Luthando Dyasop’s memoir starts with an account of his young life as a black artist in apartheid South Africa. He eventually joins uMkhonto we Sizwe, the banned ANC’s military wing.

Soon he falls out of favour with the powers that be and is sent to the Quatro detention centre. After years of torture, he is eventually released, when he begins his battle for vindication.

Out of Quatro is a story not only about Dyasop’s extraordinary life, but also about a tumultuous time in ANC history.

Dié nuwe, opgedateerde uitgawe van die topverkoper Nuwe geskiedenis van Suid-Afrika sluit bydraes in deur gerekende nuwe skrywers, wat die storie van ons land en mense reg tot op datum bring.

Onder redaksie van Bill Nasson word nuwe insigte uit die geskiedskrywing en die argeologie ingeweef. Die boek begin by die onstaan van die mensdom, vertel dan die storie van die Khoikhoi, slawe en burgers, die groot migrasies van die pre-koloniale tyd en later trekboere en Voortrekkers. Dan kom die ontdekking van diamante en goud wat die gang van die politiek radikaal verander. Oorlog breek uit in 1899; ook oorloë in 1914 en in 1939 in Europa laat plaaslik nuwe kragte vry. Die boek vertel van segregasie, politieke organisasie en verset, en uiteindelik die oorgang. Hierná val die soeklig op die demokratiese presidentskappe en die onverwagte en onvoorspelbare onlangse geskiedenis, wat staatskaping -- en beurtkrag -- insluit.

Met die nuutste inligting en invalshoeke word die volledige storie van Suid-Afrika en sy mense gesaghebbend dog leesbaar vertel.

South Africa stands at the edge of a precipice. Almost thirty years after its first democratic election, poor policy and rampant corruption have left the country standing on the brink of becoming a failed state. In this thought-provoking book, Bronwyn Williams interviews a diverse group of public intellectuals, business leaders, and political mavericks to discuss tangible ways South Africa can rescue itself from itself. Through a series of illuminating conversations, a group of independent thinkers explore the root causes of South Africa’s problems and offer insightful – and radical – ways of how to solve them.

From addressing land reform and economic development to rooting out corruption and overhauling political institutions, the conversations in this book come together as a roadmap towards a better South Africa that leaves no one behind. While the challenges facing the young democracy are immense, these experts provide hope and inspiration towards productive actions we can take together to build a brighter future.

For anyone interested in understanding the complex issues facing South Africa today and how they can be addressed, Rescuing Our Republic is essential reading. It is a powerful reminder that the fate of a nation is not predetermined; that individuals, citizens and corporations still have powerful agency and that when that agency is directed towards the right ideas and actions, South Africa can still realise its full potential.

LIST OF INTERVIEWEES:

• Why nations succeed with Dr Adrian Saville
• Measuring what matters with Malcolm Ray
• The promise of Africa beyond borders with Dr Débísí Àràbà
• An antidote to the tragedy of the commons with Wandile Sihlobo
• Property is a big deal with Lars Doucet
• Democratisation of ownership with Charles Savage
• The economic importance of optimism with Bruce Whitfield
• Good neighbours with Giulietta Talevi
• The perpetual struggle for democracy with Justice Malala
• A new vision for South Africa with Songezo Zibi
• Beyond the Constitution with TK Pooe

This latest volume of South African Foreign Policy Review assesses South Africa's foreign policy during the presidency of Cyril Ramaphosa.

Focusing on such themes as foreign policy leadership, policy architecture, diplomacy, national interests, and the country's bi- and multilateral relations, the authors also consider how South Africa can maintain―and even increase―its role both in the region and internationally.

Why are liberation and independence movements often betrayed when their leaders get into government? This question has haunted Peter Hain for decades.

A lifelong activist and politician, Hain has over 50 years’ experience of battling corruption, from his early days as a freedom fighter against apartheid to his time as a UK Labour MP, cabinet minister, and sitting member of the House of Lords. He offers a gripping exploration of why movements born from the ideals of justice and freedom often succumb to bad governance and corruption once in power. Combining rigorous analysis with well-sourced evidence, this book examines global examples ranging from Africa to Latin America, Russia, the Caribbean, China and India.

