2016 CHOICE Outstanding Academic TitleThe rise of the black middle class is one of the most visible aspects of post-apartheid society in South Africa. Yet while it has been a major actor in the country's democratic reshaping, analysis of its role has been all but lacking. Rather, the image presented by the media has been of black diamonds , consumers of the products of advanced industrial economies, and of corrupt tenderpreneurs who use their political connections to obtain contracts. This book seeks to complicate that picture with a much-needed analysis that recounts its historical development in colonial society prior to 1994, before examining the size, shape and structure of the new black middle class in contemporary South Africa and its relation to its counterparts in the Global South.Roger Southall is Professor Emeritus in Sociology, University of the Witwatersrand.Southern Africa (South Africa, Namibia, Botswana, Lesotho, Zimbabwe and Swaziland): JacanaProvides the most comprehensive account since the early 1960s of South Africa's black middle class .Introduction: Why Study the Black Middle Class?The Middle Class: Problems and ControversiesThe Black Middle Class in South Africa 1910-1994The Black Middle Class in Post-Apartheid South Africa: Size, Shape and StructureBlack Class Formation under the ANCEducation and Black Upward Social MobilityThe Black Middle Class at WorkThe Social World of the Black Middle ClassThe Black Middle Class and DemocracyAfterword: South Africa's Black Middle Class in Wider Context