Outsmarting Apartheid: An Oral History of South Africa's Cultural and Educational Exchange with the United States, 1960-1999 (Hardcover)
For almost forty years, under the watchful eye of the apartheid regime, some three thousand South Africans participated in cultural and educational exchange with the United States. Exposure to American democracy brought hope during a time when social and political change seemed unlikely. In the end the process silently triumphed over the resistance of authorities, and many of the individuals who participated in the program later participated in South Africa's first democratic elections, in 1994, and now occupy key positions in academia, the media, parliament, and the judiciary. In Outsmarting Apartheid, Daniel Whitman, former Program Development Officer at the US Embassy in Pretoria, interviews the South Africans and Americans who administered, advanced, and benefited from government-funded exchange. The result is a detailed account of the workings and effectiveness of the US Information Agency and a demonstration of the value of "soft power" in easing democratic transition in a troubled area.
Daniel Whitman is Assistant Professor of Foreign Policy at the Washington Semester Program at American University. He is the author of A Haiti Chronicle: The Undoing of a Latent Democracy, 1999-2001.Kari Jaksa is Foreign Service Officer for the US Department of State, currently posted in Shanghai, China.