With the unique perspective of having navigated both the streets of protest and the corridors of power, Hain reflects on the challenges of staying true to the values of liberation struggles while confronting their disappointing outcomes. Thought-provoking and accessible, this book is an essential read for anyone engaged in the fight for a better world.

Dit is 1713. VOC-admiraal Johannes van Steelant bring sy ryklik belaaide retoervloot via die Kaapse diensstasie terug na Nederland uit Batavia. Saam op die vlagskip, sy vyf jong kinders. Op die oop see raak hulle een-een siek. Hete koors, maagpyn, swere – die gevreesde pokke.

Op 12 Februarie gaan die gesin, nou almal gesond, aan land in Tafelbaai. Hul skeepsklere word gewas in die VOC se slawelosie. Enkele maande later is byna die helfte van die Kaapse bevolking dood aan pokke.

In Retoervloot bring VOC-kenner Dan Sleigh dié gegewe, en die verbysterende werkinge van die VOC-retoervlootstelsel, lewend voor die oog. Aan die hand van Van Steelant se nuut-ontdekte skeepsjoernaal, met die agtergrondinkleding wat ’n meesterlike geskiedkundige soos Sleigh kan bied, staan die leser op die dek van vlagskip Sandenburg – ’n magtige skip van ’n roemryke organisasie, dog uitgelewer aan die woedende oseaan. Verder is Retoervloot ’n gedenksteen vir Kaapstad se grootste ramp tot op hede

What can be learned from black South Africans who achieved success before South Africa became a democracy in 1994? What are the challenges they faced, and how did they overcome them? And, today, how have South Africans benefited from the country’s democratic system of governance? These are the questions Phumlani M. Majozi explores and attempts to answer in Lessons from Past Heroes.

He traces black people’s success and political activity back to the early 1900s; successful men and women who spearheaded the struggle against the segregationist, colonialist government and devoted their lives to advancing the interests of their communities. Phumlani explores the careers, challenges, and successes of people such as Pixley ka Isaka Seme, John Langalibalele Dube, Sol Plaatje and Josiah Tshangana Gumede.

During the apartheid years, South Africa produced black men and women who overcame the odds to succeed in their fields of business, entertainment, science, and politics. They excelled in the face of an oppressive government system, and their stories should inspire every South African today. After exploring the history of South Africa, Phumlani delves into the present and the future; evaluating the challenges South Africans face and proposes solutions that can speed up their economic progress.

He argues that much of South Africa’s history has portrayed the majority as victims of the minority, and that the inspirational stories of those people who overcame adversity are not being told widely enough.

These stories must be told to inspire future generations.

If black South Africans could succeed in the pre-1994 era, what can stop them today? The answer is nothing, Phumlani writes.

Nigeria and South Africa account for about a third of Africa’s economic might, and have led much of its peacemaking and peacekeeping initiatives over the last two and a half decades. Both account for at least 60 per cent of the economy of their respective sub-regions in West and Southern Africa. The success of political and economic integration in Africa thus rests heavily on the shoulders of these two regional powers who have both collaborated and competed with each other in a complex relationship that is Africa’s most indispensable.

Nigeria remains among South Africa’s largest trading partners in Africa, while both countries have cooperated in building the institutions of the African Union (AU) and the New Partnership for Africa’s Development (NEPAD). Nigeria and South Africa have also sought to give Africa a stronger global voice, while competing as rivals on issues such as peacemaking in Cote d’Ivoire, Libya and Guinea-Bissau. While Nigeria is the most ethnically diverse country in Africa, South Africa is the most racially diverse state on the continent. Both countries have had a tremendous cultural impact on the continent in terms of Nollywood movies and South African soap operas.

