Book Description

As its title indicates, this study is a sociological monograph on a small sugar town near the Indian Ocean coast of South Africa. One of the central themes of this book is that Caneville, in spite of its idiosyncracies, represents in most important respects a microcosm of the country to which it belongs. While any detailed description of South Africa clearly falls outside the scope of the present study, the author attempts to draw a thumb-nail sketch of the country for the benefit of the unfamiliar reader. Modern South Africa is the highly explosive result of some three centuries of conflict. Since the first Dutch settlement at the Cape in 1652, South Africa has been the scene of violent clashes for political hegemony and economic control.