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.

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.

The stories of Naz Gool Ebrahim and District Six are intimately linked; in fact it is hard to imagine the one without the other.

As the niece of Cissie Gool, Naz came from fighting stock. Strong women with strong voices ran in the family. So when the Apartheid Government declared 'the District', a slum in 1966 and announced plans to flatten it, Naz wasn’t about to lose all that she held dear without a fight. She became the voice of the voiceless, both in South Africa and in the USA and was nominated as ‘Woman of the Year’. Naz combined her radical political activism with her roles as devoted wife and mother to six children. Up until the end of her life in 2005, she worked tirelessly to oppose the evil of racial segregation.

To her opponents, she was an indomitable adversary, but to her friends she was ‘Naz – Raz-a-ma-tazz’, a great lady who certainly knew how to tell a story and put on a good show.

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.

The Super-Afrikaners, originally published in 1978, scandalised a nation as it exposed the secret workings of the Broederbond. Out of print for over three decades, this edition with an introduction by Max du Preez is available for a new generation.

Formed in Johannesburg in 1918 by a group of young Afrikaners disillusioned by their role as dispossessed people in their own country, the first triumph of this remarkable organisation was the fact that it was largely responsible for welding together dissident factions within Afrikanerdom and thereby ensuring the accession of the National Party to power in 1948. This highly organised clique of Super-Afrikaners, by sophisticated political intrigue, waged a remarkable campaign to harness political, social and economic forces in South Africa to its cause … and succeeded.

Political journalists Hans Strydom and Ivor Wilkins traced, at great personal risk, its development from the earliest days to the present. The book includes the most comprehensive list of Broeders ever published.

When writer Harriet Perlman and photographer Mark Lewis set about documenting the lives of the families whose loved ones had been so horribly killed in the Life Esidemi tragedy, they were determined to honour the dead, and to recognise the sufferings of those left behind. They embarked on a journey across South Africa, meeting face-to-face with families grappling with the unimaginable loss of loved ones. Their heartbreaking stories, accompanied by powerful photographs, forge a deep connection with the victims. These portraits are not just faces on a page, but a testament to the human cost of this tragedy.

In late 2015 and 2016, South Africa witnessed a horrific human rights tragedy. 144 people entrusted to the public health system died from neglect, starvation, and torture. This book delves into this heartbreaking event, the Life Esidimeni tragedy, offering a powerful narrative built on the stories of those most affected.

The investigation goes beyond the headlines, exposing the systemic failures that led to this national crisis. It explores the vast distances families were forced to travel in search of their loved ones, many living on the periphery with limited resources. This unflinching book sheds light on the social and economic factors that contributed to the Life Esidimeni disaster.

This book is not merely a chronicle of loss; it is a celebration of resilience and courage. It shines a light on the tireless efforts of organisations like SECTION27, SADAG, and the Life Esidimeni Family Committee. These unsung heroes fought relentlessly for truth, justice and accountability, holding those in power responsible for their actions.

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.

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.

The 2017 publication of Betrayal of the Promise, the report that detailed the systematic nature of state capture, marked a key moment in South Africa's most recent struggle for democracy. In the face of growing evidence of corruption and of the weakening of state and democratic institutions, it provided, for the first time, a powerful analysis of events that helped galvanise resistance within the Tripartite Alliance and across civil society.

Working often secretly, the authors consolidated, for the first time, large amounts of evidence from a variety of sources. They showed that the Jacob Zuma administration was not simply a criminal network but part of an audacious political project to break the hold of whites and white business on the economy and to create a new class of black industrialists. State-Owned Enterprises (SOEs) such as Eskom and Transnet were central to these plans. The report introduced a whole new language to discuss state capture, showing how SOEs were `repurposed', how political power was shifting away from constitutional bodies to `kitchen cabinets', and how a `shadow state' at odds with the country's constitutional framework was being built.

Shadow State is an updated version of the original, explosive report that changed South Africa's recent history.

What do Walter Sisulu, Paul Xiniwe, Bertha Mkhize and John Tengo Jabavu have in common? They were all Black South African business people, and only a few of the names of the elite who were able to build successful enterprises against all odds in industries such as agriculture, media, financial services, retail, real estate, transport, hoteliering and more during the colonial and apartheid eras.

