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Bottomley, John : Public Policy and White Rural Poverty in South Africa, 1881-1924

(Ontario, PhD thesis in unpublished form, 1990)

A thesis submitted to the Department of History in conformity with the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. Folio (300 x 210 mm); original red rexine gilt; pp. (iv) + iv + 425 (printed rectos). Fine condition. Important PhD thesis submitted to the History Department of Queen's University (Kingston, Ontario, Canada). The author is currently Associate Professor and Head of the History Department at North-West University, South Africa. 'No major work has been published on "poor whiteism" during the last fifty years. This lacunae exists, despite the fact that "poor whiteism" straddles the three major political relationships in South Africa, white and black, English-speaking and Afrikaner, prosperous and poor. In those works which refer to "poor whiteism", three distinct views emerge. Nationalist historians see the "poor whites" as victims, whilst liberal historians portray the "poor whites" as historical "culprits". The focus of the revisionists on the material base of society has led them to conclude that the "poor whites" were an irrelevant class. In contrast to these approaches, this thesis would reassert the fundamental importance of "poor whiteism" in the development of South Africa.' An abstract of the same author's article The application of the theory of "economic backwardness" to South Africa 1881-1924 in the The South African Journal of Economic History (Volume 8, No 2, October 1993), which covers similar ground, states: "He argues that the revisionist, liberal and Afrikaner nationalist interpretations are flawed because they provide insular, monotheistic explanations of growth that cannot portray the true complexity of South Africa's development. He suggests that the theory of economic backwardness offers important historical insights into South Africa's development."

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