Volume 34, Number 10 · June 11, 1987
Before the Revolution
By Leonard Thompson
King Solomon's Mines Revisited: Western Interests and the Burdened History of South Africa
by William Minter
Basic Books, 401 pp., $21.95
Black and Gold
by Anthony Sampson
Pantheon, 280 pp., $18.95
South Africa: Time of Agony, Time of Destiny
by Martin Murray
Verso, 496 pp., $14.95 (paper)
The Politics of Economic Power in Southern Africa
by Ronald T. Libby
Princeton University Press, 384 pp., $14.50 (paper)
Who is responsible for apartheid? That is the central question in the most challenging of recent books on southern Africa—King Solomon's Mines Revisited by William Minter. Minter, a scholar and journalist who has lived and worked in Tanzania and Mozambique, harks back in his title to Rider Haggard's immensely popular novel of 1885, a story of the white man's search for wealth in the region, which went through thirteen American editions in the first year, sold more than 650,000 copies before Haggard died in 1925, and had an enduring influence on Western perceptions of Africa. King Solomon's Mines Revisited is a well-written, readable, sustained examination of the past and present roles of Great Britain, the United States, and international capitalism in southern Africa. As an effort to broaden our understanding of racism in southern Africa it warrants careful consideration.
Review, 4487 words
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