Overcoming Historical Injustices: Land Reconciliation in South Africa. By James L. Gibson

Extract

Overcoming Historical Injustices: Land Reconciliation in South Africa. By James L. Gibson. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2009. 328p. $92.00.

All three of James Gibson's books on transitional justice in South Africa focus on showing that the politics of reconciliation with the Apartheid regime are less related to economic “self-interest” than to “sociotropic fairness.” On close examination, Gibson concludes that an individual's preferences about land reconciliation are not a direct function of egocentric instrumentalism. Rather, in his view, they are shaped by conceptions of whether one's group has been fairly treated.