Housing matters, no matter when or where. This volume of collected essays on housing in colonial and postcolonial Africa seeks to elaborate how and why housing is much more than an everyday practice.

The politics of housing unfold in disparate dimensions of time, space and agency. Depending on context, they acquire diverse, often ambivalent, meanings. Housing can be a promise, an unfulfilled dream, a tool of self- and class-assertion, a negotiation process, or a means to achieve other ends. This volume analyzes housing in its multifacetedness, be it a lens to offer insights into complex processes that shape societies; be it a tool of empire to exercise control over private relations of inhabitants; or be it a means to create good, obedient and productive citizens.

Contributions to this volume range from the field of history, to architecture and urban planning, African studies, linguistics, and literature. The individual case studies home in on specific aspects and dimensions of housing and seek to bring them into dialogue with each other. By doing so, the volume aims to add to the debate on studying urban practices and their significance for current social change.

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.

The Democratic Alliance won control of the uMngeni Municipality in the KwaZulu-Natal Midlands after the local government elections in 2021. As the only DA-run municipality in KZN, uMngeni provides a template for how local government could work in a post-ANC South Africa.

Written by two leaders at the very heart of the project, Saving South Africa reveals the challenges, the triumphs and disasters the new administration has encountered along the way. It is an eye-opening exposé of how cadre deployment has helped to bring the country to its knees. It is a story of incompetent officials, political spies, gunwielding tenderpreneurs, petty theft and grand larceny.

And yet, as we follow the authors on their journey, there is always hope for a better future as the corrupt layers of local governance are gradually stripped away, revealing the responsive and caring civil service envisioned by the South African Constitution.

Making the radical argument that the nation-state was born of colonialism, this book calls us to rethink political violence and reimagine political community beyond majorities and minorities.

In this genealogy of political modernity, Mahmood Mamdani argues that the nation-state and the colonial state created each other. In case after case around the globe—from the New World to South Africa, Israel to Germany to Sudan—the colonial state and the nation-state have been mutually constructed through the politicization of a religious or ethnic majority at the expense of an equally manufactured minority.

The model emerged in North America, where genocide and internment on reservations created both a permanent native underclass and the physical and ideological spaces in which new immigrant identities crystallized as a settler nation. In Europe, this template would be used by the Nazis to address the Jewish Question, and after the fall of the Third Reich, by the Allies to redraw the boundaries of Eastern Europe’s nation-states, cleansing them of their minorities. After Nuremberg the template was used to preserve the idea of the Jews as a separate nation. By establishing Israel through the minoritization of Palestinian Arabs, Zionist settlers followed the North American example. The result has been another cycle of violence. Neither Settler nor Native offers a vision for arresting this historical process.

Mamdani rejects the “criminal” solution attempted at Nuremberg, which held individual perpetrators responsible without questioning Nazism as a political project and thus the violence of the nation-state itself. Instead, political violence demands political solutions: not criminal justice for perpetrators but a rethinking of the political community for all survivors—victims, perpetrators, bystanders, beneficiaries—based on common residence and the commitment to build a common future without the permanent political identities of settler and native. Mamdani points to the anti-apartheid struggle in South Africa as an unfinished project, seeking a state without a nation.

Parcel of Death recounts the little-told life story of Onkgopotse Abram Tiro, the first South African freedom fighter the apartheid regime pursued beyond the country’s borders to assassinate with a parcel bomb.

On 29 April 1972, Tiro made one of the most consequential revolutionary addresses in South African history. Dubbed the Turfloop Testimony, Tiro’s anti-apartheid speech saw him and many of his fellow student activists expelled, igniting a series of strikes in tertiary institutions across the country. By the time he went into exile in Botswana, Tiro was president of the Southern African Student Movement (SASM), permanent organiser of the South African Student Organisation (SASO) and a leading Black Consciousness proponent, hailed by many as the ‘godfather’ of the June 1976 uprisings.

Parcel of Death uses extensive and exclusive interviews to highlight significant influences and periods in Tiro’s life, including the lessons learned from his rural upbringing in Dinokana, Zeerust, the time he spent working on a manganese mine, his role as a teacher and the impact of his faith in shaping his outlook. It is a compelling portrait of Tiro’s story and its lasting significance in South Africa’s history.

