Building a White Nation focuses on the place of photography within the propaganda machine of the apartheid state. The book includes six chapters that make a critical intervention in the visual history of apartheid through shifting the lens from the social documentary photography of those who fought against apartheid to the photographs produced by, and in service to, the apartheid regime. It centres on the role of images in propping up the mythologies of white nationalism in South Africa from 1948, when the National Party came to power, to the mid-1970s, when mass protests and increasing resistance were met with the brutal violence of the state.

Jörder writes how, working in tandem with the ever-expanding legislation and bureaucracy of apartheid, the state set up institutions to produce propaganda and disinformation and to censor all forms of representation that opposed white supremacy. The apartheid regime was acutely aware of the power of visual propaganda and produced a publication modelled on popular photographic magazines such as Life and Picture Post. From 1957, South African Panorama was published monthly and was intended to reach a wide audience of both Black and white South Africans as well as overseas readers. Jörder notes that the Secretary of Information at the time, F. G. Barrie, saw the magazine as "one of the 'most important weapons in the information task'" (44). From the 1960s onwards, quarterly editions of South African Panorama were published in French, German and Spanish, and from the 1970s, the Department of Information also published editions in Dutch, Italian and Portuguese. The content of the magazine was primarily focused on promoting the state's policy of separate development through the portrayal of apartheid's iniquity in a positive light. In this it was aligned with the publications of other organs of the state, such as the police magazine, Nongqai; Paratus, which was produced by the South African Defence Force along with Pergamus, which was aimed at conscripts in Namibia during the Border war; and with popular illustrated magazines published in Afrikaans (primarily aimed at white women), such as Huisgenoot, Pronk and Sarie.

One of the most significant contributions of this book is that it begins to develop a complex account of the history of photography during the apartheid period and enters into the tricky terrain of complicity and collaboration. Jörder opens the question of how white photographers, even those who worked for left-leaning publications or who had some form of struggle credentials, profited by working for the state. "Besides people directly employed in the photographic section of the information service, there are many shades of grey in which photographers collaborated in the governmental photographic production and the creation of a positive image of South Africa - whether consciously or unconsciously, whether under financial duress or not" (57). Jörder points out that both Ian Berry and Jürgen Schadeberg, critically acclaimed photographers who are best known for their work with the popular and progressive Drum magazine, were also commissioned to take photographs for South African Panorama, the magazine produced by the National Party government.

In the fascinating third chapter of the book, H. F. Verwoerd: 'Master Builder' of the White Nation, Jörder analyses images of Verwoerd, a key figure in the development of apartheid ideology who served as Prime Minister of South Africa from 1958-1966. In addition to considerations of official portraits produced by the state information office, as well as photographs made of Verwoerd in the aftermath of a failed assassination attempt, Jörder analyses a series of portraits that show the apartheid ideologue and rabid antisemite in a glowing light. In many of these images Verwoerd is shown alongside his wife, Betsie. Jörder notes the surprising authorship of these photographs - they were made by Anne Fischer, a Jewish-German refugee who arrived in Cape Town in 1937, where she formed part of the left-wing community of exiles and later went on to establish a successful portrait studio. While Jörder observes that "Anne Fischer's photographs of the Verwoerds complicate if not obliterate the dividing lines between pro- and anti-apartheid photographies that many photo historians tend to presume to facilitate categorisations and which are not intrinsic to the photographs" (142), she does not pursue these complexities. While there are references to the connections between the propaganda of National Socialism and the visual strategies of the apartheid regime in several places in the text, this is not explored in depth. This is an aspect of this research that would have been interesting to develop further.

In the fourth chapter, Jörder analyses the visual record of the annual openings of Parliament alongside photographs made to publicise and commemorate the independence ceremonies of the so-called 'homeland' of the Transkei. The South African government sought to portray the granting of independence to the 'homelands', also known as 'Bantustans', as a benevolent act, but in fact it stripped Black South Africans of their citizenship rights. "To be able to sell Transkei's independence as an act of decolonisation, the Pretoria regime had to orchestrate a ceremony which recalled the independence celebrations of the former colonies and which would produce images that could be fed into the propaganda network" (218). In spite of the resources the regime poured into painting its segregationist policies and repressive rule in a good light both at home and abroad, state-sponsored propaganda could not compete with the powerful and profound work of the photographers who opposed apartheid. Photographs documenting the struggle for freedom played a pivotal role in the global anti-apartheid movement and have dominated post-apartheid historiography. "Compared to these pictures of state violence but also of Black Consciousness inspired action and resistance against the state, the photographs of the Transkei celebrations appeared as no more than a hollow attempt to sell independence" (238). Indeed, the visual poverty of the propaganda images produced by the apartheid state provides some explanation for why such photographs have not been central in exhibitions and publications focusing on the history of apartheid-era photography. However, Jörder's book makes a convincing argument for engaging critically with propaganda photographs, including seemingly innocuous images (272), in order to draw a more complete map of South Africa's visual history.

Jörder's book brings many overlooked images and under-researched image archives to light, and in doing so, also draws attention to the neglect of archives within South Africa since the end of apartheid in 1994: "The low priority of photographic records in the South African archival system and the poor condition in which many are found, nonetheless suggest that little value is attached to them as historical documents" (29). While the book does not offer a remedy for the precarious state of the archival record of apartheid, this excellent study makes the value of photographic archives for historical research indisputable. Building a White Nation will be of particular interest to scholars of South African history, but the book also offers critical insights for anyone interested in the visual practices of fascist regimes and in how to oppose them. The need to understand the psychosis of white supremacy, to chart its workings, and to expose and dismantle its fascist logics, remains no less urgent now than it was during apartheid.

Kylie Thomas