Still, the limitations pointed out here, particularly regarding attention to the diverserealities of educational policymaking in developing countries and the external influences onit, do not damage the quality of work presented in this book, which is supported by thecareful examination of three country cases.

Shoko Yamada and Krishna PangeniNagoya University

Nagoya, Japan

Poverty, War, and Violence in South Africa by Clifton Crais, New York: CambridgeUniversity Press, 2011, viii + 190 pp.

This book challenges the hitherto dominant thesis of South African agrarian history knownas “the rise and fall of the South African peasantry,” originally advocated by Colin Bundyin his book of the same title published in 1979, and attempts to provide an alternative viewon the historical roots of rural poverty in South Africa (Bundy 1979, 1988). Bundydescribed the existence of widespread peasant prosperity in the late nineteenth century,before the development of white commercial farming in South Africa. As an effective andvaluable critique of the previously dominant view of African society that attributed thecauses of poverty in native reserves to the “traditionalism” or “backwardness” of residents,Bundy demonstrated the dynamic and innovative ways by which African peasantsincreased their agricultural production and trade in response to the emerging urban marketafter the discovery of mineral resources. Bundy’s thesis was well received and has attaineda very influential status among scholars of South African rural history.

While Bundy views the participation of African peasants in the market as a sign of theirprosperity, Crais questions whether selling agricultural products itself can be seen assynonymous with peasant prosperity. Building upon several critiques of Bundy’s “rise andfall” thesis, Crais embarks on a reexamination of historical records of the nineteenthcentury Eastern Cape, where Bundy’s prosperous peasants existed. Crais draws attention totwo important events of that era. The first is the impact of colonial violence on Xhosasociety. He points out the general tendency of South African historians to treat colonialconquest as a prelude or postscript of their writings. Breaking with this tradition, Craisattempts to evaluate in detail the damage caused by the colonial wars of conquest. This isimportant, according to him, exactly because the prosperity of Bundy’s peasants took placearound the same time as a large part of Xhosa society was conquered and colonized. Thesecond is the rapid adoption of maize, which replaced sorghum as a staple crop by the endof the nineteenth century. These two themes are explored in the first two of the book’s fourchapters.

The first chapter (Chapter 1), “Famished Roads,” attempts to reconstruct and evaluate thelevel and consequences of the violence in the Eastern Cape in the second half of thenineteenth century. Special attention is given to the Eighth Frontier War of 1851–53 andsubsequent cattle-killing incidents of 1856–57. The former resulted in decisive damage toAfrican societies in the former Ciskei area, as British colonial forces confiscated largenumbers of African cattle and burned their kraals (homesteads) and cornfields. Eventhough consistent and hard evidence is hard to come by, the available data gathered

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by Crais suggests that most of the assets owned by Africans were either destroyed orconfiscated by the colonial forces and that 10% of the population perished due to war,starvation, disease, or execution. Cattle-killing incidents further wiped out the remainingcattle and food. By painstakingly gathering the evidence of the destruction of human livesas well as the livelihood assets of African societies caused by the colonial conquests, Craisconcludes that the era of the supposed peasant prosperity took place just as tens ofthousands of people were yielding to colonial violence in the Eastern Cape.

After portraying the second half of the nineteenth century in the Eastern Cape as an eraof extreme violence rather than peasant prosperity, Crais embarks on an examination of theadoption of maize as a response to the crisis in Chapter 2, “Maize and Markets.” Thequestion posed is why maize, which is susceptible to drought and has nutritionally ques-tionable merit as a staple diet, became widely cultivated in southern Africa by the end of thenineteenth century. Crais tries to answer this by combining two arguments: one concernsthe characteristics of maize as a crop and the other the insecurity caused by conquest andthe emergence of the colonial market economy. Although maize is less resilient to droughtthan sorghum, which had been a local staple crop, it has certain advantages. Namely, itcontains more carbohydrate, requires less time for ripening, can be eaten prematurely asgreen maize, and requires less supervision. Crais emphasizes that in the context of extremeinsecurity and vulnerability caused by war, people instinctively wished to obtain morecalories more quickly. Besides, maize was a tradable commodity on the colonial market.Nonetheless, Crais cautions the reader that the sale of maize does not necessarily mean thatpeople were selling their surplus. He argues this by citing a prominent trader in Transkei,who stated that people sold maize immediately after harvest and then came back to the shopto purchase it later for their own consumption. In this instance, people sold part of theirsubsistence, rather than surplus.

