While Michener's prose [in "The Covenant"] is frequently as flat and colorless as the veld, his research is impressive. In fact he overdoes it—great dollops of history that tend to clog the flow of the story. Yet it is his surefooted grasp of what South Africa is and has been that gives this book extraordinary authority and conviction.

"The Covenant" also has a scope to it that avoids the too often one-dimensional view of South Africa…. What Michener has set out to do is to embrace all South Africa's people and follow them through all time, and do it without favor to any one particular group.

For the whites, in particular—both English and Afrikaans, who constantly complain the outside world misunderstands them—Michener has brought understanding. At times almost a fondness.

It is precisely because Michener has been so scrupulously evenhanded throughout this book that his...