• the white monopoly of political power
• the attempt to make race coincide with space
• the regulation of the labour supply
• the maintenance of social control

These are the four pillars of apartheid. If white political power is dislodged will the three others pillars now actually crumble?

This book, which is published on the tenth anniversary of the Soweto rising, gives a brisk analysis of the ideology of apartheid and relates it to the key social institutions and practices. Students in particular will find useful the reading guide and bibliography.

Professor Cohen reaches behind the ideological pronouncements to establish a somewhat sobering prophecy that there may well be more continuity that many people would expect. There are elements of stasis in the social structure that are so deeply embedded that quite major ideological and political shifts will not easliy dislodge them.

In the end he leaves us all with the question
'Apartheid is dying but will it lie down?'

Robin Cohen is Director of the Centre for Research in Ethnic Relations and Professor of Sociology at the University of Warwick. He was previously Professor of Sociology at the University of the West Indies, Trinidad. His publications include Labour and Politics in Nigeria (1974, new ed. 1982) and The New Helors: Migrants in the International Division of Labour (1986).