Offers new insights into the struggle against Apartheid, and the poverty and inequality that instigated political resistance.

On 3 September 1984 a bloody uprising set the African townships of the Vaal Triangle aflame. Triggered by dissatisfaction over rent increases and a local government that was failing to provide any meaningful political power or social transformation to the black majority, it heralded the insurrectionary period that was to profoundly challenge the administrative and coercive capacities of the apartheid state and greatly contribute towards its demise. Led by a broad coalition of civic organisations, student bodies and trade unions, nationwide protests followed demanding a new political and social order. By the mid-1980s the ideological influence of the African National Congress (ANC) had established its hegemony among township activists and was regarded as the main force in the liberation struggle.

Arguing that liberation from poverty and inequality played as significant role in driving the struggle against apartheid as political rights, Rueedi shows how the enactment of the ideals of the 1955 Freedom Charter during the insurrectionary period shaped how communities understood liberation and freedom, both during and after apartheid. She explores the ways in which the establishment and subsequent failure of the model townships was intertwined with struggles for social transformation and dignity; investigates the links between underground networks of the ANC and above ground community structures; and examines how increasing state repression fuelled militancy and political violence, leading to an impasse that signalled the beginning of the end of the apartheid regime.

Ghosts of Archive draws on the discourses of deconstruction, intersectionality and archetypal psychology to mount an argument that archive is fundamentally and structurally spectral and that the work of archive is justice. Drawing on more than 20 years of the author's research on deconstruction and archive, the book posits archive as an essential resource for social justice activism and as a source, or location, of soul for individuals and communities. Through explorations of what Jacques Derrida termed 'hauntology', Harris invites a listening to the call for justice in conceptual spaces that are non-disciplinary. He argues that archive is both constructed in relation to and beset by ghosts - ghosts of the living, of the dead and of those not yet born - and that attention should be paid to them. Establishing a unique nexus between a deconstructive intersectionality and traditions of 'memory for justice' in struggles against oppression from South Africa and elsewhere, the book makes a case for a deconstructive praxis in today's archive. Offering new ideas about spectrality, banditry and archival activism, Ghosts of Archive should appeal to those working in the disciplines of archival science, information studies and psychology. It should also be essential reading for those with an interest in social justice issues, transitional justice, history, philosophy, memory studies and postcolonial studies.

Bantu Holomisa is one of South Africa’s most respected and popular political figures. Born in the Transkei in 1955, he attended an elite school for the sons of chiefs and headmen. While other men his age were joining Umkhonto weSizwe, Holomisa enrolled in the Transkeian Defence Force and rose rapidly through the ranks.

As head of the Transkeian Defence Force, Holomisa led successive coups against the homeland regimes and then became the head of its military government. He turned the Transkei into a ‘liberated space’, giving shelter to ANC and PAC activists, and declared his intention of holding a referendum on the reincorporation of the Transkei into South Africa. These actions brought him immense popularity and the military dictator became a liberation hero for many South Africans.

When the unbanned ANC held its first election for its national executive in 1994, Holomisa, who had by now joined the party, received the most votes, beating long-time veterans and party stalwarts. He and Mandela developed a close relationship, and Holomisa served in Mandela’s cabinet as deputy minister for environmental affairs and tourism. As this biography reveals, the relationship with both Mandela and the ANC broke down after Holomisa testified before the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, among other issues, that Stella Sigcau and her cabinet colleagues had accepted a bribe from Sol Kerzner.

After being expelled from the ANC, Holomisa formed his own party, the United Democratic Movement, with Roelf Meyer. As leader of the UDM, Holomisa has played a prominent role in building coalitions among opposition parties and in leading important challenges to the dominant party.

This biography, written in collaboration with Holomisa, presents an engaging and revealing account of a man who has made his mark as a game changer in South African politics.

