Title: Reappraising the life and legacy of Jan C Smuts
Editors: David Boucher and Bongani Ngqulunga
Publisher: UJ Press
ISBN 9781776489671
In this book, the authors cover both familiar and unfamiliar themes. One of the principal themes running throughout the book addresses head-on the deficiency in the literature highlighted by Saul Dubow, namely, the question of racism and Smuts’s reluctance to implement “native” policies that may have averted future problems, rather than postpone them. We see throughout, a gap between the rhetoric and policy, and between policy and practice in its implementation. Amongst the familiar themes that are reappraised, are Smuts’s successes and failures in policies and leadership, domestically and internationally.