Afrikaner nationalism has been analysed from broadly-speaking two perspectives. In the main, the literature has focused on the evolution of a movement rooted in a common history, language, and religion,1 and has traced the roots of a nation-in-the-making back 300 years in South African history,2 before the inevitable flowering of Afrikanerdom in the twentieth century. In contrast to the growth of European nationalism which is linked to the rise of the bourgeoisie, studies of Afrikaner nationalism have tended to neglect the class dimension by emphasising ideology as a unifying force and organising principle. An alternative approach has been attempted by Dan O'Meara who locates Afrikaner nationalism within the dynamic of capitalist development in South Africa, explaining its ideology in terms of its class character, and although his study often lacks subtlety, it stresses factors that have been neglected by the more usual idealist accounts.3