In 1857, at the height of the colonial period, as Britain was advancing its control over southern Africa and absorbing the formerly independent African chiefdoms, the Anglican Bishop of Cape Town, Robert Gray, set up Zonnebloem College on an old wine farm on the outskirts of the city. Working in partnership with the British Governor, Sir George Grey, his plan was to enrol the sons and daughters of leading African chiefs and equip them with an English, Christian education, and then send them home to further the cause of Christianity and ‘civilisation’ among their own people. This elite educational project, which was at the same time cultural and political in nature, soon gathered steam. Among the first entrants were Gonya and Emma Sandile, heir and eldest daughter of the Rharhabe chief Sandile; Nathaniel Umhala, son of the Ndlambe chief Mhala; and George Tlali, son of the great Basotho leader, Moshoeshoe I. Over the years a succession of sons from chiefly dynasties, sometimes spanning several generations, would come to Zonnebloem: the Moshoeshoes of Basutoland, the Pilanes of Bechuanaland, the Lewanikas of Barotseland, and the Lobengulas of Matabeleland. They and many others who followed in their steps would, after their education at Zonnebloem, take up careers as catechists, teachers, political secretaries, lawyers, newspaper editors and priests and serve their communities with distinction. Their stories – their trials and their achievements – are recounted here, often in their own words, drawing on a unique collection of school essays and letters to their various mentors that must form one of the earliest bodies of writing by Africans in southern Africa. This remarkable book, based on years of research and written with great sympathy, tells the little-known early history of the genesis of an African intelligentsia during the colonial period.

Born To Kwaito considers the meaning of kwaito music now. ‘Now’ not only as in ‘after 1994’ or the Truth Commission but as a place in the psyche of black people in post-apartheid South Africa.

This collection of essays tackles the changing meaning of the genre after its decline and its ever-contested relevance. Through rigorous historical analysis as well as threads of narrative journalism Born To Kwaito interrogates issues of artistic autonomy, the politics of language in the music, and whether the music is part of a strand within the larger feminist movement in South Africa. Candid and insightful interviews from the genre’s foremost innovators and torchbearers, such as Mandla Spikiri, Arthur Mafokate, Robbie Malinga and Lance Stehr, provide unique historical context to kwaito music’s greatest highs, most captivating hits and most devastating lows. Born To Kwaito offers up a history of the genre from below by having conversations not only with musicians but with fans, engineers, photographers and filmmakers who bore witness to a revolution.

Living in a place between criticism and biography, Born To Kwaito merges academic theories and rigorous journalism to offer a new understanding into how the genre influenced other art forms such as fashion, TV and film. The book also reflects on how some of the music’s best hits have found new life through the mouths of local hip-hop’s current kingmakers and opened kwaito up to a new generation.

The book does not pretend to be an exhaustive history of the genre but rather a present-active analysis of that history as it settles and finds its meaning.

Many of the photographs are as familiar as they are iconic: Nelson Mandela gazing through the bars of his prison cell on Robben Island; a young Miriam Makeba smiling and dancing; Hugh Masekela as a schoolboy receiving the gift of a trumpet from Louis Armstrong; Henry ‘Mr Drum’ Nxumalo; the Women’s March of 1955; the Sophiatown removals; the funeral of the Sharpeville massacre victims …

Photographer Jürgen Schadeberg was the man behind the camera, recording history as it unfolded in apartheid South Africa, but his personal story is no less extraordinary. His affiliation for the displaced, the persecuted and the marginalised was already deeply rooted by the time he came to South Africa from Germany in 1950 and began taking pictures for the fledgling Drum magazine. In this powerfully evocative memoir of an international, award-winning career spanning over 50 years – in Europe, Africa and the US – this behind-the-scenes journey with a legendary photojournalist and visual storyteller is a rare and special privilege.

Schadeberg’s first-hand experiences as a child in Berlin during the Second World War, where he witnessed the devastating effect of the repressive Nazi regime, and felt the full wrath of the Allied Forces’ relentless bombing of the city, are vividly told. The only child of an actress, who left her son largely to his own devices, Jürgen became skilled at living by his wits, and developed a resourcefulness that held him in good stead throughout his life. At the end of the war, his mother married a British officer and emigrated to South Africa, leaving Jürgen behind in a devastated Germany to fend for himself. With some luck and a great deal of perseverance, he was able to pursue his interest in photography in Hamburg, undergoing training as an unpaid ‘photographic volunteer’ at the German Press Agency, then graduating to taking photos at football matches.

