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Apartheid's Reluctant Uncle

Borstelmann's book has a controversial thesis that impinges greatly on the nature of USA anti-communist foreign policy in the years after the Second World War. Borstelmann makes a persuasive argument that the United States aided and abetted the establishment of the apartheid regime in South Africa because - despite reservations about Nationalist racial policies - it viewed South Africa as a vital ally in the Cold War. Exceptionally well-written and substantively strong, the book is diplomatic history in a broad context. Eschewing the reductionist, economic-determinist view that characterizes many critical accounts of US policy toward South Africa, and stressing broader strategic and ideological considerations, Borstelmann provides a rich and sophisticated account of American policy-making in that era.In 1948, civil rights for black Americans stood higher on the national political agenda than at any time since reconstruction. President Harry Truman issued orders for fair employment and the integration of the armed forces, and he proceeded to campaign on a platform that included an unprecedented civil rights plank, pushed through the Democratic convention by Hubert Humphrey. But on the other side of the globe, his administration paid close attention to another election as well: the surprising triumph of the white-supremacist National Party in South Africa, reluctantly accepted by the Truman White House. Apartheid's Reluctant Uncle brings to light the neglected history of Washington's strong (but hushed) backing for the National Party government after it won power in 1948, and its formal establishment of apartheid. Thomas Borstelmann's account weaves together the complex threads of early Cold War tensions, African and domestic American politics, and nuclear diplomacy to show how - and why - the United States government aided and abetted the evangelically racist regime in Pretoria. Despite the rhetoric of the "free world, " and the lingering idealism following the defeat of Nazi Germany and the founding of the U.N., Truman's foreign policy was focused on limiting Soviet expansion at all costs. Tensions between the two former allies mounted in Europe, the Middle East, and Asia, with the Berlin crisis, the Greek civil war, and the impending victory of the Communists in China. In southern Africa, the United States sought to limit Soviet and left-wing influence by supporting the colonial powers (Belgium, Portugal, and of course Britain) and the fiercely anticommunist National Party, led byDaniel Malan. Despite the unsavory racism of Malan's government - Borstelmann shows that Pretoria fomented violence among black groups in the late 1940s, just as it has done recently between the ANC and Inkatha - the U.S. saw South Africa as a dependable and important ally. In add.

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Just like us : the American struggle to understand foreigners

"Americans have long considered themselves a people set apart. Yet American exceptionalism is built on a set of tacit beliefs about other cultures. From the founding exclusion of indigenous peoples and enslaved Africans to the uneasy welcome of waves of immigrants, from republican disavowals of colonialism to Cold War proclamations of freedom, Americans' ideas of their differences from others have shaped the modern world--and how Americans have viewed foreigners is deeply revealing of their assumptions about themselves. Just Like Us is a pathbreaking exploration of what foreignness has meant across American history. Thomas Borstelmann traces American ambivalence about non-Americans, identifying a paradoxical perception of foreigners as suspiciously different yet fundamentally sharing American values at heart beneath the layers of culture. Considering race and religion, notions of the American way of life, attitudes toward immigrants, competition with communism, Americans abroad, and the subversive power of American culture, he offers a surprisingly optimistic account of the acceptance of difference. Borstelmann contends that increasing contact with peoples around the globe during the Cold War encouraged mainstream society to grow steadily more inclusive in terms of who could be considered fully American. In a time of resurgent nativism and xenophobia, Just Like Us provides a reflective, urgent examination of how Americans have conceived of foreignness and their own exceptionalism throughout the nation's history"--Americans have long considered themselves a people set apart, but American exceptionalism is built on a set of tacit beliefs about other cultures. From the founding exclusion of indigenous peoples and enslaved Africans to the uneasy welcome of waves of immigrants, from republican disavowals of colonialism to Cold War proclamations of freedom, Americans' ideas of their differences from others have shaped the modern world-and how Americans have viewed foreigners is deeply revealing of their assumptions about themselves. Just Like Us is a pathbreaking exploration of what foreignness has meant across American history. Thomas Borstelmann traces American ambivalence about non-Americans, identifying a paradoxical perception of foreigners as suspiciously different yet fundamentally sharing American values beneath the layers of culture. Considering race and religion, notions of the American way of life, attitudes toward immigrants, competition with communism, Americans abroad, and the subversive power of American culture, he offers a surprisingly optimistic account of the acceptance of difference. Borstelmann contends that increasing contact with peoples around the globe during the Cold War encouraged mainstream society to grow steadily more inclusive. In a time of resurgent nativism and xenophobia, Just Like Us provides a reflective, urgent examination of how Americans have conceived of foreignness and their own exceptionalism throughout the nation's history.

The Cold War and the color line : American race relations in the global arena

After World War II the United States faced two pre-eminent challenges: how to administer its responsibilities abroad as the world's strongest power, and how to manage the rising movement at home for racial justice and civil rights. The effort to contain the growing influence of the Soviet Union resulted in the Cold War, a conflict that emphasized the American commitment to freedom. The absence of that freedom for nonwhite American citizens confronted the nation's leaders with an embarrassing contradiction. Racial discrimination after 1945 was a foreign as well as a domestic problem. World War II opened the door to both the US civil rights movement and the struggle of Asians and Africans abroad for independence from colonial rule. America's closest allies against the Soviet Union, however, were colonial powers whose interests had to be balanced against those of the emerging independent Third World in a multiracial, anticommunist alliance. At the same time, US racial reform was essential to preserve the domestic consensus needed to sustain the Cold War struggle. "The Cold War and the Color Line" offers a comprehensive examination of how the Cold War intersected with the final destruction of global white supremacy. Thomas Borstelmann pays close attention to the two Souths - Southern Africa and the American South - as the primary sites of white authority's last stand. He reveals America's efforts to contain the racial polarization that threatened to unravel the anticommunist western alliance. In so doing, he recasts the history of American race relations in its true international context, one that is relevant for our own era of globalization.