War, religion, and white supremacy in comparative perspective : South Africa and the American South

Abstract

The southern states of the United States of America and South Africa share a number of analogous historical realities. One of these, which is the main subject of this article, is the way in which the memory of a lost war had fused cultural mythology and religious symbolism to provide a foundation for the formation and maintenance of attitudes of white supremacy in both contexts. This article seeks to achieve a historical understanding of the complex interrelationship between the development of cultural identity and Protestant Christianity by focusing on these issues in the histories of the Afrikaner and the white American Southerner in comparative perspective.