After two years there, Jürgen made the decision to travel to South Africa. He arrived at Johannesburg station on a cold winter’s morning. He had a piece of paper with his mother’s address on it, his worldly possessions in a small, cheap suitcase on the platform beside him, and his Leica camera, as always, around his neck.

1994 Symbolised the triumphal defeat of almost three and a half centuries of racial separation since the Dutch East India Company planted a bitter almond hedge to keep indigenous people out of `their' Cape outpost in 1659. But for the majority of people in the world's most unequal society, the taste of bitter almonds linger as their exclusion from a dignified life remain the rule. In the year of South Africa's troubled coming-of-age, veteran investigative journalist Michael Schmidt brings to bear 21 years of his scribbled field notes to weave a tapestry of the view from below: here in the demi-monde of our transition from autocracy to democracy, in the half-light glow of the rusted rainbow, you will meet neo-Nazis and the newly dispossessed, Boers and Bushmen, black illegal coal miners and a bank robber, witches and wastrels, love children and land claimants. With their feet in the mud, the Born Free youth have their eyes on the stars.

A Brief History of South Africa is an introduction to South African history from the earliest times to the Mandela Presidency.

Using both a narrative chronology and thematic chapters, the book encourages critical thinking about how history shaped South Africa. While presenting an account of colonisation and the policies of successive governments, A Brief History portrays the resistance to colonisation, segregation and apartheid, including the role of political, social and trade union movements.

A Brief History does not aim to be comprehensive, but rather provides the basic facts for the general reader. The book can also act as a study guide for both formal and non-formal adult education. Equally important, A Brief History can be used to strengthen history teaching in schools.

The book provides history teachers with the opportunity to expand their own knowledge, especially if they do not have a history qualification. Each chapter points readers to a range of further readings with a variety of historical interpretations, and provides questions for group discussion.

Jan Christiaan Smuts was world famous as a soldier, statesman and intellectual, one of South Africa’s greatest leaders. Yet little is said or written about him today, even though we appear to live in a leadership vacuum.

Unafraid of Greatness is a re-examination of the life and thoughts of Smuts. It is intended to remind a contemporary readership of the remarkable achievements of this impressive soldier-statesman. Richard Steyn argues that Smuts’s role in the creation of modern South Africa should never be forgotten, not least because of his lifetime of devoted service to this country. The book draws a parallel between Smuts and President Thabo Mbeki, both architects of a new South Africa, much lionised abroad yet often distrusted at home.

This highly readable account of Smuts’s eventful life blends fact, anecdote and opinion in an examination of his complex character – his relationships with women, spiritual and intellectual life, and role as adviser to world leaders. Politics and international affairs lie at the heart of this book, but Smuts’s unique contributions in a variety of other fields, including botany, conservation and philosophy, also receive attention.

Unafraid of Greatness does not shy away from the contradictions of its subject. While Smuts was one of the architects of the United Nations and a great champion of human rights, he could not come to terms with the need to include the African majority in the politics of his own country

The breathtaking debut from the winner of the Commonwealth Short Story Prize and the Windham-Campbell Prize for Fiction 2018

'A soaring and sublime epic. One of those great stories that was just waiting to be told.' (Marlon James, Man Booker Prize-winning author of A Brief History of Seven Killings)

In this epic tale of fate, fortune and legacy, Jennifer Makumbi vibrantly brings to life this corner of Africa and this colourful family as she reimagines the history of Uganda through the cursed bloodline of the Kintu clan.

The year is 1750. Kintu Kidda sets out for the capital to pledge allegiance to the new leader of the Buganda kingdom. Along the way he unleashes a curse that will plague his family for generations. Blending oral tradition, myth, folktale and history, Makumbi weaves together the stories of Kintu’s descendants as they seek to break free from the burden of their past to produce a majestic tale of clan and country – a modern classic.

