Like family

An analytic and historical perspective of literary texts to understand the position of domestic workers in South AfricaMore than a million black South African women are domestic workers. Precariously situated between urban and rural areas, rich and poor, white and black, these women are at once i...

Cape radicals

Rogue spying

In South Africa's democracy, the civilian intelligence agency's power has been weaponized to spy on political rivals, the media and civil society, while oversight institutions largely falter. As inquiries into Jacob Zuma's presidency opened doors for intelligence reform, Cyril Ramaphosa's adminis...

Organise or die?

The story of one of the leading trade unions in South Africa, the National Union of Mineworkers, and its role in the struggle against white minority rule. Organise or Die? Democracy and Leadership in South Africa's National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) is the first in-depth study of one of the lead...

A long way home

In no other society in the world have urbanisation and industrialization been as comprehensively based on migrant labour as in South Africa. Rather than focusing on the well-documented narrative of displacement and oppression, A Long Way Home captures the humanity, agency and creative modes of se...

African ark

The story of how Africa’s mammals have helped shape the continent’s landscapes over time to support an amazing diversity of lifeAfrica is home to an amazing array of animals, including the world’s most diverse assortment of large mammals. These include the world’s largest terrestrial mammal, the ...

Regarding muslims

An analysis of the role of Muslims from South Africa’s founding to the present and points to the resonance of these discussions beyond South Africa. How do Muslims fit into South Africa's well-known narrative of colonialism, apartheid and post-apartheid? South Africa is infamous for apartheid, bu...

Public intellectuals in south africa

This edited collection gives voice to neglected public intellectuals in the arts, humanities, and journalism in South Africa who gave voice and presence to those who have been marginalized and silenced in South African historyEdward Said described a public intellectual as someone who uses accessi...

Labour disrupted

Analyses the fragmentation and future of labour movements in South Africa and globally in the context of globalisation, the fourth industrial revolution and the Covid-19 pandemic.

Transforming research methods in the social sciences

A look at the research methods in development across the global SouthSocial science researchers in the global South, and in South Africa particularly, utilise research methods in innovative ways in order to respond to contexts characterised by diversity, racial and political tensions, socioeconom...

Bury me at the marketplace

When Chabani Manganyi published the first edition of selected letters twenty-five years ago as a companion volume to Exiles and Homecomings: A Biography of Es’kia Mphahlele, the idea of Mphahlele’s death was remote and poetic. The title, Bury Me at the Marketplace, suggested that immortality of a...

Mbeki and after

For nearly ten years – indeed more if we include his period of influence under Mandela’s presidency – Thabo Mbeki bestrode South Africa’s political stage. Despite attempts by some in the new ANC leadership to airbrush out his role, there can be little doubt that Mbeki was a seminal figure in Sout...

Sol plaatje's native life in south africa

Sheds new light on Native Life appearing at a critical historical juncture, and reflects on how to read it in South Africa’s heightened challenges today. First published in 1916, Sol Plaatje's Native Life in South Africa was written by one of the South Africa's most talented early twentieth-centu...

Wits

When the National Government assumed power in 1948, one of the earliest moves was to introduce segregated education. Its threats to restrict the admission of black students into the four ‘open universities’ galvanised the staff and students of those institutions to oppose any attempt to interfere...

A search for origins

A study of the 'Cradle of Humanity and its history.The 'Cradle of Humankind' (COH), bordering Gauteng and the North-West Province, was declared a World Heritage Site for the wealth of the human and animal fossils found there. Research based on fossils found in the area as well as signs of early h...

Becoming men

This vivid evocation of the lives of 32 boys from a Johannesburg township is essential reading for anybody wishing to understand black masculinity in South AfricaBecoming Men is the story of 32 boys from Alexandra, one of Johannesburg's largest townships, over a period of twelve seminal years in ...

Land, chiefs, mining

Land, Chiefs, Mining explores aspects of the experience of the Batswana in the thornveld and bushveld regions of the North-West Province, shedding light on defi ning issues, moments and individuals in this lesser known region of South Africa. Some of the focuses are: an important Tswana kgosi (ch...

Apartheid and the making of a black psychologist

This intriguing memoir details in a quiet and restrained manner with what it meant to be a committed black intellectual activist during the apartheid years and beyond. Few autobiographies exploring the ‘life of the mind’ and the ‘history of ideas’ have come out of South Africa, and N Chabani Mang...

New south african review 1

Is South Africa on a long-term decline?The New South African Review revives the tradition of critical, analytical scholarship developed by the South African Review in the 1970s and 1980s. Accessible to a wide readership and drawing upon authors from well beyond academia, its objective is to be in...