In many cases, they were also political activists as necessitated by the oppressive conditions of the time in order to fight for equal rights to enterprise and markets. Here their stories as entrepreneurs as well as political actors are profiled, showing the inexplicable relationship between the two.

The history of Black South African enterprise pre- and post-colonially in areas like mining is also explored, showing that this was nothing alien or unexpected and instead, that oppression curtailed the majority of enterprise that was possible and blocked out competition through dispossession.

'It is easier to tell you I used to be in a religious cult. My declaration is most likely to surprise you, even leave you confused. You might ask for more details. I’d tell you it was one of those evangelical churches, and you'd fill in the gaps for yourself because there are endless possibilities of what a cult-like evangelical church can look like in South Africa. Did I eat grass? Or maybe a snake? Was I sprayed with doom?'

Unlike more traditional denominational churches Pentecostal or evangelical churches are more of a movement and much less regulated. Journalist Pontsho Pilane's experience at a powerful evangelical church changed the trajectory of her life and began her journey of deconstruction. Her aim is to be a responsible believer contributing to a more just society.

In this memoir and analysis, Pontsho investigates the dangers of uninterrogated belief in Pentecostal churches and how these beliefs affect our everyday lives.

This is fundamentally a text about race and antiblack racism and their subsequent production of the problem of alienation (separation) of human beings from one another, from their bodies, and from themselves, globally, but with distinct and conscious focus on the historical context of apartheid and “post”-apartheid South Africa through the psychological lens of one of the country’s first and distinguished clinical psychologists, Noel Chabani Manganyi.

The book is a philosophically critical engagement with his work, and it constitutes, as it were, part of the author’s overarching project of attempting to reclaim and retrieve hitherto overlooked, ignored and invisibilised Black thinkers of the past and present. Although Manganyi has written over 10 books, the most important and popular being Being-Black-in-the-World (1973) and Alienation and the Body in Racist Society (1977), his ideas and work have, for one reason or another, been disregarded by mainstream South African psychology, let alone philosophy. The author foregrounds philosophy as also a culprit because Manganyi himself describes his work as that of “a psychologist who thinks and conceptualises psychological reality in a phenomenological way”.

Manganyi has the distinction of being the first Black clinical psychologist trained in South Africa as the title of his latest book, Apartheid and the Making of a Black Psychologist (2016) indicates. His body of published work reveals that from the beginning he has been involved in an attempt to contextualise his discipline, psychology, to the lived realities of his country, that is, apartheid racism and the alienation it produced on Black people. In other words, his main concern has been to utilise psychological discourse to address issues relevant to what can broadly be called “the Black lived-experience” in an antiblack racist society and their experience of the condition of alienation. As such he stood as a solitary figure whose voice was pushed to the margins of the psychological establishment, which was either silent about or complicit in the oppression of Blacks by the apartheid regime.

By exploring Manganyi’s serious concerns about apartheid racism and its attendant devastating production of alienation among Black people, the author argues that the problem of alienation produced by continuing rampant antiblack racism (even from the hands of a Black government) constitutes itself as a lingering problem of “post”-apartheid South Africa.

The author demonstrates that apartheid and alienation are not only conceptually synonymous but experientially related because what connects antiblack racism (apartheid) and alienation is the fact of our embodied existence in the world and that Black alienation manifests itself through the body. After all, antiblack racism is predicated on bodily appearance and body differences among human beings. Manganyi himself places a high premium on the body precisely because, in his view, the Black subjects have inherited a negative sociological schema of their black bodies as a result of which most of them experience themselves as somethings or objects outside of themselves, that is.

The value of revisiting Manganyi’s contribution can be underlined by reference to imperatives posed in recent incidents of antiblack racism and contemporary approaches to race and embodiment in disciplines such as philosophy (Black existentialism), psychology, sociology, cultural studies and identity politics.

This book's focus spans a wide variety of disciplines, including psychology, philosophy, political philosophy, critical race studies and post-colonialism, and therefore will be of interest to a broad cross-section of undergraduate and graduate students, scholars and activists.

Uit die aard van hul hoogs geheime werk heers groot geheimsinnigheid oor die Recce's, maar nou het een van hulle - Koos Stadler - sy ervarings neergepen. Die boek bied 'n onthullende blik op die lewe van 'n Recce, op hul amper bomenslike fisieke vermoens en kameraderie. Verwag naelbyt-aksie en dramatiese verhale.