In September 1958, Guinea claimed its independence, rejecting a constitution that would have relegated it to junior partnership in the French Community. In all the French empire, Guinea was the only territory to vote "No." Orchestrating the "No" vote was the Guinean branch of the Rassemblement Democratique Africain (RDA), an alliance of political parties with affiliates in French West and Equatorial Africa and the United Nations trusts of Togo and Cameroon. Although Guinea's stance vis-a-vis the 1958 constitution has been recognized as unique, until now the historical roots of this phenomenon have not been adequately explained.
Clearly written and free of jargon, "Cold War and Decolonization in Guinea" argues that Guinea's vote for independence was the culmination of a decade-long struggle between local militants and political leaders for control of the political agenda. Since 1950, when RDA representatives in the French parliament severed their ties to the French Communist Party, conservative elements had dominated the RDA. In Guinea, local cadres had opposed the break. Victimized by the administration and sidelined by their own leaders, they quietly rebuilt the party from the base. Leftist militants, their voices muted throughout most of the decade, gained preeminence in 1958, when trade unionists, students, the party's women's and youth wings, and other grassroots actors pushed the Guinean RDA to endorse a "No" vote. Thus, Guinea's rejection of the proposed constitution in favor of immediate independence was not an isolated aberration. Rather, it was the outcome of years of political mobilization by activists who, despite Cold War repression, ultimately pushed the Guinean RDA tothe left.
The significance of this highly original book, based on previously unexamined archival records and oral interviews with grassroots activists, extends far beyond its primary subject. In illuminating the Guinean case, Elizabeth Schmidt helps us understand the dynamics of decolonization and its legacy for postindependence nation-building in many parts of the developing world.
Examining Guinean history from the bottom up, Schmidt considers local politics within the larger context of the Cold War, making her book suitable for courses in African history and politics, diplomatic history, and Cold War history.

Enjoy a rich collection of folktales, myths and legends from all over Africa and the Caribbean, re-told for young readers. From the trickster tales of Anansi the spider, to the story of how the leopard got his spots; from the tale of the king who wanted to touch the moon, to Aunt Misery's magical starfruit tree. This book includes traditional favourites and classic folktales and mythology.

In die vierde deel van die reeks Imperiale somer word aan Marabastad, die separatistiese kerke, die opkoms van die Afrikaners in die naoorlogsjare, die emigrasie van blankes na Oos-Afrika ná die oorlog, en die veldtog ten behoewe van die Indiërbevolking onder leiding van Gandhi aandag gegee. Anekdotes en kameebeskrywings kleur die vertelling in.

Dié deel lewer 'n belangrike bydrae tot 'n voorheen minder bekende tydperk in die Suid-Afrikaanse geskiedenis en sal 'n wye leespubliek en nie net vakkundiges nie boei.

The bestselling narrative history of a group often despised, but never before so well understood. Hermann Giliomee tells their dramatic and compelling story - of contradictory leanings towards freedom and oppression - in highly readable narrative. Revised and updated, this new edition includes a chapter on the often fraught relationship between Afrikaners and the ANC in power, with an analysis of why Afrikaners relinquished power so easily, and how they, along with other minorities, are increasingly resisting ANC efforts to undermine the Constitution. Giliomee also examines the wildly divergent reactions of Afrikaners to President Zuma and his attempts to woo them.

Patrisiers & prinse is die eerste deel van 'n vyfdelige reeks oor vroee blanke vestiging aan die Kaap. In die deel beskryf Karel Schoeman die sewentiende-eeuse Europese wêreld waarin Jan van Riebeeck en sy tydgenote grootgeword het. Hierdie wereld vorm die agtergrond van die verversingspos wat die VOC in 1652 by Kaap die Goeie Hoop sou stig. In die eerste twee hoofstukke en in hoofstuk 4 word die opkoms en hoogbloei van die Nederlandse Republiek bespreek. Die Frankryk van Lodewyk XIV kry in hoofstuk 3 aandag, met klem op die toenemende oorheersing van Europa deur die Franse kultuur. Besonder boeiend is die dele wat gewy word aan die opkoms van die hoe burgerstand in Nederland en die versamelaarsdrif wat deur die stand se welvaart en die kontak met Nederland se kolonies moontlik gemaak is. In die laaste twee hoofstukke wys Schoeman daarop dat Europa in die sewentiende eeu nog besonder naby aan die Middeleeue gestaan het en bespreek hy die soms skokkend primitiewe lewenswyse wat maar geleidelik nader aan die moderne beweeg het.

