hites were always a minority of South Africa's population who nevertheless controlled the lion' s share of the economic wealth. The apartheid system was viewed by the Afrikaners as a method of controlling the majority population and preserving their privileged status. For example, he points out that whites have never made up more than 1/5 of the population. Yet in 1946, this 1/5 of the population controlled two thirds of the nation's personal income (Christopher, 1994, 1).
Christopher uses demographics to make the reader understand why Afrikaners stubbornly stayed the course of developing apartheid as well as how the staggering sums of wealth held by a minority of the population made this privileged position so hard to surrender. Woven throughout the three aspects which form his history, Christopher provides maps and charts which assist us in further understanding how apartheid policies radically changed the physical and cultural reality of South Africa.
II. The Development of Apartheid and the Colonial Era
Christopher clearly portrays how the ro
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