Architect of apartheid

the long version

This book is an appraisal of Hendrik Verwoerd's career in the context of his times. For a man who so dominated South Africa in his heyday, surprisingly little has been written about Verwoerd. There are two book-length studies, each highly unsatisfactory. One is by the former South African Labour M.P., now living in exile, Alex Hepple, and appeared the year after his death. It is readable, partisan, inaccurate and portrays Verwoerd as an authoritarian racist who could not change. At the other extreme is an effort which is so different from Hepple's that one wonders at times whether it is about the same man.