The first three chapters of this book assess Nigeria/South Africa relations in the areas of politics, economics and culture. The second section has three essays that examine the issue of hegemonic leadership in relation to Nigeria and South Africa. The third section consists of four essays on the contributions to the bilateral relationship and leadership roles of four prominent South Africans and Nigerians: Nelson Mandela, Thabo Mbeki, Olusegun Obasanjo and Sani Abacha. The final section of the book analyses three technocratic Nigerian and South African ‘visionaries’: Adebayo Adedeji, Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma, and Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala.

This book brings together a series of papers and responses to papers presented at a conference on the minimum core content of socio-economic rights in Pretoria, South Africa, during August 2000.

The papers describe, first from an international law perspective and then from a South African perspective, these socio-economic rights. In the process, the normative content of rights concerned is given flesh: the authors identify particular obligations that can be said to form the core of rights, such as the right to housing, the right to food, rights to education and social security and assistance. At the same time, the concept of a minimum core obligations of economic and social rights is problematised and the difficulties of using concepts, developed within the general and abstract realm of international law, in the more particular and concrete context of domestic rights adjudication are explored.

As a result, this book contains a great deal of practical information and is useful for human rights practitioners, both legal and non-legal. It also provides some critical reflection on the conceptual framework from which it is derived.

This riveting study shows how the intersection of technology and politics has shaped South African history since the 1960s.

It is impossible to understand South Africa’s energy crisis without knowing this history. Faeeza Ballim’s deeply researched book challenges many prevailing assumptions and beliefs made regarding the crisis.

The book highlights the importance of technology to our understanding of South African history and challenges the idea that the technological state corporations were proxies for the apartheid government. While a part of the broader national modernization project under apartheid, these corporations also set the stage for worker solidarity and trade union organization in the Waterberg and elsewhere in the country.

Faeeza Ballim argues that the state corporations, their technology, and their engineers enjoyed ambivalent relationships with the governments of their time. And in the democratic era, while Eskom has been caught up in the scourge of government corruption, it has retained a degree of organizational autonomy and offered a degree of resistance to those who were attempting further corrupt practices.

About 50km outside of Cape Town lies the beautiful town of Stellenbosch, nestled against vineyards and blue mountains that stretch to the sky. Here reside some of South Africa’s wealthiest individuals: all male, all Afrikaans – and all stinking rich. Johann Rupert, Jannie Mouton, Markus Jooste and Christo Weise, to name a few.

Julius Malema refers to them scathingly as ‘The Stellenbosch Mafia’, the very worst example of white monopoly capital. But who really are these mega-wealthy individuals, and what influence do they exert not only on Stellenbosch but more broadly on South African society?

Author Pieter du Toit begins by exploring the roots of Stellenbosch, one of the wealthiest towns in South Africa and arguably the cradle of Afrikanerdom. This is the birthplace of apartheid leaders, intellectuals, newspaper empires and more. He then closely examines this ‘club’ of billionaires. Who are they and, crucially, how are they connected? What network of boardroom membership, alliances and family connections exist? Who are the ‘old guard’ and who are the ‘inkommers’, and what about the youngsters desperate to make their mark? He looks at the collapse of Steinhoff: what went wrong, and whether there are other companies at risk of a similar fate. He examines the control these men have over cultural life, including pulling the strings in South Africa rugby.

Facing internal rebellion and the threat posed by German troops on South Africa’s borders, Prime Minister Louis Botha and his deputy, Jan Smuts, led the Union Defence Force during the First World War. This first-of-a-kind volume investigates the wartime roles of these two legendary yet divisive historical figures.

Both men commanded in the field. The army they commanded gained resilience, experience and battle-hardiness, adapting to the conditions of the campaigns and the demands of the tasks. South Africa’s campaigns were complex and divergent, starting with the invasion of neighbouring German South West Africa, moving to East Africa, Egypt, Palestine and the devasting fighting at Delville Wood in France.

Behind Botha’s charming façade and Smuts’s stoic machine, were two very human, imperfect men. Together they provide a wonderful lens through which to examine the potent forces of the early 20th -century world and the country they hoped to forge. Myopic compatriots had constrained their plans, but it was the outbreak of war in 1914 that offered the most significant opportunities and brought the most adverse challenges.

