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Cover -- Title Page -- Copyright -- Dedication -- Contents -- Foreword -- Preface -- Acknowledgments -- 1. Compliance and Defiance in the Making of White Apartheid Society -- 2. Whites and South African History -- 3. The Delicacy of Teacups -- 4. Insluipers, Geoffrey Cronjé, and Social Policy -- 5. Work and Ideology in the Apartheid Public Service -- 6. Women, the Labor Market, and the Domestic Economy -- 7. Nationalism, Whiteness, and Consumption -- 8. Alcohol and Social Engineering -- 9. The End -- Notes -- Bibliography -- Index -- About the Author.

"How were whites implicated in and shaped by apartheid culture and society, and how did they contribute to it? In Ordinary Whites in Apartheid Society, historian Neil Roos traces the lives of ordinary white people in South Africa during the apartheid years, beginning in 1948 when the National Party swept into power on the back of its catchall apartheid slogan. Drawing on his own family's story and others, Roos explores how working-class whites frequently defied particular aspects of the apartheid state but seldom opposed or even acknowledged the idea of racial supremacy, which lay at the heart of the apartheid society. This cognitive dissonance afforded them a way to simultaneously accommodate and oppose apartheid and allowed them to later claim they never supported the apartheid system. Ordinary Whites in Apartheid Society offers a telling reminder that the politics and practice of race, in this case apartheid-era whiteness, derive not only from the top, but also from the bottom"--

In South African history writing circles, quite possibly the most disturbing development over the last few months has been the fire at the University of Cape Town and the partial destruction of the African Studies archives. Many words have since been written about the fire, the loss and the state of the archives in South Africa. Our lead essay for this issue, written by Clare Larkin ("The University College of the North, Student Politics and the National Union of South African Students, 1960-1968"), is based on research in the Special Collections of the Jagger Library at the University of Cape Town. The loss of the archive reminds us of our fragile connections with the past, or, more precisely, a complex past. Larkin's lead essay focuses on student politics in the 1960s, shortly before the revival of resistance to apartheid that came with the emergence of Black Consciousness, the growing prominence of Steve Biko and Ric Turner as critical voices in South African politics and society, and the resurgence of a powerful labour movement in Durban.

AbstractIn considering how "radical" histories of ordinary whites under apartheid might be written, this essay engages with several traditions of historical scholarship "from" and "of" below. For three decades, Marxist-inspired social history dominated radical historiography in South Africa. It has, however, proved little able to nurture historiography of whites that is politically engaged and acknowledges post-Marxist currents in the discipline. I advocate a return to theory and suggest that new sources may be drawn from the academy and beyond. Historiographies "of" below need not necessarily be historiographies "from" below and this article proposes the idea of a "racial state" as an alternative starting point for a history of apartheid-era whites. It goes on to argue that Subaltern Studies, as a dissident, theoretically eclectic and interdisciplinary current in historiography offers useful perspectives for exploring the everyday lives of whites in South Africa. After suggesting a research agenda stemming from these theoretical and comparative insights, I conclude by reflecting on the ethics of writing histories of apartheid-era whites.