Cape Town, 2018. South Africa’s mother city is wracked by drought. The prospect of premier Helen Zille’s ‘Day Zero’ – the day when all taps run dry – is driving its citizens into a frenzy. When it’s announced that Mayor Patricia de Lille is off the water crisis, the predicament reaches its zenith and politicians turn upon each other.

And so begins a stupendous battle within the Democratic Alliance: who will lead Cape Town? It’s during this time that author and researcher Crispian Olver applies to the City of Cape Town to gain access to certain official documents as part of a research project. He is baffled when his application is rejected without explanation, but this only strengthens his resolve to explore how the city of his childhood is run. In particular, he has his sights set on the relationship between city politicians and property developers.

Olver interviews numerous individuals, including many ‘chopped’ from the city administration. What he uncovers is a pandora’s box of backstabbing, in-fighting and backroom deals. He explores dodgy property developments at Wescape and Maiden’s Cove, delves into attempts to ‘hijack’ civic associations, and exposes the close yet precautious relationship between the mayor and City Hall’s so-called ‘laptop boys’. But his main goal is to understand what led to the political meltdown within the Democratic Alliance, and the defection of De Lille to form her own party.

A riveting, action-filled account that sheds light on the realities of working in a war-torn country, this is the first book on the war in Iraq by a South African.

Johan Raath and a security team were escorting American engineers to a power plant south of Baghdad when they were ambushed. He had first arrived in Iraq only two weeks before. This was a small taste of what was to come over the next 13 years while he worked there as a private military contractor (PMC). His mission? Not to wage war but to protect lives. Raath acted as a bodyguard for VIPs and, more often, engineers who were involved in construction projects to rebuild the country after the 2003 war. His physical and mental endurance was tested to the limit in his efforts to safeguard construction sites that were regularly subjected to mortar and suicide attacks. Key to his survival was his training as a Special Forces operator, or Recce.

Working in places called the Triangle of Death and driving on the ‘Hell Run’, Raath had numerous hair-raising experiences. As a trained combat medic he also helped to save people’s lives after two suicide bomb attacks on sites he then worked at.

The Jameson Raid was a pivotal moment in the history of South Africa, linking events from the Anglo-Boer War to the declaration of the Union of South Africa in 1910. For over a century the failed revolution has been interpreted through the lens of British imperialism, with responsibility laid at the feet of Cecil John Rhodes. Yet the wild adventurism that characterised the raid resembles a cowboy expedition more than a serious attempt to overthrow a Boer government.

In The Cowboy Capitalist, Charles van Onselen challenges a historiography of over 120 years, locating the raid in American rather than British history and forcing us to rethink the histories of at least three nations. Through a close look at the little-remembered figure of John Hays Hammond, a confidant of both Rhodes and Jameson, he discovers the American Old West on the South African Highveld.

This radical reinterpretation challenges the commonly held belief that the Jameson Raid was quintessentially British and, in doing so, drives splinters into our understanding of events as far forward as South Africa’s critical 1948 general election, with which the foundations of Grand Apartheid were laid.

Infused with colour, scenes from the Anglo-Boer War suddenly come to life in this striking collection of colourised photos from one of the biggest conflicts on South African soil.

The Anglo-Boer War, or South African War, pitted the two Boer republics of Transvaal and the Orange Free State against British imperial might. The effects of this devastating war on the political, economic and social landscape were felt long after its end. The Boer War in Colour contains many iconic photos from the war, as well as several previously unpublished images.

Over the past 120 years, hundreds of books on the Anglo-Boer War have been published, but this will be the first to show this conflict in full colour – introducing a fresh perspective and transforming it into living history.

South Africa faces enormous challenges brought about by the legacy of its horrible past and the actions of its present.

In the twenty years since the advent of democracy the country has come to believe that the ailments of its soul will be solved by state bureaucratic interventions. While at a material level this may be true, at the core of its failure to confront its demons successfully is a missing moral and philosophical foundation to the future it wants to build. Desperate to build a new, positive and uplifting narrative of itself, South Africa has failed at the task of constructing a society and instead sought to maintain a fragile truce between bitterly competing interests.

