These Potatoes Look Like Humans offers a unique understanding of the intersection between land, labour, dispossession and violence experienced by Black South Africans from the apartheid period to the present.

In this ground-breaking book, uMbuso weNkosi criticises the historical framing of this debate within narrow materialist and legalistic arguments. His assertion is that for most Black South Africans the meaning of land cannot be separated from one’s spiritual and ancestral connection to it, and this results in him seeing the dispossession of land in South Africa with a perspective not yet explored.

Nkosi takes as his starting point the historic 1959 potato boycott in South Africa, which came about as a result of startling rumours that potatoes dug out of the soil from the farms in the Bethal district of Mpumalanga were in fact human heads. Journalists such as Ruth First and Henry Nxumalo went to Bethal to uncover these stories and revealed horrific accounts of abuse and routine killings of farmworkers by white Afrikaners. The workers were disenfranchised Black people who were forced to work on these farms for alleged ‘crimes’ against National Party state laws, such as the failure to carry passbooks.

In reading this violence from the perspectives of both the Black worker and the white farmer, Nkosi deploys the device of the eye to look at his research subjects and make sense of how the past informs the present. His argument is that the violence against Black farmworkers was not only on the exploitation of cheap labour, but also an anxiety white farmers felt about their settler-colonial appropriation of land. This anxiety, Nkosi argues, is pervasive in current heated public debates on the land question and calls for ‘land expropriation without compensation’. Furthermore, the dispossession of Black people from their land cannot be overcome until there is a recognition of the dead and restless spirits of the land, and a spiritual return to home for Black people’s ancestors. Until such time, the cycles of violence will persist.

This book will be of interest to academics and scholars working in the area of land and workers’ struggles but also to the general reader who wants to gain a deeper understanding of redress and social justice on multiple levels.

Khamr: The Makings Of A Waterslams is a true story that maps the author’s experience of living with an alcoholic father and the direct conflict of having to perform a Muslim life that taught him that nearly everything he called home was forbidden.

A detailed account from his childhood to early adulthood, Jamil F. Khan lays bare the experience of living in a so-called middle-class Coloured home in a neighbourhood called Bernadino Heights in Kraaifontein, a suburb to the north of Cape Town. His memories are overwhelmed by the constant discord that was created by the chaos and dysfunction of his alcoholic home and a co-dependent relationship with his mother, while trying to manage the daily routine of his parents keeping up appearances and him maintaining scholastic excellence.

Khan’s memories are clear and detailed, which in turn is complemented by his scholarly thinking and analysis of those memories. He interrogates the intersections of Islam, Colouredness and the hypocrisy of respectability as well as the effect perceived class status has on these social realities in simple yet incisive language, giving the reader more than just a memoir of pain and suffering.

Khan says about his debut book: "This is not a story for the romanticisation of pain and perseverance, although it tells of overcoming many difficulties. It is a critique of secret violence in faith communities and families, and the hypocrisy that has damaged so many people still looking for a place and way to voice their trauma. This is a critique of the value placed on ritual and culture at the expense of human life and well-being, and the far-reaching consequences of systems of oppression dressed up as tradition."

Developing an impactful corporate social investment (CSI) strategy and approach with real potential to positively change people’s lives can be a tricky exercise. Those grappling with how best to approach CSI will find thought-provoking insights in this book that will contribute positively to how they view, shape and execute their CSI strategy. In a most accessible way, this guidebook on CSI presents an instructive and constructive way of building a CSI strategy.

Setlogane Manchidi, Head of CSI at Investec, is known in the CSI space for his passion and strong desire to see meaningful change in people’s lives. In this book, informed by his experiences as a CSI practitioner over the years, he unpacks what he considers to be essential aspects of CSI practice. Manchidi adopts and articulates a question-based approach to creating an effective CSI strategy.

Recognising that business is not separate from society, Manchidi suggests that companies need to ask themselves some serious questions, amongst them: Why should they be doing CSI and, importantly, why are they doing it? The questions, which are reflected on the cover of the book, are difficult ones which require complete honesty, deep consideration and the necessity of placing ‘impact’ at the centre of the formulation of CSI strategy.

Through this book, Setlogane Manchidi reminds us of the significance of a carefully considered CSI strategy and approach, especially in a country such as South Africa with many socio-economic challenges that continue to impact negatively on ordinary people’s day-to-day lives.

The uplifting true story. A Sunday Times bestseller, shortlisted for the Wainwright Prize.

