Ethnicity and Politics in South Africa
Gerhard Maré
Zed Books
Commentators who may readily recognize the politically engineered quality  of ethnic strife elsewhere in the world still tend to reduce such  politics in Africa to mere "tribalism," thus obviating the need to dig  deeper in search of the roots of conflict. This study by a South African  sociologist analyzes the politicization of ethnicity in general terms,  then digs with a vengeance into the particular case of ethnic  mobilization around the identity of the "Zulu nation" in South Africa  during the 1970s and 1980s, laying bare its basis in psychological  manipulation and historical distortion. Ironically, until the country's  rulers officially abandoned apartheid theories in 1990, progressive  academics shied away from the study of ethnicity among blacks for fear  of lending credence to the government's ideological definitions of  reality. With that intellectual obstacle removed, we may now see more  research on ethnic politics following this pioneering little book --<span>Gail M. Gerhart, Foreign Affairs<br></span>