The mind of apartheid: Geoffrey Cronjé (1907-)

Abstract

Geoffrey Cronjé was an influential figure in radical Afrikaner Nationalist circles in the 1940s, and a seminal contributor to the theory of apartheid. His published writings of the 1940s display a concern with “race-mixing” that can properly be called obsessive. Where do obsessions such as Cronjé’s come from, and how do they spread themselves through the social body? Is a serious and productive analysis of the madness of apartheid possible, or is “madness” in a socio-historical context merely a metaphor? In what ways may historiography have to extend the terms of its discourse in order to take account of irrational forces in social life?. © 1991 Taylor & Francis Group, LLC.