The story of the couple who lost everything and embarked on a journey, not of escape, but salvation.

Just days after Raynor learns that Moth, her husband of 32 years, is terminally ill, the couple lose their home and their livelihood. With nothing left and little time, they make the brave and impulsive decision to walk the 630 miles of the sea-swept South West Coast Path, from Somerset to Dorset via Devon and Cornwall.

They have almost no money for food or shelter and must carry only the essentials for survival on their backs as they live wild in the ancient, weathered landscape of cliffs, sea and sky. Yet through every step, every encounter, and every test along the way, their walk becomes a remarkable journey.

The Salt Path is an unflinchingly honest, inspiring and life-affirming true story of coming to terms with grief and the healing power of the natural world. Ultimately, it is a portrayal of home, and how it can be lost, rebuilt and rediscovered in the most unexpected ways.

Contesting one’s place remains central to confronting the lingering impact of colonisation and apartheid, emerging as it does out of the intermingling of our environments, histories, languages and experiences. In this volume, architects, anthropologists, artists, urban planners, activists and historians examine the ways in which people are rethinking, repurposing and reusing colonial and apartheid architecture and infrastructure. They seek to engage with ways in which history, art and architecture practices contest and subvert these protracted conditions in terms of social justice, development, conservation, heritage, land reclamation and urban renewal.

The focus is on colonial environments in different parts of South Africa and Africa to understand the history of disputed places and responses of remembrance, communal consideration, revival and conflict. In recent years, public awareness of the physical and environmental reminders of this past has been sharpened by sporadic campaigns and ongoing disputes around land, gentrification, repatriation and heritage. Globally, there has been a wave of public outcry and contestation about the place of racist names and statues in public spaces, litigation over abandoned and toxic sites, with calls for removal and restitution as an integral part of decolonisation. And there has been recognition of the lived experiences, knowledge and activities through which people and communities build their heritage.

In this context, questions about the place of colonial and apartheid planning and architecture and their past acquire salience and urgency in the present.

Herman Lategan word wyd gerespekteer as joernalis, en is beide berug én beroemd vir sy uitgesprokenheid en kwinkslae oor alles onder die son. In Hoerkind vertel hy sy lewensverhaal uit die hart uit, sonder doekies omdraai. Hy is een warm Februarienag in 1964 in ’n losieshuis in Kaapstad verwek – buite die eg. Van jongs af het hy soos ’n weggooimens gevoel, want hy is deur grootmense wat die lewe op onvaste voet betree het, van die een stel hande na die ander aangegee.

Op 13 beland hy in die kloue van ’n geslepe pedofiel, ’n bekende Afrikaanse koerantman in daardie jare. Pas na sy 18de verjaarsdag, wanneer sy molesteerder met hom klaar is, word Herman sonder seremonie voor die deur van sy vervreemde alkoholis-pa afgelaai. In sy tienerjare bevriend hy Afrikaanse digters soos Sheila Cussons, Ina Rousseau, Barend J. Toerien en Casper Schmidt. Ná skool doen hy sy diensplig, maar word oneervol ontslaan en kom hy in New York aan, waar hy vir Andy Warhol op straat agtervolg en met ’n “smorgasbord van eendagsvlinders” kattemaai.

Terug in Suid-Afrika maak Herman opgang as joernalis wat na die wydste hoeke van die wêreld reis. As volwassene voer hy ’n stryd met drank en dwelms en is ’n ruk lank haweloos. En vir menige werkgewer word hy die nagmerrie wat hulle die ergste vrees.

Hoerkind is ’n aangrypende relaas oor verlies én oorwinning wat jou sal laat lag, en jou hart ’n paar keer breek. Jy sal jou kop skud oor die wreedheid van ’n wêreld waar mense aan mekaar uitgelewer is, maar jy sal verwonderd staan oor die omvang van goedheid, juis omdat mense op mekaar aangewese is.

"South Africa's most notorious female serial killer since Daisy de Melker".

In 2021, South Africa was introduced to notorious serial killer, Rosemary Ndlovu. Rosemary worked as a police sergeant in Tembisa, Ekurhuleni. Despite taking an oath to serve and protect, in court it emerged that she had arranged the murders of her lover and at least five members of her family. For some murders she hired hitmen, others she carried out herself.

Regarded as our nation's most significant female serial killer since Daisy de Melker, Rosemary killed for money.

