IRSH 61 (2016), pp. 95–116 doi:10.1017/S0020859016000031 © 2016 Internationaal Instituut voor Sociale Geschiedenis E.P. Thompson in South Africa: The Practice and Politics of Social History in an Era of Revolt and Transition, 1976–2012 J ONATHAN H YSLOP Sociology Department, Colgate University 13 Oak Drive, Hamilton, NY 13346, USA E-mail:
[email protected] ABSTRACT: The work of E.P. Thompson has had an enormous impact on the writing of history in South Africa since the 1970s. This article traces the rise of this historiographical trend, focusing especially on the History Workshop at Wits University (Johannesburg). It outlines how a South African version of Thompsonian historical practice was theorized, and sketches some of the ways in which Thompson’s ideas were utilized by South African historians. The article shows how the History Workshop attempted to popularize their research, and examines the political projects behind these activities. Finally, the article suggests that although the influence of Thompson-style South African social historians has declined, their work has had a lasting impact on the country’s literary culture, well beyond the academy. In 2009, one of South Africa’s most prominent young journalists, Jacob Dlamini, published a book that was to prove highly controversial. Entitled Native Nostalgia, it explored why, despite the grisly nature of the apartheid system, at least some black South Africans, including the author himself, reflected on township life in those times with feelings of affection.1 Dlamini’s aim was not to minimize the horrors of apartheid, or to deny what was positive about the present.