Composing Apartheid is the first book ever to chart the musical world of a notorious period in world history, apartheid South Africa. It explores how music was produced through, and was productive of, key features of apartheid’s social and political topography, as well as how music and musicians contested and even helped to conquer apartheid. The collection of essays is intentionally broad, and the contributors include historians, sociologists and anthropologists, as well as ethnomusicolog...

South Africa's 'Border War' provides a timely study of the 'war of words' waged by retired South African Defence Force (SADF) generals and other veterans against critics and detractors. The book explores the impact of the 'Border War' on South African culture and society during apartheid and in the new dispensation and discusses the lasting legacy or 'afterlife' of the war in great detail. It also offers an appraisal of the secondary literature of the 'Border War', supplemented by...

For much of its time in power, the National Party government was shored up by the direct involvement of its security forces. Ordinary citizens had no idea that their taxes were being used to fund unorthodox and even illegal operations, ranging from international propaganda campaigns to local death squads. From the dreaded Security Branch, the sinister Civil Cooperation Bureau, the aptly named BOSS and the ubiquitous front companies set up to bypass an arms embargo and economic sanctions, S...

What really happened during South Africa’s military involvement in Angola? Did the military leaders always see eye to eye with the politicians – and with each other? Was South Africa responsible for the death of Mozambican President Samora Machel? What was the extent of South Africa’s nuclear programme? How did South Africa’s military machine deal with the end of apartheid? Based on interviews with the former generals of the South African Defence Force, Days of the Generals addresses these...

The definitive story of African nations after they emerged from colonialism -- from Mugabe's doomed kleptocracy to Mandela's inspiring defeat of apartheid.The Fate of Africa has been hailed by reviewers as "A masterpiece....The nonfiction book of the year" (The New York Post); "a magnificent achievement" (Weekly Standard); "a joy," (Wall Street Journal) and "one of the decade's most important works on Africa" (Publishers Week...

Narrating his experiences in Africa, Baker has dwelled upon the wild and untamed beauty of the land. He elaborates the culture of the people, their religion as well as the wild-life and its habitat. The book offers a detailed study of the area with a profound personal touch and opinions of the author.

The events that capitulated the Congo into prominence in 1960 were many: Congo’s recent independence from Belgium, Congo’s immense mineral wealth, the lack of leadership which plunged the country into civil war, and the harsh treatment by the Belgians of the native population for the proceeding 100 years. The first democratically elected Prime Minister was deposed in a coup shortly after his election because of his communist ties and because he objected to the Belgian-backed secession of t...

In this book Alex Perry explores how humanitarian activities across the world, including those of celebrities like George Clooney and others brought pressure to bear that resulted in the creation of South Sudan as a separate state. This at a time when senior diplomats believed the chances of the new nation surviving and thriving were slim. Predictably, it seems an outcome that should have solved problems, reduced violence and saved lives has produced a fresh wave of bloodshed. Perry opens ...

Burundi has recently emerged from twelve years of devastating civil war. Its economy has been destroyed and hundreds and thousands of people have been killed. In this book, the voices of ordinary Burundians are heard for the first time.Farmers, artisans, traders, mothers, soldiers and students talk about the past and the future, war and peace, their hopes for a better life and their relationships with each other and the state. Young men, in particular, often seen as the cause of vi...

From the mid-fifteenth century to the close of the nineteenth, it is estimated that more than 12 million people from Africa were forced onto slave ships and transported to the Americas; at least 11 million survived the journey. Even after Britain banned the importation of African slaves in its colonies in 1807, and the u.s. followed suit in 1808, more than 3 million Africans made the terrible transit across the Atlantic. Slavery itself was not finally ended until Brazilian emancipation in ...

Algeria's democratic experiment is seminal in post-Cold War history. The first Muslim nation to attempt the transition from an authoritarian system to democratic pluralism, this North African country became a test case for reform in Africa, the Arab world and beyond. Yet when the country looked certain to become the world's first elected Islamic republic, there was a military coup and the democratic process was brought sharply to a halt. Islamists declared jihad on the state and hundreds o...

Mine-protected and mine-resistant, ambush-protected (MRAP) vehicles are today standard in the US, most major western armed forces and many other armies as a result of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. The South African Army was already routinely using mine-protected armored personnel carriers and patrol vehicles forty years ago even if they looked primitive and ungainly. A few years later, the South African Army had reached the stage where it could deploy entire combat groups into battle z...