Chapter 3, “Poverty and Plenty,” is dedicated to modifying Bundy’s thesis of peasantprosperity by clarifying and describing exactly who prospered and how they did so. Craisagrees that there were African rural residents who prospered in the late nineteenth century,but argues that they were a tiny minority, i.e., those who earned income from the colonialauthorities, such as policemen, soldiers, chiefs, and headmen, and those who benefitedfrom missionary activities. He estimates that their number did not exceed two thousandhouseholds—a mere 3% of the total population at that time—in the Eastern Cape. Theywere thus exceptional and not typical rural residents, and the latter was increasinglythreatened with loss of access to land.

In the final chapter (Chapter 4), “The Politics of Land and the Crises of the TwentiethCentury,” Crais reconciles with Bundy and admits the close relationship between capitalistdevelopment and rural poverty in twentieth-century South Africa. However, Crais isadamant that the notion that extreme poverty followed an era of widespread prosperity anda stable rural society cannot be supported by the historical evidence he encountered. In thesecond half of the nineteenth century, Ciskei and Transkei were plagued with high levels ofviolence, starvation, and poverty. Crais thus concludes that there was no era of widespreadprosperity during the early period of colonization in South Africa.

The significance of this book lies in the fact that Crais has succeeded in showing thelimitations of “the rise and fall” thesis through an historical reconstruction of the damage

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caused by wars of conquest in the Eastern Cape in the second half of the nineteenth century.Crais demonstrates that peasant prosperity was limited to a few, elite rural residents withcertain backgrounds. There was no widespread rural prosperity in the Eastern Cape beforeresidents became migrant workers in the South African capitalist sectors in the twentiethcentury. Given that Bundy’s thesis has had a huge influence on South African historiog-raphy, there is no doubt that this book demands a revisiting of the agrarian history of otherareas written in a similar “rise and fall” tone.

Second, it is important to emphasize that Crais asserts violence in the form of colonialconquests and wars, rather than market or capitalist development, as the driving force ofhistorical dynamics and the root cause of rural poverty in South Africa. This is a contem-porary question relevant to many African countries that suffered—and some are stillsuffering—from violent conflicts in the late twentieth century. I found Crais’ analysis ofconnecting widespread cultivation of maize with social insecurity caused by conquest verystimulating. The argument is original and sounds persuasive, but I am still not sure whymaize became a tradable good, while sorghum did not. Other explanatory elements, suchas the nature of emerging urban markets and/or the perception of different crops amongrural residents, might have played a role. In addition, why did people not go back togrowing sorghum when the period of extreme insecurity ended with the arrival of officialcolonial rule? This is more perplexing given the certain nutritional deficiency and potentialhealth risk associated with maize. Since maize became dominant in the African diet inSouth Africa, the question of why and how it acquired the status of a staple food seemsworth pursing further.

The value of this book is not limited to historiography. One of the appeals of Bundy’sthesis lay in its implications for contemporary agrarian reform in SouthAfrica. Bundy arguedthat white commercial farmers needed state support to destroy African peasantry, and thatwas the reason why the white government introduced measures to prevent Africans fromacquiring farms. As an extension of this argument, one may expect that in the postapartheidera, when these restrictions are finally abolished, African farmers will once again becomeimportant suppliers of food. However, if widespread peasant prosperity in the late nineteenthcentury did not exist, or the prosperity was limited to a few, we may need to reconsider theviability of the resurgence of African small-scale farming. For this reason, I recommend thisbook not only to scholars who are interested in nineteenth century history, but also to thosewho are intrigued by the contemporary question of agrarian reform in South Africa.

REFERENCES

Bundy, Colin. 1979. The Rise and Fall of the South African Peasantry. London:Heinemann.

———. 1988. The Rise and Fall of the South African Peasantry, 2nd ed. Cape Town:David Philip.

Chizuko SatoInstitute of Developing Economies

JETROChiba, Japan

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