Books by William Beinart

Who controls the land and minerals in the former Bantustans of South Africa - chiefs, the state or landholders? The contributors to Land, Law and Chiefs in Rural South Africa capture some of the intense contestations over land, law and political authority, focussing on threats to the rights of ordinary people.

This book examines in detail how the people of one formerly independent African chiefdom were absorbed into the wider South African society during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The book questions some of the assumptions in the literature on 'underdevelopment' in Africa.

Beinart and Coates examine the influence of human economies and cultures on ecosystems, looking at the history of settler incursion in two frontier nations: the USA and South Africa. They also seek to explain change in indigenous ideas & practices.