David Welsh is an accomplished scholar of contemporary South African affairs. When purchasing a book by such an accomplished scholar, carrying the emblematic title "The Rise and Fall of Apartheid", one might expect a comprehensive standard reference narrative of the history of this period in South African history. But this is not the case with this book . It clearly has its strengths. Given the very emotionalised and moralising nature of the discourse around Apartheid in the 1980s and 1990s (and still today to some extent), this is a very balanced and rather neutral account when it comes to tonality and style, in the best tradition of Capetonian liberals. The monograph is very well written in an elegant English and reads very easily. On content, the book is at its best when it traces the debates within the Afrikaner elite and community once Apartheid had been firmly established, but did not 'work' as expected. The book carefully outlines these debates, how the Afrikaner establishment sought a formula in the 1970s and 1980s that would preserve their ethnic ascendancy without compromising the living standards of Afrikaners/whites (which depended on the ready availability of an ever better educated black workforce). The book also follows the developments within the African community, but in less depth. The monograph revolves very much around what one could describe as the antagonistic relationship between the NP and the ANC. It says very little to almost nothing about the non-Afrikaner whites and how they perceived, tolerated, criticised, ridiculed and yet benefited from Apartheid. Equally, almost nothing is said about the international environment, the collapse of Portuguese colonial rule and of Rhodesia and how this influenced South Africa's options, the Cold War context (and how much the demise of Communism made it possible for de Klerk to take his courageous step), South Africa's wars in Angola and Namibia, the international anti-Apartheid and sanctions movement. The role of business and the economic transforms that undermined Apartheid are covered, but marginally. The elaborate security apparatus that underpinned the Apartheid state and made it so 'effective' - certainly in the 1960s - is mentioned more extensively only towards the end of the book, with the sunset of the regime becoming evident in the late 1980s. The history of the bantustans, except for KwaZulu, is largely absent, though perhaps rightly so. Only Inkatha and its war with the ANC in KwaZulu/Natal and PWV are getting the attention they deserve.
One may argue that the history of Apartheid, or more precisely, the history of the end of Apartheid is very much about the NP/ANC relationship hence the focus of the book. There is little dispute with that. But this only became possible once the NP and ANC accepted both that they needed each other, and that was only the case in the late 1980s, even the early 1990s. So this is the projection of structure into the history of Apartheid which emerged only with hindsight. Before that, the history of Apartheid - its rise and fall - was influenced by many more factors that simply the journeys of the NP and ANC and their clashes/interactions.
The book gives a lot of detail about the on-off negotiation process that began after de Klerk's landmark speech of 2 February 1990. These 200 pages out of a total of some 580 contrast stylistically and format-wise with the rather high-level account of events that dominates before this point. For the student of the negotiation process ending Apartheid, this part may be the most interesting of the monograph, especially the last, short and excellent chapter on the "founding election" of April 1994. For those interested in the era of Apartheid more generally, this part is gets overly lengthy, sometimes cumbersome in places. The book is not recommended reading for a novice to the topic. Some basic knowledge about the chronology of the events and about the principal actors are prerequisite.
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