Lord Milner and the South African State

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Book chapter

Title:	Lord Milner and the South African State
Authors:	Marks, S. Trapido, S.
Book title:	Working papers in Southern African studies: vol. 2
Year:	1981
Pages:	52-96
Language:	English
Geographic terms:	South Africa United Kingdom
Subjects:	apartheid colonialism
Abstract:	In the run up to the Boer War, in the construction of the new South African State and in the drawing up of an imperial blueprint for the region as a whole, Sir Alfred Milner, British High Commissioner for South Africa and the Governor for the Cape and Transvaal between 1897 and 1905, played a significant role. However, the role of Milner has been overestimated by historians, while the nature of 'Milnerism' has been underestimated. This article describes the development of the economy of southern Africa, amongst others characterized by a racist ideology of segregation, and shows that this was not simply the outcome of the ideosyncracies of a single individual, but has to be located in the context of late nineteenth-century British history and its articulation with the imperatives of southern African capitalist development. Notes.