Unless it can improve its universities, Africa risks losing out in a globalised knowledge economy. Yet many African universities, including South Africa's, are under threat with policies and management styles too frequently inimical to academic quality. Focusing on recent developments at the University of KwaZulu-Natal (UKZN), RW Johnson is scathing about 'nationalist fundamentalism' and the 'Big Man' syndrome. A hard-hitting look at the state of African and South African higher education....

RW Johnson's bestselling book How Long Will South Africa Survive? was described by Alec Hogg as 'a masterpiece in unblemished reality'. Published at the height of the Zuma presidency it offered a chilling warning: the ANC appeared determined to drive South Africa into the abyss.Since then, Cyril Ramaphosa has taken over as president and there have been some attempts to clean up government. But the brief period of 'Ramaphoria' is over and the threat to both the economy and ...

"The Unintended Traveler" is a thrilling science fiction novel that takes readers on an unforgettable journey through an alternate reality. When Walter Briggs, a business analyst from San Francisco, mysteriously awakens in a parallel reality, his first reaction is that he must be dreaming. But as time goes by, he realizes this is no dream and his new world is nothing like home. After unexpectedly running into his ex-girlfriend, Sarah Thomas, they become entangled in an experience that thre...

R.W. Johnson's articles and essays travel far beyond Southern Africa, reaching readers across continents. Their appeal lies not only in their acuity but also in his exceptional range of subjects – political, historical and cultural. As a former Oxford don and a leading international commentator, Johnson remains unmatched as an interpreter of national and world events.Whether he's writing about politics in South Africa, Europe or the United States, the new space race, the leading pe...

In 1977, Johnson's best selling How Long Will South Africa Survive? offered a controversial and highly original analysis of the survival prospects of apartheid. Now, after more than two decades of the ANC in government, he believes the question must be posed again. "The big question about ANC rule," Johnson writes, "is whether African nationalism would be able to cope with the challenges of running a modern industrial economy. Twenty years of ANC rule have shown conclusively that the party...

The universal jubilation that greeted Nelson Mandela's inauguration as president of South Africa in 1994 and the process by which the nightmare of apartheid had been banished is one of the most thrilling, hopeful stories in the modern era: peaceful, rational change was possible and, as with the fall of the Berlin Wall, the weight of an oppressive history was suddenly lifted.R.W. Johnson's major new book tells the story of South Africa from that magic period to the bitter disappoint...

Do scientists see conflict between science and faith? Which cultural factors shape the attitudes of scientists toward religion? Can scientists help show us a way to build collaboration between scientific and religious communities, if such collaborations are even possible? To answer these questions and more, the authors of Secularity and Science: What Scientists Around the World Really Think About Religion completed the most comprehensive international study of scientists' attitude...

Do scientists see conflict between science and faith? Which cultural factors shape the attitudes of scientists toward religion? Can scientists help show us a way to build collaboration between scientific and religious communities, if such collaborations are even possible?To answer these questions and more, the authors of Secularity and Science: What Scientists Around the World Really Think About Religion completed the most comprehensive international study of scientists' a...

In Foreign Native, RW Johnson looks back with affection and humour on his life in Africa. From schooldays in Durban – fresh off the plane from Merseyside – to later years as an academic, director of the Helen Suzman Foundation and formidable political commentator, he has produced an entertaining and occasionally eye-popping memoir brimming with history, anecdote and insight. Johnson charts his evolution from enthusiastic, left-leaning Africanist to political realist, relating episodes that...

Orogenesis, the process of mountain building, occurs when two tectonic plates collide – either forcing material upwards to form mountain belts such as the Alps or Himalayas or causing one plate to be subducted below the other, resulting in volcanic mountain chains such as the Andes. Integrating the approaches of structural geology and metamorphism, this book provides an up-to-date overview of orogenic research and an introduction to the physico-chemical properties of mountain belts. Global...

In 1977 R W Johnson's best-selling How Long Will South Africa Survive? provided a controversial analysis of the survival prospects of the apartheid regime. Now, after more than twenty years of ANC rule, he believes the situation has become so critical that the question must be posed again. He moves from an analysis of Jacob Zuma's rule to the increasingly dire state of the South African economy, concluding that the country is heading towards a likely International Monetary Fund bail-out, w...

Stephen Harper is a Canadian politician who is the 22nd and current Prime Minister of Canada and the Leader of the Conservative Party. Harper became prime minister in 2006, forming a minority government after the 2006 election. He is the first prime minister to come from the newly reconstituted Conservative Party, which formed after a merger of the Progressive Conservative Party and the Canadian Alliance. Harper has been the Member of Parliament (MP) for the riding of Calgary ...