Jan Smuts is revered by some as a national and international statesman, but he is condemned by others as an architect of segregation. In his new book, prize-winning author Bongani Ngqulunga examines Smuts’s political life in terms of how it affected black people.

He considers the impact of Smuts’s role in the treaty ending the Anglo-Boer War and the National Convention that created the Union of South Africa. He follows Smuts’s actions as a minister under Louis Botha, as prime minister from 1919 to 1924 and again from 1939 to 1948, and his relationship with Barry Hertzog’s National Party, first in opposition and then in a fused South African Party. Ngqulunga concentrates on the events and policies that affected black people directly, and he presents the views of people such as Sol Plaatje, Alfred Xuma, John Dube, D.D.T. Jabavu and Z.K. Matthews – and, later on, Nelson Mandela and Walter Sisulu. He shows how Smuts evolved in his views, eventually coming to recognise that segregation had failed. But the reforms he introduced in the 1940s were too little, too late, and were swept away by the National Party and its policy of apartheid.

Giving a balanced view that is both respectful and critical, Under Smuts’s Rule is a vital addition to the literature on Smuts and to South African history.