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The Founders: The Origins of the ANC and the Struggle for Democracy in South Africa. By André Odendaal. Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 2013. Pp xv, 569. $40.00.
André Odendaal's weighty tome, The Founders, is a lavishly detailed history and tribute to the men and women who laid the foundations for African democratic political participation in South Africa. It is an important addition to a steadily growing body of works about the African National Congress (ANC) that has emerged since blacks won the rights to full democracy in 1994 as well as to the pre-1994 studies of the party and broader black opposition politics. As such, it follows a familiar tone in affirming, if not celebrating, the ANC's achievements in a somewhat uncritical fashion. Given that we are twenty years on from the end of apartheid, and that recently leading members of the party have faced recent criticism, it remains to be seen if future histories of the ANC depart from the approach taken in The Founders.
Odendaal brings considerable insight to this study. He first paved the way for this analysis in his seminal work, Vukani Bantu1 The Beginnings of Black Protest Politics in South Africa...