Managing Business Projects: The Essentials differs from many other project management textbooks. Foremost, it is about business projects as opposed to construction or engineering projects. Although many techniques, like schedule management, apply to both, they are usually applied differently. As its title conveys, the book explains the essential techniques and perspectives needed for business projects to be successful. The focus is on small- and medium-sized projects, up to $20 million, but often below $1 million. Some literature favors large and mega-projects, but for every mega-project, there are many thousands of smaller projects that are vital to the organization and could involve considerable complexity and risk. Nevertheless, the techniques outlined here also apply to mega-projects and their many subprojects; they even apply to some aspects of construction or engineering projects.

This book does not aim to cover all project management techniques. In real life there is simply no time for sophisticated ‘should-dos.' Rather, it covers the essentials that apply to almost all business projects; these are unlikely to change in the future even as technology and methodologies advance. The driving idea, which is stated repeatedly, is to do the essentials and to do them consistently and well.

Strong emphasis is placed on things that happen before, around, and after the project itself. So, while the basic disciplines like engaging with stakeholders, managing scope, schedules, costs, risks, issues, changes, and communication, are thoroughly explained, other important aspects are covered. These include: governance of a project and of a portfolio of projects, project selection with its financial and non-financial aspects, effective use of the business case through to benefits realization, procurement, outsourcing and partnership, and also the agile mindset that is valuable beyond Agile projects.

Besides project managers and sponsors, this book is intended for people who are working in business or government, at any level, or for MBA students. It offers perspectives that enable them to learn more from their everyday experience. It is not aimed at undergraduate students, although many would benefit from the contents.

From the bestselling author of The Lost City of Z, and the Number One international bestseller The Wager, comes a true-life murder story which became one of the FBI’s first major homicide investigations.

In the 1920s, the richest people per capita in the world were members of the Osage Indian nation in Oklahoma. After oil was discovered beneath their land, they rode in chauffeured automobiles, built mansions and sent their children to study in Europe.

Then, one by one, the Osage began to be killed off. As the death toll climbed, the FBI took up the case. But the bureau badly bungled the investigation. In desperation, its young director, J. Edgar Hoover, turned to a former Texas Ranger named Tom White to unravel the mystery. Together with the Osage he and his undercover team began to expose one of the most chilling conspiracies in American history.

’n Ongekende opkoms van Afrikaner-magnate het die Suid-Afrikaanse ekonomie die afgelope drie dekades gekenmerk. Dit is veral merkwaardig in die lig van die regering se omvattende program van swart ekonomiese bemagtiging.

Vandag ding talle van hulle internasionaal mee. Onder leiding van Koos Bekker het Naspers die Johannesburgse aandelebeurs begin domineer en is die mediagroep omvorm tot ’n internasionale beleggingshouergroep wat op e-handel en die internet fokus. Johann Rupert het Richemont in die naasgrootste groep in die mark vir luukse goedere gevestig, terwyl Christo Wiese en Whitey Basson onderskeidelik Pepkor en Shoprite tot Afrika se grootste kleinhandelgroepe in klerasie en voedsel uitgebou het.

Fortuine verduidelik hoe hierdie en ander sakeleiers, waaronder Jannie Mouton, Michiel le Roux, GT Ferreira, Laurie Dippenaar, Roelof Botha, Hendrik du Toit en ’n aantal megaboere, hul sakeryke tot stand gebring het. Dit beskryf hul lewens- en sakefilosofieë en wat van hulle sulke suksesvolle entrepreneurs maak.

In onlangse tye het die ineenstorting van Steinhoff Internasionaal, die meubelhandelaar met Markus Jooste aan die stuur, ’n groot hap uit sommige van hierdie fortuine geneem. Jooste is die fokus van een van die hoofstukke, terwyl dit in ’n ander op die filantropiese projekte van hierdie superrykes val.

After matriculating from a top Jewish school, Nikki Munitz finds herself in the clutches of a heroin addiction. She's sent to a remote rehab, run by a pastor who brandishes a tattoo of Satan. There she meets the handsome son of a wealthy Afrikaans family. Lured by the illusion of her ‘happy-ever-after’ she marries him. But the facade soon crumbles.

Money is in short supply. Nikki takes on a job at a reputable law firm. Encrypted passwords are entrusted to her. She begins to siphon small, undetectable amounts from trust funds of loyal clients. The amounts increase. Caught red-handed, she's fired. By the time the law catches up with her, Nikki is clean and sober. On the advice of her lawyer who reassures her she will never go to jail, she pleads guilty to all 37 counts of fraud. After a gruelling 2-year court battle, she's found guilty.