‘A biography of Onkgopotse Tiro, who was at once a catalyst and an active change agent in the South African struggle for freedom, is long overdue. For generations to come, this book will be a source of valuable information and inspiration.’ – MOSIBUDI MANGENA

Over the years, many have signed up for the South African Special Forces selection course but only a select few have ever passed. The gruelling course pushes recruits to their physical and mental limits. Those who make it through selection still have to complete a demanding year-long training cycle before they can join the ranks of this elite unit.

In A Breed Apart, former Special Forces operator Johan Raath offers a rare insider’s view on the training he and other young soldiers received in the mid-1980s. Drawing on the reminiscences of his fellow Recces, he describes the phases of selection and training, and offers valuable insights into what makes a successful operator.

The courses in the training cycle show the range and standard of Special Forces training, including weapons handling, bushcraft/survival, parachuting, demolitions and urban warfare, as well as seaborne and riverine operations. For Raath and his training cycle buddies, the cycle culminated in an operation in southern Angola where the young Recces saw action for the first time.

Much of what Raath underwent still forms part of present-day Special Forces training. Comprehensive and revealing, this book shows why these soldiers truly are a breed apart.

So lyk ’n vrou, Ilse Verster se hartroerende verhaal oor Esli se lewe van mishandeling deur ’n gewelddadige eggenoot, het lesers in 2022 geskok en aangegryp. ’n Vrou staan op is die vervolg op die blitsverkoper en vertel van die nuwe hoofstuk in Esli se lewe.

Ná ’n uitmergelende egskeiding wat haar finansieel byna ruïneer, reis Esli Kaap toe om perspektief te kry op ’n lewe waar sy nie meer ’n slagoffer is nie. Dan gebeur daar ’n wonderwerk. Sy ontmoet iemand en hulle besluit om te trou. Uiteindelik is die geluk, vrede en veiligheid waarna sy haar lewe lank gehunker het, vir Esli beskore.

Máár haar stryd is nog lank nie verby nie. Post-traumatiese stres, ’n vreemde omgewing en nuwe verhoudings bring onverwagse uitdagings. Ook baie vrae, soos: Hoe kan ’n mens gelukkig wees, maar steeds huil? Die ongekende blootstelling wat tydens boekbekendstellings, praatjies en mediaonderhoude volg op die sukses van So lyk ’n vrou, maak dinge ook nie makliker nie. Esli kan haar nie volledig losmaak van die verlede nie, want almal stel moeilike vrae. Terselfdertyd moet sy ander slagoffers van narsisme moed inpraat.

In ’n Vrou staan op deel die skrywer haar ervarings van die moets en moenies in die proses na heelwording. Want om ’n oorwinnaar te wees, verg ook moed, deursettingsvermoë en ’n sekure instink vir oplossings wat wérk.

Dare To Believe is a poignant narrative of resilience, courage and hope in the face of adversity. Mmusi Maimane invites readers on a journey through his personal experiences, from the hardships of Apartheid-era Soweto to the corridors of power in post-liberation South Africa.

With insights drawn from his political career and a deep commitment to justice, Maimane shares the travails of party politics, the difficult task of transforming the DA, and his vision for a South Africa where all races can live and prosper together.

This book challenges us to confront the realities of inequality and division while daring to envision a nation united in prosperity and peace. It is a call to restore democracy back to the people and a compelling articulation of Maimane's belief in the transformative power of unity and the promise of a better tomorrow.

Every now and then a book comes along that is both timely and remarkable, that integrates all aspects of life; from recognising one’s roots, developing a moral grounding, building from strong family foundations to follow a chosen path to reach one’s goals, and remaining humble when it all comes to pass.

Time and Chance is an account, in a variety of contrasting images, voices and experiences gained from travelling the world in pursuit of business, where LAZARUS ZIM, industrious Broad-Based Black Economic Empowerment (B-BBEE) enthusiast, recounts his journey to become one of South Africa’s business leaders, with several firsts, while navigating the political minefield – disclosing descriptions of behind-the-scenes intrigue and conspiracy – and his interactions with Heads of State in South Africa and around the globe.