They fought insurmountable odds and achieved great victories, at home and abroad, but also made startling errors and, ultimately, in classical fashion risked being crushed by the weight of the world they tried to create.

Nearly three decades after the dawn of democracy, South Africa has remained a country of ‘two agricultures’. On the one hand we have a subsistence, primarily non-commercial, black farming segment. On the other hand, however, we have a predominantly commercial and white farming sector that is well-resourced and has access to domestic and international trade networks.

These disparities can be traced back to South Africa’s painful history where, for decades, black farmers were on the margins of government support and also experienced land dispossession and livestock plunder.

A Country of Two Agricultures focuses less on history and more on the present and the future, explaining why these disparities have persisted in the democratic era, and what it will take to overcome them. It aims to contribute to a better understanding of the variety of agricultural forces, taking into account both questions of domestic political economy and external factors, as well as to bring to light new risks and opportunities.

Wandile Sihlobo offers insights into the role of agriculture in the South African economy from an agricultural economy perspective, and provides political economy insights that are rooted in the experiences of farming communities on the ground and right through the value chain.

Beyond insights on the realities this book offers the government, the private sector, and anyone interested in the betterment of the South African economy, tools to grapple with this duality, and proposes a framework for bolstering the black farming segment for growth and competitiveness – and ultimately food security.

Forgiveness Redefined is Candice Mama’s honest and healing story. It tells how she found ways to deal with the death of her father, Glenack Masilo Mama, and to forgive the notorious apartheid assassin Eugene de Kock, the man responsible for his brutal murder. We follow Candice’s journey of discovering how her father died, how this affected her and how she battled the demons of depression before the age of sixteen. But most importantly, we follow her journey towards beating the odds and rising above her heartbreaks.

Candice Mama is today still under the age of 30, but has been named as one of Vogue Paris’ most inspiring women alongside glittering names such as Michelle Obama. She has taken backstage selfies with music crooner Seal and travels all over the world to talk about her journey. This bubbly, inspiring young author tells how she shed some of the worst layers of grief and became an inspiration for others. We learn about her perplexing, unconventional childhood, her search for identity, and the beautiful bond she formed, posthumously, with a father she never had the opportunity to get to know in person. She also tells, in her own words, about the life-changing encounter between her family and her father’s killer.

Candice tenderly opens up about the result of the trauma of her father’s death on her entire family, and meeting her mother for the first time at the age of four. She tells about the confusing, yet fascinating, dynamics that later unfolded as she discovered pieces of herself, rediscovered relationships with her own family and came to forgiveness and understanding.

This book serves as inspiration for other young – and older – people to look at their own stories through different lenses. Candice’s experiences are not unique, and she offers healing thoughts to others who suffered similar trauma by sharing the details of her own story. Forgiveness Redefined is a touching, personal story by a young woman who learned too early about pain, loss and rejection – but who also learned how to overcome those burdens and live joyfully.

A “gripping and important” (The Guardian) account of nine tumultuous days, as the assassination of Nelson Mandela’s protégé by a white supremacist threatens to derail South Africa’s democratic transition and plunge the nation into civil war.

Johannesburg, Easter weekend, 1993. Nelson Mandela had been released after twenty-seven years in prison and was in power sharing talks with President F.W. de Klerk. After decades of resistance, the apartheid regime seemed poised to fall…until a white supremacist shot and killed Mandela’s popular heir apparent, Chris Hani, in a last desperate attempt to provoke civil war.

Twenty-two-year-old rookie journalist Justice Malala was one of the first people at the crime scene. And as he covered the growing chaos of the next nine days—the protests and police brutality, reprisal killings and calls for paramilitary units to get combat-ready—he was terrified the assassin’s plot might succeed.

Drawing on the context of global history and re-interpreting the known and agreed historical facts, author Colin Bower mounts an irrefutable challenge to the grand narrative of colonialism and racism as the quintessential South African story.