Fraud is a powerful memoir about a young woman who is forced to face her life of deceit in a prison cell where she ultimately finds her freedom to fly.

A hybrid narrative, blending memoir with social commentary and political analysis.

Always in search of "home", the book tracks Ismail Lagardien's vast experiences of a deeply lived life, always against a backdrop of "unbelonging" - first as a reporter in the turbulent 80s, to studying economics at the LSE, then achieving a doctorate at the University of Wales, to working as a speechwriter at the World Bank in Washington.

A unique and brilliant read.

Why...

I know, why would anybody name their first book, Why? Let me quickly tell you.

Exposure to pornography at a very young age and sexual abuse as a child, made my life hell. Quite frankly it ruined my whole life. I lived with daily battles that created a war within my soul. This torment lasted until I was 40 years old. I could no longer live with the trauma, the pain and suffering, emanating from my childhood events, I needed help. Just like many adults and children do too.

Don’t we all have a story? Some stories are more attractive than others. This is my story. It is real, authentic, and raw. So many ask the question, Why? Not all our why’s have clear answers. And often, we never get an answer.

Why adults stay stuck in early childhood trauma?
Why pornography will ruin your child’s life?
Why do children need early intervention from trauma?
Why are parents blind to see the warning signs from trauma?
Why is a safe environment so important for a child to develop?
Why can the trauma of sexual abuse last a lifetime?
Why does Jesus care?

Many of your why’s will be answered through reading my life story mirrored with those of the Israelites. A story that is used multiple times in history to display Slavery and Freedom. It is a story that would help people to find true freedom, a story that will point you to the Truth. It is a story of wandering through the wilderness as a slave, with addictions, pain, and suffering. Addictions that are not easily spoken about, addictions that is not easily resolved. Addictions that many survivors don't want to have in the first place.

Freedom that I so desperately longed for. Freedom I found. Freedom that can be yours too.

A powerful, gripping story about an extraordinary herd of elephants, and the woman dedicated to keeping them safe.

Thula Thula game reserve in South Africa is home to a herd of elephants who have 4,000 hectares to roam. So owner Françoise was taken aback to find the herd’s matriarch Frankie – a feisty character – roaming her garden and eating her daisies. Was Frankie pointing out who was really in charge, or was there another reason for her presence?

The Elephants of Thula Thula is a heart-warming, sometimes funny, often moving account of life on a game reserve dedicated to saving endangered species. As Françoise struggles with bureaucracy and with the ever-present threat from poachers she is determined to keep Thula Thula going. The search is on to get a girlfriend for rhino Thabo – and then, as his behaviour becomes increasingly aggressive, a big brother to teach him manners. She realizes a dream with the arrival of Savannah the cheetah – an endangered species not seen in the area since the 1940s. But will Thula Thula survive the pandemic, and the threat from a mining company wanting access to its land?

As tragedy strikes the herd, Françoise mourns the loss of Frankie and watches as a new matriarch steps up to lead the family. She realizes once again that with their wisdom, resilience and communal bonds, the elephants have much to teach us.

Peck and Olsen's INTRODUCTION TO STATISTICS AND DATA ANALYSIS, 7th Edition empowers students to think statistically by focusing on conceptual understanding, real data usage and interpretation and communication of statistical information.

In this edition, data and examples have been carefully selected to emphasize diversity, equity, inclusion and belonging (DEIB), ensuring a comprehensive learning experience for all. Additionally, new "What Do You Think?" questions encourage students to reflect and connect concepts to real-world situations.

Aligned with the GAISE (Guidelines for Assessment and Instruction in Statistics Education) college report and informed by student learning research, the text highlights the application of concepts to students and their surroundings.

How to make home your family’s favorite place to be . . . all year long.

Does your home sometimes feel like just a place to eat, sleep, and change clothes on the way to the next activity? Do you long for “home” to mean more than a place where you stash your stuff? Wouldn’t you love it to become a haven of warmth, rest, and joy . . . the one place where you and your family can’t wait to be?

There is good news waiting for you in the pages of The Lifegiving Home. Every day of your family’s life can be as special and important to you as it already is to God. In this unique book designed to help your family enjoy and celebrate every month of the year together, you’ll discover the secrets of a life-giving home from a mother who created one and her daughter who was raised in it: popular authors Sally and Sarah Clarkson. Together they offer a rich treasure of wise advice, spiritual principles, and practical suggestions. You’ll embark on a new path to creating special memories for your children; establishing home-building and God-centered traditions; and cultivating an environment in which your family will flourish.

