ORDINARY WHITES IN APARTHEID SOCIETY, social histories of accommodation, foreword by Crain Soudien

240pp., illus., paperback, Johannesburg, 2024

Historian Neil Roos traces the lives of working class white people in South Africa during the apartheid years, beginning in 1948 when the National Party came into power.

"Compellingly told, meticulously researched and delightfully accessible, Ordinary Whites in Apartheid Society is quite simply a brilliant account of the lives of white South Africans in the lower strata of apartheid society ... Neil Roos has written an extraordinary book that skillfully weaves elements of family biography into the broader narrative of white lives in the apartheid years. This book will be an intellectual feast for historians of whiteness and a riveting read for ordinary readers." Jonathan Jansen, Distinguished Professor of Education, Stellenbosch University and author of Corrupted: A study of chronic dysfunction in South African universities.

"Neil Roos's Ordinary Whites in Apartheid Society is an outstanding work of scholarship. This is a book which will be both a signal contribution to the social history of Southern Africa, but also of considerable interest to scholars working on issues of race in the United States and elsewhere. It's lively, engaging and personal style, combines academic rigor with accessibility." Jonathan Hyslop, Colgate University.

Neil Roos is Professor of History at the University of Fort Hare. He is the author of Ordinary Springboks: White servicemen and social justice in South Africa, 1939–1961.