Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Contributors
- Acknowledgments
- Note on references
- Introduction
- 1 South Africa and South Africans: Nationality, Belonging, Citizenship
- 2 Imperialism, Settler Identities, and Colonial Capitalism: The Hundred-Year Origins of the 1899 South African War
- 3 Class, Culture, and Consciousness in South Africa, 1880–1899
- 4 War and Union, 1899–1910
- 5 South Africa: The Union Years, 1910–1948 – Political and Economic Foundations
- 6 South African Society and Culture, 1910–1948
- 7 The Apartheid Project, 1948–1970
- 8 Popular Responses to Apartheid: 1948–c. 1975
- 9 Resistance and Reform, 1973–1994
- 10 The Evolution of the South African Population in the Twentieth Century
- 11 The Economy and Poverty in the Twentieth Century
- 12 Modernity, Culture, and Nation
- 13 Environment, Heritage, Resistance, and Health: Newer Historiographical Directions
- Statistical Appendix
- Bibliography
- Index
- References
5 - South Africa: The Union Years, 1910–1948 – Political and Economic Foundations
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 28 July 2011
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Contributors
- Acknowledgments
- Note on references
- Introduction
- 1 South Africa and South Africans: Nationality, Belonging, Citizenship
- 2 Imperialism, Settler Identities, and Colonial Capitalism: The Hundred-Year Origins of the 1899 South African War
- 3 Class, Culture, and Consciousness in South Africa, 1880–1899
- 4 War and Union, 1899–1910
- 5 South Africa: The Union Years, 1910–1948 – Political and Economic Foundations
- 6 South African Society and Culture, 1910–1948
- 7 The Apartheid Project, 1948–1970
- 8 Popular Responses to Apartheid: 1948–c. 1975
- 9 Resistance and Reform, 1973–1994
- 10 The Evolution of the South African Population in the Twentieth Century
- 11 The Economy and Poverty in the Twentieth Century
- 12 Modernity, Culture, and Nation
- 13 Environment, Heritage, Resistance, and Health: Newer Historiographical Directions
- Statistical Appendix
- Bibliography
- Index
- References
Summary
Introduction
The Union of South Africa came into being with the opening of Parliament in November 1910, following a lengthy period of negotiation between the four self-governing British colonies in southern Africa. The Union closely resembled an independent country, and it would evolve, as would the other British dominions, further in that direction. This chapter considers that what ensued after 1910 was an attempt, an attempt that ultimately failed, to establish a hegemonic order in South Africa. By hegemony, what is meant is not merely dominance, not merely state control, but pervasive and internalised dominance that flows through nationally based and structured institutions and civil society. In other words, the goal was the construction of a society based on shared assumptions and mediated conflicts contained in a legal and political order that could endure.
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- Chapter
- Information
- The Cambridge History of South Africa , pp. 211 - 253Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2011
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