‘From white supremacy to black liberation’: intellectual lineages from South Africa in the ‘making of America’

Abstract

This paper was presented at the 50th anniversary of the founding of the Amerika Instituut in Amsterdam in September 1998. Participants were asked to reflect on the ‘making of America’ in their own research and teaching. The intention was therefore to exchange very personal perspectives on how scholars from different parts of the world interpret American studies. Teaching the history of the United States of America in the 19th and 20th centuries at graduate level has been profoundly influenced by my research interests in South African history and by political and cultural forces in the apartheid and post-apartheid eras.