Overcoming Apartheid: Can Truth Reconcile a Divided Nation? James L. Gibson From the Preface While this book was being written, a low-scale civil war was taking place in American political science […] Supporters of the perestroika movement argue that contemporary political science in the United States is too little concerned with politics. By this the critics mean that political scientists are too focused on methods and theory and have devoted too little attention to studying and analyzing the important political issues and controversies of our time […] This book therefore purports to contribute to both policy analysis and theory building and scientific hypothesis testing. The policy question is obvious: I seek to assess whether South Africa's truth and reconciliation process in fact achieved the goals it set for itself. In particular, I examine the degree to which South Africans are "reconciled", and then ask whether evidence exists to suggest that the truth and reconciliation process contributed to this reconciliation. Mine is not a strong research design from the point of view of policy analysis, since I am forced to rely on cross-sectional empirical evidence collected near the end of the truth and reconciliation process. But certainly one objective of this book is to draw some conclusions about whether the South African experiment ought to be attempted in other deeply divided societies. Generally, with some important caveats, I conclude that the process did indeed contribute to reconciliation and therefore that others may wish to borrow from the South African experience in trying to come to terms with their own repressive pasts. […]