers, as well as on other books and Murray's experience in South Africa, this volume is not for the average reader, but it is a valuable source of previously unavailable information. Glossary, notes; no index. HR. 968.062 South Africa History 1961- / South Africa Race relations