Challenging the Notion of Exceptionalism: Insights from 'The Inheritors'

Eve Fairbanks is a brilliant journalist who has lived in South Africa for the past decade. Francis Fukuyama speaks to her about her new book, The Inheritors, in which she provides a fascinating account of the way that both blacks and whites in that country have adjusted—or not—to democracy over the past generation. South Africa has undergone a transformation much like that of the US since the Civil War, only compressed into a much shorter time period, and Fairbanks points to the enduring difficulties of racial reconciliation and historical memory with implications for the United States.

Democracy IRL is produced by the Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law (CDDRL), part of the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies (FSI) at Stanford University.

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