This book will be of interest to all Namibians and South Africans, especially historians, political scientists, sociologists, and social anthropologists.
International relations scholars will also be interested in how Smuts persuaded Wilson to create for the future League of Nations a third-class mandate, a “C class” mandate, which was gutted of all effective safeguards to defend the indigenes of the mandate from a predatory mandatory power. This mandated territory was developed as a settler colony regardless of the clash of interests this created against the indigenes.
This applied especially to land expropriation on behalf of the settlers, confirming the German seizure of land, which the mandatory system was supposed to remedy.
This book draws on unpublished archival records, as well as a close reading of official publications, to analyse an agrarian counter-revolution, and the allocation of minerals and fishing rights for a system of political patronage amongst the rulers. It is a must purchase for every scholarly library.
