The history of Afrikaner nationalism in South Africa remains a vital topic, not least because it is indispensable for a solid understanding of the apartheid system that evolved out of its trajectory of movements, politics, and ideas. Christoph Marx, a professor for Extra-European History at the University of Duisburg-Essen in Germany, pinpoints his account on the most extreme wing of Afrikaner nationalism, an organisation that flourished mainly during the Second World War, quite openly siding with Nazi Germany and setting its stakes on a German victory over Britain. However, his account is much more than a mere social history of the Ossewabrandwag, an analysis of its shifting social basis and its eventual dissolution in the broader stream of the National Party, in power after 1948. Marx bases his account on both a discourse analysis and forays into the social history of the different currents of Afrikaner nationalism, reaching back to the aftermath of the South African war and the creation of the Union of South Africa in 1910.

Marx begins from basic premises of mentality, tenets of Neo-Calvinism, and varieties of nationalism in the South African situation. For his exposition of ethnic, Afrikaner nationalism that later radicalized in the various currents that form the centre of the book, Marx uses the three-phase template provided by Miroslav Hroch, which includes the mobilisation of an intelligentsia around ‘national’ issues and recuperation of the past; radicalisation and broadening of the social base; and mass mobilisation. Roughly, these phases also correspond to the three parts of the book, which address basic issues as well as the foundations of Afrikaner nationalism, its radicalisation in the 1930s and 1940s, and, lastly, a particularly source-oriented account of the Ossewabrandwag itself and its aftermath up to the 1990s.

One important feature concerns the overall trajectory of nationalism in South Africa: the attempt to forge ‘conciliation’ nationalism, uniting the white Afrikaans and English speakers on the grounds of a constitution whose premises were based on a Westminster system that was equally little understood by protagonists and adversaries. Among these were J. Smuts and B. Hertzog, both of whom framed their politics around personal loyalties that harked back to the ‘commando’ structures of the frontier and the Boer war and relied on a number of shared motives: engrained notions of honour; the ethnicisation of social issues, above all the ‘poor white’ question, pitting impoverished white Afrikaans speakers against blacks and thus forestalling solidarity based on class; concomitant strong anti-Semitic sentiments; the notion of the Christian mission of the Afrikaner people; and, increasingly, an idealised notion of an idyllic, patriarchal past embodied in the Boer extended family and the nineteenth-century republics.

These motives coalesced in the seminal event of the eeufees, the centennial commemoration in 1938 of the Battle of Blood River, presented as the culmination of the Great Trek from the British-ruled Cape to the later Boer republics of Orange Free State and Transvaal. The concept of the Trek itself was largely constructed in the course of a symbolic rehearsal of the ox-wagon trek, which turned out to be effective beyond expectation in mobilising Afrikaner national sentiments across the country. The campaign culminated in the laying of the foundation stone for the Voortrekker Monument near Pretoria. It was instrumental in establishing the symbol of the ox-wagon as a national epitome for Boer steadfastness, perseverance, and enterprise.

The eeufees also reflected the passage of radical nationalism into a mass movement, itself the outcome of both intricate processes on the levels of party politics and a host of activities in the cultural, social, and economic fields. These activities were mainly connected with the Broederbond, a half-secret association that effectively managed to control and coordinate various initiatives to strengthen Afrikanerdom. After the formation of the Great Coalition and subsequent merging of Hertzog's National Party and Smuts's South African Party in 1933–34, the former effectively split, at the same time that a number of non-party organisations leaning more or less towards fascism developed, partly under the direct influence of Nazi Germany and professing to ‘national socialism’. The Ossewabrandwag emerged as the most successful of these organizations, flourishing by opposing South Africa's war effort after 1939, while increasingly turning into a regular fascist organisation owing to a number of checks sustained in particular by the Herenigde Nasionale Party. As Marx stresses, this was an innovative, modern party, which overcame personalised politics. Despite its demise, the Ossewabrandwag's lasting influence is seen in the large contingent of leading politicians and administrators who later rose in the ranks of the apartheid regime.

Integrating such a wide range of perspectives, and weaving it into a convincing history of one of the most important background developments to apartheid, is an enormous feat. Sticking to a topical rather than chronological exposition, Marx at times makes rather high demands on readers' patience. Yet such patience is definitely worthwhile.