The musical instruments of the indigenous people of south africa

A detailed collection of information about the playing and making of the instruments of indigenous peoples' in South Africa. Percival Kirby was a musician and ethnomusicologist and for many years head of the music department at the University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg. Between 1923 and...

Baragwanath hospital, soweto

Baragwanath Hospital, Soweto illustrates how this rapidly growing, underfunded but surprisingly effective institution found the niche that allowed it to exist, to provide medical care to a massive patient body and at times even to flourish in the apartheid state. The book offers new ways of explo...

Black x

What does it mean to be Black in an anti-Black world?In Black X: Liberatory Thought in Azania, Tendayi Sithole offers a compelling example of how to engage South Africa differently. Set in the Black point of view as a site of critical reflection, he confronts the question of colonial conquest, so...

I want to go home forever

Thirteen true stories about xenophobia and belonging in JohannesburgGenerations of people from across Africa, Europe and Asia have turned metal from the depths of the earth into Africa’s wealthiest, most dynamic and most diverse urban centre, a mega-city where post-apartheid South Africa is being...

Visual century volume three: 1972-1993

In the third volume of the Visual Century Collection, the national struggle for democracy is juxtaposed with the challenging art of the time period.Visual Century: South African Art is a four-volume publication that reappraises South African visual art of the 20th century from a postapartheid per...

Parrots of africa, madagascar and the mascarene islands

A detailed examination of all aspects of parrots from behavior to their conservation.Parrots' colour and charisma, coupled with the fact that they mimic human speech, make them fascinating to many people. They are ancient birds with unique bill and foot structures that enable them to forage on fr...

Termites of the gods

Siyakha Mguni’s personal journey, over many years, to discover the significance of a hitherto enigmatic theme in San rock paintings known as formlings. In Termites of the Gods, Siyakha Mguni narrates his personal journey, over many years, to discover the significance of a hitherto enigmatic theme...

Visionary animal

An illustrated collection that takes stock of current knowledge and proposes a new way of reading indigenous artFor thousands of years, nomadic hunter-gatherers assigned a fundamental role to the visualization of the animals who shared their lives. Some, such as the Cape eland, the largest of ant...

Our lady of benoni

An innovative play tackling the role of patriarchy in South African cultureZakes Mda's satire is a kaleidoscopic display of the extremes to which men (and by implication women) are prepared to go in terms of valuing what is 'virginal'. Mda presents us with the consequences of transgression: that ...

Women by women

A look into the talent of South African female photographersCommissioned by the Ministry of Arts and Culture, this book celebrates the 50th anniversary of the 1956 women's march on the Union Buildings. It provides a dramatic and unprecedented showcase of photographic talent, from the early pionee...

People of the eland

The cornerstone of current understanding of rock art of the San of DrakensbergFirst published in 1976, People of the Eland was the first major step away from the outsider's view upon San rock art that had dominated studies of rock art for nearly a century. The book, an account of the rock art of ...

Monarchs, missionaries and african intellectuals

Much of the work in the field of African studies still relies on rigid distinctions of ‘tradition’ and ‘modernity’, ‘collaboration’ and ‘resistance’, ‘indigenous’ and ‘foreign’. This book moves well beyond these frameworks to probe the complex entanglements of different intellectual traditions in...

Ties that bind

Intimacies of friendship create vital spaces for practices of power and resistance within the histories of apartheid and colonialism. What does friendship have to do with racial difference, settler colonialism and post-apartheid South Africa? While histories of apartheid and colonialism in South ...

Practical anatomy

A clear, concise and accessible dissection guide for undergraduate allied health sciences and medical students encountering dissection for the first timePractical Anatomy is designed to enable novice anatomists to grasp the biological background of the human anatomy while understanding its comple...

The intrapreneur’s journey

An essential business guide on how to develop an organization's innovation culture and internal entrepreneurs (intrapreneurs)The Intrapreneur’s Journey: Empowering Employees to Drive Growth is an essential guide on effectively creating and implementing a sustainable culture of innovation and entr...

Dominance and decline

As Jacob Zuma moves into the twilight years of his presidencies of both the African National Congress (ANC) and of South Africa, this book takes stock of the Zuma-led administration and its impact on the ANC. Dominance and Decline: The ANC in the Time of Zuma combines hard-hitting arguments with ...

Healing the exposed being

This ethnography explores the Ngoma healing tradition as practiced in eastern Mpumalanga, South Africa. ‘Bungoma’ is an active philosophical system and healing practice consisting of multiple strands, based on the notion that humans are intrinsically exposed to each other and that this is the cau...