title: A Very Strange Society
text: # A Very Strange Society
  
  A Very Strange Society: A Journey to the Heart of South Africa is a 1967 non-fiction book by Allen Drury. It explores the then-evolving government and culture of the Republic of South Africa.
  
  ## Overview
  
  Combining newspaper articles, interviews and government edicts, Drury presents the "achievements and failures" of the new republic, which was founded in 1961.
  
  ## Critical reception
  
  In November 1967, Kirkus Reviews wrote:
  
     Utilizing a pro and con format, Drury presents a rather convincing case why a minority of whites should be in a position to totally dominate and manipulate a vastly larger non-white population. Although he scores Afrikaan provincialism, police-state methods, and obduracy, it is done in a manner that suggests redemption will come from the purging of traits rather than ideology. In a sense, this book derives its lethality from what it most certainly isn't — crackpot and extremist. On the other hand, it most certainly fails as a dispassionate and objective handling of the South African dilemma.
  