The recounting of Zim’s extraordinary rise to success oscillates between hope, faith, ethics, and diligence as he lays bare his successes and failures, and the organic wisdom, knowledge, and wit that have framed his business acumen and moral grounding.

It is a poignant reminder of a black child’s quest to fulfil his purpose in which the writer dares everyone to dream, even in the face of hopelessness.

An expert on China's growing digital empire provides an urgent look at the battle to connect and control tomorrow's networks.

Its vast infrastructure projects now extend from the ocean floor to outer space, and from Africa's megacities into rural America. China is wiring the world, and, in doing so, rewriting the global order.

As things stand, the rest of the world still has a choice. But the battle for tomorrow will require America and its allies to take daring risks in uncertain political terrain. Unchecked, China will reshape global flows of data to reflect its own interests - and the lives of countless individuals enmeshed in its systems.

Taking readers on a global tour of these emerging battlefields, Jonathan E. Hillman reveals what China's digital footprint looks like on the ground, and explores the dangers of a world in which all routers lead to Beijing.

You may have read GG Alcock’s books about the kasi economy; now follow his journey to the dynamic world of KasiNomics and learn about the tribal forces that shaped him.

Born White Zulu Bred is the story of a white child and his brother raised in poverty in a Zulu community in rural South Africa during the apartheid era. His extraordinary parents, Creina and Neil Alcock, gave up lives of comfort and privilege to live and work among the destitute people of Msinga, whose material and social well-being became their mission. But more than that, this is a story about life in South Africa today which, through GG’s unique perspective, explores the huge diversity of the country’s people – from tribal Zulu warriors to sophisticated urban black township entrepreneurs. A journey from the arid wastes of Msinga into the thriving informal economies of urban townships.

GG’s view is that we do not live in a black and white world but in a world of contrast and diversity, one which he wants South Africans, and a world audience, to see for what it is without descending into racial and historical clichés. He takes us through the mazes of township marketplaces, shacks and crowded streets to reveal the proud and dignified world of township entrepreneurs who are transforming South Africa’s economy. This is the world that he moves in today as a successful businessman, still walking those spaces and celebrating the vibrant informal economies that are taking part in the KasiNomic Revolution.

GG’s story is about being truly African, even as a white person, and it draws on the adventures, the cultural challenges, the informal spaces and the future possibilities of South Africa.

At the very dawn of the country’s brave new democracy, Cape Town was at war. Pagad, which started as a community protest action against crime, had mutated into a sinister vigilante group wreaking death and destruction across the city. Between 1996 and 2001, there were more than 400 bombs – most famously at the popular Planet Hollywood restaurant at the V&A Waterfront – and there were countless targeted hits on drug lords and gang bosses.

The police were at their wits end. The new ANC government was alarmed. The citizens of Cape Town were living in fear.

Mark Shaw tells the incredible tale of how the police’s response pulled together former foes – struggle cadres and the apartheid security apparatus – to break the Pagad death squads. It is a story that has never been told in full and was not possible until recently, when many were released from prison or had retired and were finally willing to talk openly about this revealing chapter in South Africa’s recent history.

Hermann Giliomee, pre-eminent South African historian, dissects the forces that shaped the Afrikaners into an unusual ‘maverick African’ nation.

He analyses long-term forces like the powerful legal position of Afrikaner women, the expanding frontier, and the struggles about race inside the church, along with more recent political history.

Cadre deployment means that the ANC and the state are inextricably intertwined. In KwaZulu-Natal, which has long been the powder keg of South Africa, it’s a monster that means people of competing patronage networks are killing each other for a place at the trough –  for jobs and tenders –  and the taxi industry provides the hitmen, guns and the transport.

Travel with journalist Greg Ardé across KwaZulu-Natal into the dark heart of South Africa and the ANC’s ‘culture of blood’.  

