From Colonization to Democracy explains the evolution and nature of South African society from its beginnings to the present and its spatial configuration. The author traces the course of social formation and adaptation over the last 350 years. He identifies and explains the most important historical continuities in South Africa - the processes and traits which have done most to shape present society.

These include social groupings and their stratification, political institutions, the patterns of human geography, economic structure and external links and influences.

The author weighs up the various schools of thought, especially those concerned with the central issue around which the academic conflict of Marxists and liberals has revolved - the relationship between capitalism as a mode of production and apartheid's racial structures. Here theories of the state are vital, especially considering the important role of the state in shaping South Africa's human geography.

State theory is, however, not sufficient for an interpretation of the formation of South Africa's social structures and state policy. The author takes into account the legacies of historical change - the military, economic and social results of European conquest - and the wider geographical context, for example, land allocation and racialism resulting in twentieth-century urbanization and industrialization, and resistance to apartheid.