In the course of his polemic he makes the following points:

• The historical conflict between light skinned and dark skinned South Africans need not be seen in racial terms at all, but as a conflict between land ownership by right of historical occupation, and ownership by right of title deed. This is a battle always and universally won by rights of ownership by title deed, and this is to the benefit of all South Africans today.
• If a defining characteristic of colonialism is the extraction of wealth from the colony by the coloniser, then we have reason to question the use of the word in a South African context, for neither the VOC nor the British made a net financial gain from South Africa.
• Had Britain exercised colonial dominion over the whole of an integrated four province South Africa at the conclusion of the Anglo Boer War, South Africa would have had a colour-blind national franchise as early as 1902, no Land Act of 1913, and no post-1948 apartheid.
• Although the consequences of apartheid were widespread suffering and injustice on a racially exclusive basis, apartheid can be better understood as an exercise in domination to achieve competitive advantage than as an emanation of racial hatred.

Bower suggests that obsession with historical injustice represents an escape from the responsibility of building happy, free and prosperous societies in the present, and recommends we replace it with an obsessive devotion to the protection of constitutionalism and the rule of law.

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

Spanning the past two centuries, The Jews in South Africa explores the fascinating role played by this small but highly significant community in the economic, political, social and cultural life of this country.

This richly illustrated story – the first comprehensive history to appear in over 50 years – includes a wide range of historically important photographs, many long unseen, and encompasses a broad swathe of Jewish life, from the bimah and the boardroom to the bowling green. Beginning with the first Jewish immigrants to South Africa, and depicting the fragility of the early foundations and the shifting fortunes of this infant community, the book traces its development to robust maturity amidst turbulent social and political currents. These include the strident antisemitism of the 1930s, the moral dilemmas of the apartheid era, the subsequent turbulent transition towards a non-racial democracy, the birth of the New South Africa and the fresh challenges and promise that have followed in its wake up to the present day.

Included are such personalities as Barney Barnato, Helen Suzman, Joe Slovo, Sol Kerzner and Rabbi Cyril Harris, as well as many others who have made an important mark in their fields.

The Jews in South Africa will be of great interest to every member of the Jewish community living both in South Africa and in their adoptive countries, as well as for all wishing to learn more about this highly energetic and innovative community whose contribution in many spheres of life has so greatly influenced and enriched the history of South Africa.

The Case for a Second Republic: South Africa’s Second Chance is a timely intervention that navigates South Africa’s transition as a republic over the past 30 years on the one hand, and the conundrum of the government of national unity on the other.

This book is not just politically thought-provoking, but erudite, educational and informative. It performs an urgent analytical sweep of 30 years of South Africa’s democracy, charting the long historical path that laid the foundations for the country’s geographical space from which its sovereignty derives. As an historian, Maloka takes the reader through an illuminating tour de force, spanning early South African history, the formation of the 1910 Union of South Africa and the democratic era.

In this book, Maloka differentiates the idea of a ‘Second Republic‘ from the so-called ‘Second Transition’ advanced by some ANC and Alliance partners around 2012. He also posits the idea of the ‘re-foundation of the state’. Maloka rejects the ongoing hysteria about South Africa becoming a ‘failed state’. Maloka calls for the crafting of a new governance paradigm based on three pillars: a self-reliant mind-set; a technocratic state (not political braskap); and substantive people’s power through street committees and direct election of public representatives.

Maloka strongly advocates for discussions around the possibility of the Second Republic, so as to find better mechanisms to address these issues that are a stubborn legacy of a long history of the country.

As a follow up to the bestselling Killing Kebble: An Underworld Exposed (2010), Ministry of Crime: An Underworld Explored examines how organised crime, gangsters and powerful political figures have been able to capture the law enforcement authorities and agencies.

These various organisations have been eviscerated, hollowed out and left ineffective. They have been infiltrated and compromised and, as a result, prominent underworld figures have been able to flourish in South Africa, setting up elaborate networks of crime with the assistance of many cops.

The criminal justice system has been left exposed and it is crucial that the South African public knows about the capture that has occurred on different levels.