Though Graeco-Roman antiquity (‘classics’) has often been considered the handmaid of colonialism, its various forms have nonetheless endured through many of the continent’s decolonising transitions. Southern Africa is no exception. This book canvasses the variety of forms classics has taken in Zimbabwe, Mozambique and especially South Africa, and even the dynamics of transformation itself.

How does (u)Mzantsi classics (of southern Africa) look in an era of profound change, whether violent or otherwise? What are its future prospects? Contributors focus on pedagogies, historical consciousness, the creative arts and popular culture.

The volume, in its overall shape, responds to the idea of dialogue – in both the Greek form associated with Plato’s rendition of Socrates’ wisdom and in the African concept of ubuntu. Here are dialogues between scholars, both emerging and established, as well as students – some of whom were directly impacted by the Fallist protests.

Rather than offering an apologia for classics, these dialogues engage with pressing questions of relevance, identity, change, the canon, and the dynamics of decolonisation and potential recolonisation. The goal is to interrogate classics – the ways it has been taught, studied, perceived, transformed and even lived – from many points of view.

This collection gathers together 31 previously out-of-print titles focusing on revolution - the political, economic, military and social aspects of the overthrow of state power. Ranging from nineteenth-century France to late-twentieth-century Caribbean, these books analyse the forms of revolt and the aftermaths of revolution, examining the types of government that result and the reactions of international opinion.

One of the outstanding mysteries of the twentieth century, and one with huge political resonance, is the death of Dag Hammarskjold and his UN team in a plane crash in central Africa in 1961. Just minutes after midnight, his aircraft plunged into thick forest in the British colony of Northern Rhodesia (Zambia), abruptly ending his mission to bring peace to the Congo. Across the world, many suspected sabotage, accusing the multi-nationals and the governments of Britain, Belgium, the USA and South Africa of involvement in the disaster. These suspicions have never gone away. British High Commissioner Lord Alport was waiting at the airport when the aircraft crashed nearby. He bizarrely insisted to the airport management that Hammarskjold had flown elsewhere - even though his aircraft was reported overhead. This postponed a search for so long that the wreckage of the plane was not found for fifteen hours. White mercenaries were at the airport that night too, including the South African pilot Jerry Puren, whose bombing of Congolese villages led, in his own words, to 'flaming huts . . . destruction and death'. These soldiers of fortune were backed by Sir Roy Welensky, Prime Minister of the Rhodesian Federation, who was ready to stop at nothing to maintain white rule and thought the United Nations was synonymous with the Nazis. The Rhodesian government conducted an official inquiry, which blamed pilot error. But as this book will show, it was a massive cover-up that suppressed and dismissed a mass of crucial evidence, especially that of African eyewitnesses. A subsequent UN inquiry was unable to rule out foul play - but had no access to the evidence to show how and why. Now, for the first time, this story can be told. Who Killed Hammarskjoeld? follows the author on her intriguing and often frightening journey of research to Zambia, South Africa, the USA, Sweden, Norway, Britain, France and Belgium, where she unearthed a mass of new and hitherto secret documentary and photographic evidence.

Eight Days in September is a riveting, behind-the-scenes account of the turbulent eight-day period in September 2008 that led to the removal of Thabo Mbeki as president of South Africa. As secretary of the cabinet and head (director-general) of the presidency at the time, Frank Chikane was directly responsible for managing the transition from Mbeki to Kgalema Motlanthe, and then on to Jacob Zuma, and was one of only a few who had a front-row seat to the unfolding drama. Eight Days in September builds substantially on the so-called Chikane Files, a series of controversial articles Chikane published with Independent Newspapers in July 2010, to provide an insider's perspective on this key period in South Africa's recent history, and to explore Thabo Mbeki's legacy.