Raising the Bar provides a fresh, unencumbered analysis of the topics that pervade our daily lives, including race, leadership, politics, government, violence, the position of women and the taboos that haunt us. It explores why we are the people we have become and the future our present state is building. Uncomfortable and littered with vulnerabilities and problems, this is a task we can no longer delay. It is the only way to lay a solid foundation to ensure that we become a prosperous nation.

Between 1960 and 1989 in South Africa, more than 130 people were executed for crimes that had a political motive. Who were they, what did they do, and why did they do it?

While many people have heard of Solomon Mahlangu, John Harris or even Vuyisile Mini, the vast majority of executed activists remain very much unknown, even though they paid the ultimate price for their actions.

This book tells their stories, drawing on the author’s interviews with fellow activists, the families left behind, lawyers on both sides, judges who passed sentence, warders on death row, and even functionaries tasked with informing the condemned of their impending fate.

In the process, the book sheds light on forgotten aspects of South African history, such as the actions of the PAC/Poqo in the 1960s, which resulted in dozens of executions, and people who heeded the ANC’s call to make the country ungovernable in the 1980s and who were then disowned by the organisation. The book also makes startling revelations about miscarriages of justice, defence attorneys working against their clients, and, sadly, the post-apartheid state’s neglect of those who suffered as a result of political executions.

Originally published in June 2007, this book aims to keep intact the soul of Biko and his teachings in a book of quotes. This is done through the reproduction of key quotes on the fundamental subject matter put forward by The Black Consciousness ideology. Some of the quotes included are from Father Stubbs and Millard Arnold.

Edited by Millard Arnold, he brings to life the words of Biko’s revolutionary thought which encompassed a wide range of subject matter pertaining to the black human experience. Ranging from Black Expectations, through to Liberals, as well as the topic of integration. The book includes some of Biko’s quotes on different subjects:

‘The future will always be shaped by the sequence of present-day events.’

‘Being black is not a matter of pigmentation being black is a reflection of a mental attitude.’

‘The philosophy of Black Consciousness, therefore, expresses group pride and the determination by the blacks to rise and attain the envisaged self.’

In the 1990s, deep-cover police agent RS536 took on the Durban underworld as part of a new organised crime intelligence unit. He rubbed shoulders with drug lords, smugglers and corrupt cops, and was instrumental in busting an international drug ring and foiling a bank heist, among many other dangerous engagements.

But then, as the country’s new democracy birthed a struggle between the old and the new guard in the South African Police Service, his identity and his life came under threat. In this action-packed account, Johann van Loggerenberg describes how, as a young policeman, he worked closely with the investigative team of the Goldstone Commission to uncover the ‘third force’ – apartheid security forces that supplied weapons to the Inkatha Freedom Party to destabilise the country.

He also delves into how and why, at the height of state capture at the South African Revenue Service in 2014, he was falsely accused of being an apartheid spy, a lie that persists up to today. Here, finally, is the truth behind deep-cover police agent RS536.

Africa Reimagined is a passionately argued appeal for a rediscovery of our African identity. Going beyond the problems of a single country, Hlumelo Biko calls for a reorientation of values, on a continental scale, to suit the needs and priorities of Africans. Building on the premise that slavery, colonialism, imperialism and apartheid fundamentally unbalanced the values and indeed the very self-concept of Africans, he offers realistic steps to return to a more balanced Afro-centric identity.

Historically, African values were shaped by a sense of abundance, in material and mental terms, and by strong ties of community. The intrusion of religious, economic and legal systems imposed by conquerors, traders and missionaries upset this balance, and the African identity was subsumed by the values of the newcomers. Biko shows how a reimagining of Africa can restore the sense of abundance and possibility, and what a rebirth of the continent on Pan-African lines might look like. This is not about the churn of the news cycle or party politics – although he identifies the political party as one of the most pernicious legacies of colonialism. Instead, drawing on latest research, he offers a practical, pragmatic vision anchored in the here and now.

By looking beyond identities and values imposed from outside, and transcending the divisions and frontiers imposed under colonialism, it should be possible for Africans to develop fully their skills, values and ingenuity, to build institutions that reflect African values, and to create wealth for the benefit of the continent as a whole.

South Africa approaches 20 years of democracy and what better way to look back at the country's wild ride than through the lens of Zapiro.

Look back to see how far the country has come but also how much further we still need to go to fulfil the promise of those early years of democracy.

South Africa may have changed in twenty years but Zapiro's sharp wit and cutting satire have remained a welcome constant over the years.