Approaching the subjects of empire and colonization in a new light, this survey states that the free global market and institutions such as the International Monetary Fund, World Bank, and World Trade Organization are actually recolonizing Southern Africa. This polemic argues that the unalloyed working of capitalism--the manufacture and exacerbation of a hierarchy that enlarges the gap between the rich and the poor--is self-creating and self-sustaining. It is also locked into place by governments and their institutions, leaving no space for an alternative structure. Those increasingly unable to defend themselves against the free global market have been recolonized into this capitalist system.

The world wanted South Africa’s true, liberated history – and the writing of it – to begin in 1994, but deep contradictions have quickly bubbled to the surface, revealing a society gripped in turmoil.

The results of all this have been, of course, paradoxical: a series of elections since 1994 seemed to confirm the ANC’s hold, both popular and legitimate, on power. Yet, simultaneously, South Africa has found itself with one of the world’s highest rates of protest and dissent, expressed both in the work-place and on township streets, in universities and technicons, clinics and central city squares. 16 August 2014 saw the lives of nearly three dozen platinum mineworkers end prematurely and violently. The premeditated “Marikana Massacre” demonstrated to the world how little Nelson Mandela’s ANC had changed South Africa’s core power relations, notwithstanding the dramatic, heroic victory over racist rule in 1994.

South Africa: The Present as History traces South African history from early days through the long European conquest and into two decades of democracy. The current socio-economic paradox – one that finds inequality, unemployment and poverty worsening since 1994 – reflect Mandela’s early 1990s concessions, choices which reduced the pursuit of genuine socio-economic and political transformation to the mere realisation of what can best be termed ‘low-intensity democracy’.

Analysing tensions exemplified by Marikana, the authors consider potential futures for an increasingly volatile society. Genuine liberatory possibilities could continue to be vanquished – but that is not the only possible results of today’s turmoil.

Analyses on-going movements against inequality and injustice in South Africa to show how these are rooted in its early history, anti-apartheid resistance and struggles for independence. In 1994, the first non-racial elections in South Africa brought Nelson Mandela and his African National Congress to office; elections since have confirmed the ANC's hold, both popular and legitimate, on power. Yet, at the same time, South Africa has one of the highest rates of protest and dissent in the world - underscored by the police shooting of 34 striking miners at Marikana in 2012 - regions of deep poverty and environmental degradation, rising inequality and high unemployment rates. This book looks at this paradox by examining the precise character of the post-apartheid state, and the roots of the hope that something better than the semi-liberation that the ANC has presided over must not be long delayed - both within the ANC itself and within the broader society of South Africa. The authors present a history of South Africa from earliest times, with today's post-apartheid society interpreted andunderstood in the context of and through the lens of its earlier history. Following the introduction, which offers an analytical background to the narrative that follows, they track the course of South African history: from its origins to apartheid in the 1970; through the crisis and transition of the 1970s and 1980s to the historic deal-making of 1994 that ended apartheid; to its recent history from Mandela to Marikana, with increasing signs of social unrest and class conflict. Finally, the authors reflect on the present situation in South Africa with reference to the historical patterns that have shaped contemporary realities and the possibility of a 'next liberation struggle'. Shortlisted for the 2014 Tamara and Isaac Deutscher Prize John S. Saul is Professor Emeritus at York University (Canada). Patrick Bond is Senior Professor of Development Studies and Director of the Centre forCivil Society at the University of KwaZulu-Natal (Durban). Southern Africa (South Africa, Namibia, Lesotho, Swaziland & Botswana): Jacana

Through some thirty years, John Saul has written about wars for the liberation of Southern Africa, and has worked with movements supporting liberation struggles. This collection of essays brings together long perspectives on regional changes and developments which culminated in the independence of Zimbabwe and Namibia, and the overthrow of Apartheid. Tony Blair has launched an Africa initiative that seeks to open the continent to business. Saul provides a critical assessment of what has, and hasn't, been achieved in the region. Is Africa in a Capitalist Cul-de-sac? Would a new left find a better Alternative?

The end of apartheid in South Africa has been widely viewed as the end of an era of African history. The Next Liberation Struggle is an indispensible guide to understanding how the resources of that era can be used to contribute to real liberation for the region and for the continent of Africa as a whole.

The Next Liberation Struggle integrates the concrete observations of a seasoned observer and participant in southern African liberation struggles with analysis of and reflection on the large question of the place of southern Africa within the global capitalist order and its capacities to contribute toward remaking that global order. It examines specific national developments in South Africa, Namibia, Mozambique, and Tanzania. At the same time, it shows throughout how the problems of each national context are linked by a common location in the global order, and argues for a collective regional response.

For the past four decades John S. Saul has been among the foremost radical analysts of the struggle for liberation in southern Africa. This volume brings together his recent writings on the region in the aftermath of the decade of globalization.

Twenty years on from the fall of apartheid in South Africa, veteran analyst and activist John S. Saul examines the liberation struggle, placing it in a regional and global context and looking at how the initial optimism and hope has given way to a sense of crisis following soaring inequality levels and the massacre of workers at Marikana. With chapters on South Africa, Tanzania and Mozambique, Saul examines the reality of southern Africa's post-'liberation' plight, drawing on the insights of Frantz Fanon and Amilcar Cabral and assessing claims that a new 'precariat' has emerged. Saul examines the ongoing 'rebellion of the poor', including the recent Marikana massacre, that have shaken the region and may signal the possibility of a new and more hopeful future.

A widely respected commentator on South African affairs offers an important analysis of revolution and counter-revolution in the countries of Southern Africa today. Saul's previous works on Africa include Socialist Ideology and t he Struggle for Southern Africa and The Two-Edged Sword: The Struggle for Liberation in Namibia and Its Legacy (with Colin Leys).

Students of armed liberation struggle should find much to challenge received wisdom. It took 23 years of armed struggle before Namibia could gain its independence from South Africa in March 1990. SWAPO's victory was remarkable in the face of an overwhelmingly superior enemy. How this came about, and at what cost,is the subject of this study which is based on unpublished documents and extensive interviews with a large range of the key activists in the struggle. The study should be of interest to everyone concerned with southern Africa. North America: Ohio U Press