Like an apparition, conjured out of the darkness, a young man with light blond hair pushed his face into the car. I immediately spotted the knife. It was a long, thin weapon, almost like a letter opener, with a tapering blade. It felt cold and spiny as he pressed it to my neck. When he spoke his voice, which was quiet and controlled, sounded as though it emanated from a distant planet. But every word thudded into my skull. “Move over or I’ll kill you,” he whispered.

And so began Alison’s nightmare journey with the two callous killers who were to rape her, stab her so many times doctors could not count the wounds, slit her throat and leave her for dead in a filthy clearing miles from the city of Port Elizabeth which was her home. But Alison defied death. And more than that, she denied her attackers the satisfaction of destroying her life.

I Have Life is the triumphant story of a woman who refused to become a victim. The courage which allowed her to move beyond severe physical and emotional trauma and to turn a devastating experience into something life-affirming and strong, is an inspiration to people everywhere.

A historical tour de force that demolishes the myths and taboos that have surrounded Jewish and Israeli history, The Invention of the Jewish People offers a new account of both that demands to be read and reckoned with. Was there really a forced exile in the first century, at the hands of the Romans? Should we regard the Jewish people, throughout two millennia, as both a distinct ethnic group and a putative nation—returned at last to its Biblical homeland?

Shlomo Sand argues that most Jews actually descend from converts, whose native lands were scattered far across the Middle East and Eastern Europe. The formation of a Jewish people and then a Jewish nation out of these disparate groups could only take place under the sway of a new historiography, developing in response to the rise of nationalism throughout Europe. Beneath the biblical back fill of the nineteenth-century historians, and the twentieth-century intellectuals who replaced rabbis as the architects of Jewish identity, The Invention of the Jewish People uncovers a new narrative of Israel’s formation, and proposes a bold analysis of nationalism that accounts for the old myths.

After a long stay on Israel’s bestseller list, and winning the coveted Aujourd’hui Award in France, The Invention of the Jewish People is finally available in English. The central importance of the conflict in the Middle East ensures that Sand’s arguments will reverberate well beyond the historians and politicians that he takes to task. Without an adequate understanding of Israel’s past, capable of superseding today’s opposing views, diplomatic solutions are likely to remain elusive. In this iconoclastic work of history, Shlomo Sand provides the intellectual foundations for a new vision of Israel’s future.

A compassionate, shame-free guide for your darkest days

What happens when loving Jesus doesn’t cure you of depression, anxiety, or suicidal thoughts? You might be crushed by shame over your mental illness, only to be told by well-meaning Christians to “choose joy” and “pray more.” So you beg God to take away the pain, but nothing eases the ache inside. As darkness lingers and color drains from your world, you’re left wondering if God has abandoned you.

You just want a way out.

But there’s hope.

In I Love Jesus, But I Want to Die, Sarah J. Robinson offers a healthy, practical, and shame-free guide for Christians struggling with mental illness. With unflinching honesty, Sarah shares her story of battling depression and fighting to stay alive despite toxic theology that made her afraid to seek help outside the church. Pairing her own story with scriptural insights, mental health research, and simple practices, Sarah helps you reconnect with the God who is present in our deepest anguish and discover that you are worth everything it takes to get better.

Beautifully written and full of hard-won wisdom, I Love Jesus, But I Want to Die offers a path toward a rich, hope-filled life in Christ, even when healing doesn’t look like what you expect.

A searing investigation that challenges everything you thought you knew about domestic abuse.

Domestic abuse is a national emergency: one in four Australian women has experienced violence from a man she was intimate with. But too often we ask the wrong question: why didn’t she leave? We should be asking: why did he do it?

Investigative journalist Jess Hill puts perpetrators – and the systems that enable them – in the spotlight. See What You Made Me Do is a deep dive into the abuse so many women and children experience – abuse that is often reinforced by the justice system they trust to protect them. Critically, it shows that we can drastically reduce domestic violence – not in generations to come, but today.

Combining forensic research with riveting storytelling, See What You Made Me Do radically rethinks how to confront the national crisis of fear and abuse in our homes.

