HIST 276 - History of South Africa

FDR: HU Humanities Distribution
Credits: 3

This course aims to study the history of the country of South Africa with particular attention to both the uniqueness and the commonalities of its colonial history with other settler societies. Unlike other Anglophone settler colonies, South Africa never reached a demographic majority where white settlers became predominant. Instead, European settlers made fragile alliances against the African and Indian populations in their midst, solidifying a specific form of minority settler rule. This rule was crystallized in the near half-century of apartheid, the legal discrimination of the vast majority of the country for the benefit of a select few. Students emerge from this course as better scholars of a different society and of many of the historic pressures and struggles that are part of the history of the United States.