The Republic of Bophuthatswana

 4to; original dark blue rexine with lettering in white, and central coat-of-arms onlay in silver-gilt geometric surround to upper board; matching slipcase; pp. 216; liberally illustrated with full-colour photographs and maps, with slipcase. As New condition.

This lavish publication is evidently intended as a publicity exercise for the model of separate development represented by the bogus country of the title. Granted nominal independence by South Africa's National Party government in the year of this book's publication, Bophuthatswana was the pièce de résistance of the Bantustan system, one of the pillars of apartheid. A scattering of disconnected territories in South Africa's interior, and occupied largely by Tswana-speaking people, Bophuthatswana had considerable mineral reserves, producing fully two thirds of the world's platinum, and also earned much through casinos, then illegal in South Africa itself. Lucas Mangope's government was the subject of controversy and resistance, and crumbled following much unrest and the dissolution of Bophuthatswana as an entity in 1994.