cover image Morning in South Africa

Morning in South Africa

John Campbell. Rowman & Littlefield, $29.95 (208p) ISBN 978-1-4422-6589-9

Foreign policy professional Campbell uses the idea of morning, somewhat uncertainly, to describe post-apartheid South Africa's progress since 1994. The country's history from settlement by Europeans in 1652 to the death of Nelson Mandela in 2013 occupies a significant portion of the book. However, this section probably should have been even longer, as some of the details and statements in it come across as vague or incomplete. Valuable comparisons are made between Jim Crow in the U.S. and apartheid, but Campbell doesn't fully convey the violence of either. When discussing the present day, Campbell describes a South Africa that is on the cusp of political and economic transformation, whether for good or ill, but sees no immediate likelihood of the country going over that brink. Campbell makes a point of mentioning that he was in South Africa in 1994, but this doesn't prove significant to his arguments. He doesn't shy away from the failings of the deal made to end apartheid, including the fact that whites are still, economically, the dominant race in the country, and the failings of the Mandela and Mbeki administrations to adequately address the HIV/AIDS crisis. Nonetheless, Campbell ends the book on an optimistic note, acknowledging that South Africa's young democracy has many opportunities to grow and improve. (May)