What does friendship have to do with racial difference, settler colonialism and post-apartheid South Africa? While histories of apartheid and colonialism in South Africa have often focused on the ideologies of segregation and white supremacy, Ties that Bind explores how the intimacies of friendship create vital spaces for practices of power and resistance. Combining interviews, history, poetry, visual arts, memoir and academic essay, the collection keeps alive the promise of friendship and its possibilities while investigating how affective relations are essential to the social reproduction of power. From the intimacy of personal relationships to the organising ideology of liberal colonial governance, the contributors explore the intersection of race and friendship from a kaleidoscope of viewpoints and scales. Insisting on a timeline that originates in settler colonialism, Ties that Bind uncovers the implication of anti-Blackness within nonracialism, and powerfully challenges a simple reading of the Mandela moment and the rainbow nation. In the wake of countrywide student protests calling for decolonization of the university, and reignited debates around racial inequality, this timely volume insists that the history of South African politics has always already been about friendship. Written in an accessible and engaging style, Ties that Bind will interest a wide audience of scholars, students, and activists, as well as general readers curious about contemporary South African debates around race and intimacy.

Die slawe aan die Kaap het as draers en skeppers van kultuur, ten spyte van onderdrukking, ’n groot invloed uitgeoefen op die ontwikkeling van die samelewing aan die suidpunt van Afrika en veral van ’n inheemse, kreoolse kultuur.

In hierdie boek word die slawe se rol in die ontstaan van dié eiesoortige kultuur vir die eerste keer verken.

The 1930s and 40s were tumultuous decades in South Africa’s history. The economy declined sharply in the wake of the Wall Street crash, giving rise to a huge number of poor whites and the growth of a militant and aggressive Afrikaner nationalism that often took its lead from the Nazis in Germany.

A Perfect Storm reveals how the right-wing’s malevolent message moved from the margins to the centre of political life; how antisemitism seeped into mainstream political life with real and lasting consequences. Milton Shain, South Africa’s leading scholar of modern Jewish history, brings into sharp relief the ‘Jewish Problem’, detailing the rise of influential organisations such as the Grey Shirts and the New Order, which fanned the flames of antisemitism. He devotes considerable attention to the Ossewa-Brandwag, which, by 1941, constituted the largest yet mobilisation of Afrikaners.

The National Party itself contributed to the climate of hostility to Jews. It was instrumental in ensuring that only few of the Jewish refugees from Nazi Germany and elsewhere were permitted as immigrants. The National Party contributed to the prevailing climate of Jew-baiting. Indeed, some of its worst offenders were accorded high office after 1948 when the National Party came to power.

Every decision we make is a decision about the future. We constantly make choices that affect the next week, year or decade, but get blinded by what we want or expect the future to be. Cognitive traps lie everywhere: failing to question our assumptions; believing in greater certainty and personal control than life allows; or missing signals because we’re distracted by the noise.

The post-2020 world demands a revolutionary way of looking ahead, and in these unpredictable times, the key to good futures thinking is good thinking. The goal of constructive futurism is not to forecast specific events, but to plot a series of scenarios that show what could happen. Consequently, we can work towards the future we want, avoid the ones we don’t, and be prepared to manage the risks and opportunities no matter what.

In Thinking the Future, scenario specialists Clem Sunter and Mitch Ilbury teach us the futurist’s art of decision-making, where the flexibility of thinking like a fox plays a key role in adapting to a complex and interconnected world. The book rejects the appealing but misleading self-help narrative that you can decide your future through sheer determination in pursuit of your goals and replaces it with a more dynamic approach.

Isaac Newton said: ‘If I have seen further than others, it is by standing on the shoulders of giants.’ By reimagining seminal concepts thought up by some of history’s greatest thinkers, the authors detail the dos and don’ts for thinking the future and handling its uncertainty in a constructive way.

How are we to explain the resurgence of customary chiefs in contemporary Africa? Rather than disappearing with the tide of modernity, as many expected, indigenous sovereigns are instead a rising force, often wielding substantial power and legitimacy despite major changes in the workings of the global political economy in the post–Cold War era—changes in which they are themselves deeply implicated.

This pathbreaking volume, edited by anthropologists John L. Comaroff and Jean Comaroff, explores the reasons behind the increasingly assertive politics of custom in many corners of Africa. Chiefs come in countless guises—from university professors through cosmopolitan businessmen to subsistence farmers–but, whatever else they do, they are a critical key to understanding the tenacious hold that “traditional” authority enjoys in the late modern world.

Together the contributors explore this counterintuitive chapter in Africa’s history and, in so doing, place it within the broader world-making processes of the twenty-first century.