'A lyrical investigation ... both powerful and transcendent' CHIGOZIE OBIOMA 'Acutely observed, hauntingly rendered and deeply affecting' AMINATTA FORNA 'Both epic and intimate' MARGO JEFFERSON An astonishing search for a missing person, the hidden tragedies of war and the truth of Nigeria's history. Emmanuel Iduma never met his uncle, his father's favourite brother and the man for whom he is named. The elder Emmanuel left home in 1967 to fight in the Biafran War and was not seen again. The war lasted for three years, with young Igbo men volunteering to fight for a breakaway republic in the chaotic wake of British decolonization. Around one hundred thousand others who fought in the war share a fate like Emmanuel's uncle, though there are no official records of these losses. The tensions that gave rise to the conflict remain live, threatening sometimes to bubble over. In this landscape, there are no monuments or graves. Instead, a collective remembering that remains, for the most part, silent. I Am Still with You sees a young Nigerian return to his place of birth. Travelling the route of the war, Iduma explores both a national history and the mysteries of his own family, finding both somewhat scarred and haunted, the memories warped by time and the darkest parts left for decades unspoken.

In 1979, aged only seven, Monica Macias was transplanted from West Africa to the unfamiliar surroundings of North Korea. She was sent by her father Francisco, the first president of post-Independence Equatorial Guinea, to be educated under the guardianship of his ally, Kim Il Sung. Within months, her father was executed in a military coup; her mother became unreachable. Effectively orphaned, she and two siblings had to make their life in Pyongyang. At military boarding school, Monica learned to mix with older children, speak fluent Korean and handle weapons on training exercises. After university, she went in search of her roots, passing through Beijing, Seoul, Madrid, Guinea, New York and finally London - forced at every step to reckon with damning perceptions of her adoptive homeland. Optimistic yet unflinching, Monica's astonishing and unique story challenges us to see the world through different eyes.

This fascinating book, originally published in 1971, had it origins in daily journalism: a series of feature articles for the Pretoria News written between 1968 and 1970. Since then much has changed and that era now seems as remote as Kruger’s did in 1970. The original text is reprinted here with minimal editing. Though happily some still survive, many of the buildings pictured in this book have disappeared, such as the old Town Hall and the first Opera House. Gone too are many of the original pictures, some burnt in the fire that destroyed the main part of Munitoria and the city’s priceless archive. Kruger’s Pretoria provides the memory of a town long gone.

Perhaps the most explosive issue in South Africa today is the question of land ownership. The central theme in this country’s colonial history is the dispossession of indigenous African societies by white settlers, and current calls for land restitution are based on this loss. Yet popular knowledge of the actual process by which Africans were deprived of their land is remarkably sketchy.

This book recounts an important part of this history, describing how the Khoisan and Xhosa people were dispossessed and subjugated from the time that Europeans first arrived until the end of the Cape Frontier Wars (1779–1878).

The Land Wars traces the unfolding hostilities involving Dutch and British colonial authorities, trekboers and settlers, and the San, Khoikhoin, Xhosa, Mfengu and Thembu people – as well as conflicts within these groups. In the process it describes the loss of land by Africans to successive waves of white settlers as the colonial frontier inexorably advanced. The book does not shy away from controversial issues such as war atrocities on both sides, or the expedient decision of some of the indigenous peoples to fight alongside the colonisers rather than against them.

The Land Wars is an epic story, featuring well-known figures such as Ngqika, Lord Charles Somerset and his son, Henry, Andries Stockenström, Hintsa, Harry Smith, Sandile, Maqoma, Bartle Frere and Sarhili, and events such as the arrival of the 1820 Settlers and the Xhosa cattlekilling. It is essential reading for anyone who wants to understand South Africa’s past and present.