Few people have courted as much controversy or evoked such strong and divergent emotions as Winnie Madikizela-Mandela. Adored by some, abhorred by others, she bears a name famous throughout the world, yet not many people know the woman behind the headlines, myths and controversies, or the details of the fascinating story that is her life. This biography reveals the enigma that is Winnie Mandela, by exploring both her personal and political life.

The reader is given a rare glimpse into Winnie's strict yet happy rural upbringing, where the foundations were laid for her faith, compassion and indomitable resolve. As a young social worker in 1950s Johannesburg, her beauty, style and character captivated the political activist and Tembu prince, Nelson Mandela. Together, they personified the rising aspirations and political awakening of their people, and, in so doing, inspired a nation. Through her fierce determination and dauntless courage, she survived her husband's imprisonment, continuous harassment by the security police, banishment to a small Free State town, betrayal by friends and allies, and more than a year in solitary confinement – all the while keeping the struggle flame alight and the name of Nelson Mandela alive.

A sensitive and balanced portrayal, the title nevertheless thoroughly investigates and honestly examines the controversies that have dogged Winnie Mandela in recent years - the allegations of kidnapping and murder, her divorce from Mandela, and the current charges of fraud.

South Africa is facing an extraordinary ‘polycrisis’. The dimensions of this crisis include an energy collapse; a failing rail network; weak education outcomes; an interrupted water supply; and the effects of decades of endemic corruption that have brought much of government to a halt.

But the country also has incredible assets: a wealth of sought-after minerals; an enviable Constitution that protects rights and advocates social inclusion; an advanced financial and services sector; thriving agricultural and auto industries that compete with the best in the world; a prosecution service that is rapidly rebuilding; and, most of all, strong-willed people determined to make life better through hard work, entrepreneurship and hustling.

The choice is stark: we either build on the positives and take the country forward or we will be overwhelmed by the negatives and end up as another Zimbabwe or Venezuela. We have the people, the policies and the resources. What is missing is the political will to make the difficult choices that will save South Africa from disaster.

This book takes you on a journey that ends with one of three possible future scenarios: the Good, the Bad or the Ugly. Compiled by The Brenthurst Foundation and In Transformation Initiative, and workshopped with high-powered leaders in business and politics, the scenarios have stimulated intense public interest as the country grapples with its mounting problems.

The good news is that there is a clear road towards a positive future. It will take courageous leadership and smart thinking to get there, but the ‘Good’ scenario is tantalisingly within grasp.

1 Recce: Agter vyandelike linies neem die leser tot in die Recces se “binnekamer”. In hul eie woorde vertel Recce-operateurs van die lewensgevaarlike operasies wat hulle onder groot geheimhouding in die laat 1970’s in Angola, Rhodesië en Mosambiek uitgevoer het. Dié wat daar was vertel van die spanning, afwagting, vrees, adrenalien, moegheid, dors en hartseer wat hulle beleef het, maar ook van die humoristiese momente en die hegte vriendskapsbande wat hulle gesmee het.

1 Recce: Behind Enemy Lines takes the reader into the ‘inner sanctum’ of the Recces. In their own words, Recce operators recount some of the life-threatening operations they conducted under great secrecy in the late 1970s.

Those who were there give first-hand accounts of the tension, anticipation, fear, adrenalin, exhaustion, thirst and grief they experienced, but also of the humorous moments and the close bonds of friendship that were forged in situations of mortal danger.

Life is frequently about ‘turning up’ and Tony Leon was present at the making of history both big and small.

Being There is a frank and insightful collection of insider accounts from a life in politics. The centrepiece is Leon’s riveting diary of the GNU negotiations that went down to the wire following the 2024 elections. This is the first and only inside account of these talks.

He also casts his gimlet eye on the fault lines of the Middle East, shares ambassadorial adventures in Argentina, and outlines the perils of political party fundraising. Written in Leon’s vintage style – observant, witty, acerbic – he proves the maxim that much of success is simply about being there.