Every Step of the Way: The Journey to Freedom in South Africa (review)

This book was commissioned by the Ministry of Education in South Africa. According to the foreword written by Kader Asmal, then minister of education, it seeks to explain for the benefit of South Africans themselves—ten years after the end of apartheid—"how South Africa has at last become a single democratic country." As Asmal points out, while seeking to avoid oversimplification, the story is told with the "emphasis on the triumph of humanity, rising out of our troubled history." The clear message of this "approved" version of the new nation's history is unambiguously stated: South Africans should face the challenges of the future with hope.

In a country in which historical writing has been an important battleground for generations in the struggle for and against white domination, the enlistment of history in the cause of building a new nonracial nation comes as no surprise. But should it be welcomed? If the uses and abuses of history in South African historiography show nothing else, they demonstrate clearly that history has always had an important social role. However, as John Tosh warns, "an urgent and overriding political commitment may produce a mythical version of history, and myths can be dangerous.... Myth-making about the past, however desirable the end it may serve, is incompatible with learning about the past" (The Pursuit of History, 1984:20–21).

Having said this, I wish to emphasize that Every Step of the Way has been meticulously researched and draws on much of the best historical writing of the last twenty years in an effort to present a picture of the South African past that is as inclusive as possible. It also makes good use of contemporary literary and pictorial sources to break up the text and provide an exciting variety of images and perspectives on the issues discussed. An authoritative note is added by frequent citation of key historians and a good supporting list of readings for each chapter.

One of the most intriguing features of the book is the choice of a seasoned journalist, rather than a historian, to write it. Presumably this was done to avoid the unpalatable (and most likely, unreadable) alternative of a textbook written by a committee. Michael Morris's personality and long experience as a feature writer for the Cape Argus shine through in his fluent and spirited prose, his use of human interest stories to personalize and dramatize key passages, and in the visual layout of this book. Although he demonstrates a lack of interest in the conventions of mainstream historical writing, he was assisted in the research and in maintaining a generally high standard of accuracy in presenting historical details by Bill Nasson, who is credited as "historical advisor." I noted only two small factual errors in the course of this wide-ranging text. Perhaps the spirit in which the book was conceived and written explains why it is the name of the Ministry of Education that appears above the title on the cover, while Morris is credited as the writer of the text only in the publication details within. This seems to do scant justice to his contribution.

Inevitably, a book written with the present and recent past so clearly in mind suffers from some unevenness of coverage. The last four of fifteen chapters are devoted to the period of the 1990s, while the 1920s and 1930s are covered in two pages. Somewhat surprisingly, the precolonial and early colonial period up to the mid-nineteenth century take up the first five chapters—almost a hundred pages or nearly a third of the book. The journalistic style, while lending immediacy and accessibility to some of the more obscure passages of South African history, feels somewhat labored at times. Academic historians may also find musings such as "Do people, individuals, make history, or does history make individuals?" (88) an...