Teaching and Learning Strategies in South Africa provides an accessible exploration of human learning and teaching strategies to facilitate an effective teaching and learning environment. Perfect for pre-service and in-service teachers, this book analyses some of the key methodologies that have been proposed to explore different teaching strategies whilst also encouraging you to question these and to find your own unique and appropriate approach to teaching and learning. Written by several leading academics from across South Africa and Zimbabwe, the clear and concise writing style makes this text ideal for undergraduate students learning to become teachers. It is also a valuable resource for those in the first few years of teaching who wish to gain a greater understanding of the theories and methodologies of teaching.

No murderer should ever be the keeper of their victim's story …

On 1 February, 1910, vivacious music-hall performer, Belle Elmore, suddenly vanished from her north London home, causing alarm among her circle of female friends, the entertainers of the Music Hall Ladies’ Guild who demanded an immediate investigation.

They could not have known what they would provoke: the unearthing of a gruesome secret, followed by a fevered manhunt for the prime suspect: Belle’s husband, medical fraudster, Dr Hawley Harvey Crippen.

Hiding in the shadows of this evergreen tale is Crippen’s typist and lover, Ethel Le Neve – was she really just ‘an innocent young girl’ in thrall to a powerful older man as so many people have since reported?

In this epic examination of one of the most infamous murders of the twentieth century, prizewinning social historian Hallie Rubenhold gives voice to those who have never properly been heard – the women.

Featuring a carnival cast of eccentric entertainers, glamorous lawyers, zealous detectives, medics and liars, STORY OF A MURDER is meticulously researched and multi-layered, offering the reader an electrifying snapshot of Britain and America at the dawn of the modern era.

Over the past decade, migration has become a central theme in relations between Africa and Europe. It constitutes a political and diplomatic issue that seems to have imposed itself on a range of policy agendas, from development cooperation to peacebuilding and counterterrorism, and from climate change mitigation to conversations around Africa’s demographic transition.

This book reflects on the diverse perspectives of African and European actors on migration and engages the securitisation of migration and exposure of migrants of colour to unsafe and undignified migration, including outright persecution.

The book proffers a more just and sustainable migration governance agenda, against the backdrop of the more detailed reflections on the key policy priorities, drivers, regional dynamics, and actors influencing African-EU migration.

Die onderwysersgids is saamgestel volgens die vereistes vir Huistaal. Dit ondersteun die onderwyser se taak deur:

• ’n volledige antwoordsleutel vir elke module te voorsien, asook riglyne, wenke en prosedures

• leeraktiwiteite in afdelings soos Pitkos en In ’n neutedop

• wenke te gee vir doeltreffende luister, praat, lees, kyk, skryf en aanbied

• gepaste inhoud en kontekste, en ’n wye verskeidenheid tekssoorte aan te bied volgens eietydse temas

• onderrigplanne vir elke module, asook riglyne vir lesbeplanning

• ’n formele assesseringsprogram vir graad 5, asook verskeie metodes en instrumente vir assessering

• ’n CD waarop ’n volledige onderwyserslêer, beplanningsdokumente en addisionele werkkaarte verskyn

This is a memoir about the life of an extraordinary South African poet, educator, and activist that tells a lesser-known social history of people, families, communities and places.

Poli Poli is intentional in grounding Masekela’s experiences in a social history of the country over generations. Masekela uses her life story to illustrate the features and characteristics that typified life in particular places, like Kwa-Guqa in the 1940s, Johannesburg, Alexandra Township, and Inanda Seminary School (for Coloured girls) in Mpumalanga.

This memoir is filled with intimate details about the growing pains of a childhood inhibited by strict beliefs and systems, first-hand experiences of struggle and sacrifice, violence and other forms of inhumanity and the deep scars they etch, while also telling the story of the author’s life-giving relationship with her siblings. Poli Poli is a remarkable history that speaks to issues of then and now – belonging, African identity, women’s rights, and femininity, and is written in the lyricism and transporting detail of one of the country’s greatest wordsmiths.

Ten Maps that tell you everything your need to know about global politics - the million copy international bestseller

Geography shapes not only our history, but where we're headed...

ON THE RUSSIA/UKRAINE CRISIS - What is driving Russia's foreign policy? Why do Putin's actions mirror those made in the past? Prisoners of Geography analyses the geographic weaknesses and historical invasions of Russia's territories, exploring how they have ultimately shaped the decisions of its leaders past and present.

