uropean bases of power and capital had finally managed to impose their will on South African blacks. The land and the native people were by 1950 under control of white capitalists who based their society and economy on racism. Thompson documents this development step by step, and does so in a style both scholarly and readable. He clearly despises apartheid, but he grounds his style and analysis in objective terms. Thompson's arguments are supported by every available source. He argues that blacks were developing their own society and economy when the whites first arrived, that whites from the beginning based their intrusion on racist beliefs and practices, that blacks resisted this racism, and that the ultimate disintegration of apartheid was inevitable not only because it was unjust and cruel, but because the black majority would inevitably rise up and pull it down. Just as inevitably, the nations of the West which were responsible for apartheid would see that the racist system was doomed and would turn against their white compatriots in South Africa. Thompson f
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