Spirit of the Nation reflects on and debates the values in South Africa's educational system. It examines the ethos and spirit of the living communities who inhabit our schools and who are struggling towards, and achieving, new forms of social cohesion.

Spirit of the Nation is divided into five parts. The first, Foundations, reflects on the nature and meaning of values that can be considered South African, and outlines the basic principles that should guide their nurturing and development. Part Two, The Way We Learn, comprises analyses of the media forms through which we learn and considers the efficacy of learning values by these various means. Part Three, What We Learn focuses on the content of education.

Part Four, Transforming Lives, considers how education can transform individual lives and futures and the final section, Looking Ahead, explores the future of South African education within the context of the Constitution.

This book is intended to nurture the spirit of the nation and to make a valuable and enduring contribution to the cornerstone of our new society: South African education.

Native Life in South Africa is one of South Africa’s great political books. First published in 1916, it was first and foremost a response to the Native’s Land Act of 1913 and was written by one of the most gifted and influential writers and journalists of his generation. Native Life in South Africa provides an account of the origins of this crucially important piece of legislation and a devastating description of its immediate effects. Plaatje spent many weeks traveling in the countryside and the most moving chapters in the book tell us what he saw. His book explores the wider political and historical context that produced policies of the kind embodied in the Land Act, and documents meticulously steps taken by South Africa’s rulers to exclude black South Africans from the exercise of political power.

Kader Asmal was one of the most respected senior statesmen in South Africa. He lived a rich and varied life, in all the twists and turns of which he has displayed boundless energy, a sharp mind and deep commitment to human rights and democratic values.

Kader Asmal, lawyer and teacher, South African Cabinet minister, and the driving force behind the Irish Anti-Apartheid Movement, has been called many things – ‘small, bustling, curious, courageous, indefatigable’ (Irish Times) and ‘dapper, combative, witty, cantankerous, sarcastic, urbane, precisely spoken’ (Sunday Times). The son of a small-town shopkeeper from Natal, his life took him as far as exile in the UK, on to a senior position at Trinity College Dublin, and back to a free South Africa, governed by an exemplary Constitution, which he helped devise.

These memoirs are not only Asmal’s personal journey. They are also the story of South Africa’s transition from apartheid to freedom and democracy, in which he played a significant role, as a member of the ANC’s Constitutional Committee and negotiating team and later as an MP and Cabinet minister under Nelson Mandela and Thabo Mbeki. They provide testimony, too, to Asmal’s lifelong dedication to freedom, equality and justice – ideals enshrined in the country’s Bill of Rights, which he played a major part in writing.

With a Foreword by Nelson Mandela While depicting the horrors of apartheid, this volume also proposes a constructive process designed to enable a free South Africa to avoid lapsing into a cycle of new oppression. The authors demonstrate a challenge that they believe can and must be met by the efforts of the Truth and Reconcilliation Commission. Nelson Mandela says in his Foreword to this book: 'The Truth and Reconciliation Commission is a milestone on the freedom road, and this book illuminates the journey. It presents a necessary perspective on our unfolding future. North America: St Martin's Press; South Africa: David Philip/New Africa Books

This book captures the oral histories of twenty South African teaches who connected pedagogy and politics to fight against the apartheid regime. Teaching in so-called Coloured schools, these « teachers with the fighting spirit stressed nonracialism and democracy in their work with students. Though their lives were deeply affected by apartheid, it never stole their hearts, minds, or souls. Their work helped lead to the election of Nelson Mandela as the first democratic leader of South Africa in 1994.