All leaders are constrained by geography. Their choices are limited by mountains, rivers, seas and concrete. Yes, to follow world events you need to understand people, ideas and movements - but if you don't know geography, you'll never have the full picture.

If you've ever wondered why Putin is so obsessed with Crimea, why the USA was destined to become a global superpower, or why China's power base continues to expand ever outwards, the answers are all here.

In ten chapters and ten maps, Prisoners of Geography looks at the past, present and future to offer an essential insight into one of the major factors that determines world history.

South Africa’s general election of 2024 saw the African National Congress losing its majority at the national level for the first time since the arrival of democracy in 1994. To maintain its rule, President Cyril Ramaphosa led his party into a Government of National Unity (GNU) centered around a hitherto unlikely coalition with the opposition Democratic Alliance. Election 2024, South Africa: Countdown to Coalition presents the first comprehensive analysis of this historic process.

It outlines the extensive social and economic crisis that preceded the election; provides detailed analyses of the election campaigns of the political parties; highlights the dramatic rise Jacob Zuma’s uMkhonto we Sizwe Party; places the GNU against the recent experiences of coalition formation at provincial and local level; offers comprehensive summaries of voter participation and both the national and provincial results; and discusses prospects for the GNU’s survival and its possible long-term consequences.

Written in a highly accessible style, Election 2024, South Africa is an indispensable resource for all those wanting to understand South Africa’s contemporary politics.

An acclaimed international bestseller which tells the story of Europe’s most admired and feared country, from the Roman age to Charlemagne to von Bismarck to Merkel. A country both admired and feared, Germany has been the epicentre of world events time and again: the Reformation, both World Wars, the fall of the Berlin Wall. It did not emerge as a modern nation until 1871 – yet today, Germany is the world’s fourth-largest economy and a standard-bearer of liberal democracy. With more than 100 maps and images, this is a fresh, concise and entertaining history which since release has sold over 300 000 copies internationally.

A fusion of conversations, observations, and personal reflections on his own experiences, work with men, and scholarship, Why Men Hurt Women and Other Reflections on Love, Violence and Masculinity is Kopano Ratele’s meditation on love, violence and masculinity.

This book seeks to imagine the possibility of a more loving masculinity in a society where structural violence, failures of government and economic inequality underpin much of the violent behaviour that men display. Enriched with personal reflections on his own experiences as a partner, father, psychologist and researcher in the field of men and masculinities, Why Men Hurt Women and Other Reflections on Love, Violence and Masculinity is Kopano Ratele’s meditation on love and violence, and the way these forces shape the emotional lives of boys and men.

Blending academic substance and rigour in a readable narrative style, Ratele illuminates the complex nuances of gender, intimacy and power in the context of the human need for love and care. While unsparing in its analysis of men’s inner lives, Ratele lays out a path for addressing the hunger for love in boys and men. He argues that just as the beliefs and practices relating to gender, sexuality and the nature of love are constantly being challenged and revised, so our ideas about masculinity, and men’s and boys’ capacity to show genuine loving care for each other and for women, can evolve.

An intimate look at the domestic lives of enslaved women, NIGHT WHEREVER WE GO is an evocative meditation on resistance and autonomy, on love and transcendence and the bonds of female friendship in the darkest of circumstances.

On a struggling Texas plantation, six enslaved women slip from their sleeping quarters and gather in the woods under the cover of night. The Lucys—as they call the plantation owners, after Lucifer himself—have decided to turn around the farm’s bleak financial prospects by making the women bear children. They have hired a “stockman” to impregnate them. But the women are determined to protect themselves.

Now, each of the six faces a choice. Nan, the doctoring woman, has brought a sack of cotton root clippings that can stave off children when chewed daily. If they all take part, the Lucys may give up and send the stockman away. But a pregnancy for any of them will only encourage the Lucys further. And should their plan be discovered, the consequences will be severe.

Visceral and illuminating, Night Wherever We Go marks the arrival of a bold, lyrical and powerful new voice in fiction.

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.