Originally published in 1981, this book took a position which was unpopular within the academic establishment at the time of its publication. It argued that the extraordinary social and economic changes that came over South Africa in the 20
th
Century gave the country great stability. The authors believed that change would come from within the ruling white oligarchy rather than from Liberation Movements and that the greatest solvent of apartheid was to be found in the working of a free market economy. The book provided novel data for sociological, political and strategic reassessment of South Africa. The approach was unusual in that the book represented neither a conventional defence of apartheid nor one of the customary attacks on South Africa.