'White supremacy' twenty one years on: opportunities for comparative historical research

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Periodical article

Title:	'White supremacy' twenty one years on: opportunities for comparative historical research
Author:	Bergh, Johan S.
Year:	2003
Periodical:	Historia: amptelike orgaan
Volume:	48
Issue:	1
Pages:	355-372
Language:	English
Geographic terms:	South Africa United States
Subject:	historiography
Abstract:	Interest in comparisons between South African and American history reached a climax with the appearance of four prominent publications in the early 1980s: Stanley Greenberg's 'Race and State in capitalist development'; George Frederickson's 'White supremacy'; 'The frontier in history' edited by Howard Lamar and Leonard Thompson; and John Cell's 'The highest stage of white supremacy'. Well-known historians and other academics reviewed these books in leading academic journals. Although a few contributions on this theme continued to appear occasionally after this, it was particularly from the late 1990s onward that new interest arose. This opened the way for more initiatives in this field. The present author reviews a number of these books and reviews, looks briefly at the nature, criteria and limitations of comparative history and evaluates the viability of writing comparative history of South Africa and the USA. Note, ref., sum. in English (p. v-vi) and Afrikaans. [Journal abstract, edited]