The Cold War in South African History Textbooks

Abstract

A remarkable feature of the Cold War is its coincidence with the period of apartheid in South Africa, in which it played an important role. This is evident in school textbooks, where it is a major topic in the final years of history. But while there is a growing body of work on the Cold War in Africa, there is a very small literature on its manifestation in South Africa and, with one exception, nothing on how school textbooks may have reinforced or challenged its main precepts. Linda Chisholm and Davig Fig seek to fill this research gap with a study of curricula and textbooks, showing that the most significant change since the apartheid period is that the convergence of anticommunism with black liberation movements has given way to a friendlier approach towards movements for decolonisation and the East than was previously evident.