Overview

Based upon exhaustive research in all presidential libraries from Hoover to Clinton, the voluminous archives of the African National Congress [ANC] at Fort Hare University in South Africa, along with allied archives of the NAACP, the Ford and Rockefeller fortunes, etc., this is the most comprehensive account to date of the entangled histories of apartheid and Jim Crow that culminated in 1994 with the election of Nelson Mandela as president in Pretoria. The author traces in detail the close ties between e.g. Mandela, Robeson, and Du Bois--among others--and how their working in tandem with the socialist camp (particularly the Soviet Union and Cuba) was the deciding factor (along with the struggles of Africans and their allies on both sides of the Atlantic) in compelling the reluctant retreat of the comrades-in-arms: apartheid and Jim Crow. However, weeks after the collapse of the Berlin Wall the apartheid regime chose to free Mandela and to legalize the ANC and its close ally, the South African Communist Party--while anticommunism, a major ideological weapon of the ruling class in Washington and Pretoria alike, surged--putting the Mandela government in a weakened position in the prelude to the nation's first democratic elections in 1994 and thereafter. Also detailed in these riveting pages are the allied struggles in Namibia, Angola, Zimbabwe, Congo, Tanzania, Zambia and Mozambique, along with the massive solidarity movement in the U.S.--particularly among unions and students--that contributed mightily to victory. This is a story well worth studying as we continue to combat anticommunism--and struggle for socialism.

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9780717807635

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I just got hold of this book on Southern Africa and have just finished reading it, what a worthwhile read! I found the book rewarding because it is akin to us writing our own story . The latter portion of the book is most interesting for obvious reasons. For one thing, I feel like one has lived that part. More importantly, perhaps, this is a portion of the story that is still unfolding--further to be shaped. Needless to say, I could not read this latter portion without wondering what this or the other comrade was now doing. We--all of us--owe Dr. Horne a great debt of gratitude for the tributes he has rendered for the lives of struggle that make up the book!! A TRULY GREAT WORK!! Victor Mashabela Former ANC representative to the United Nations Present Director of the Department of Trade and Industry of South Africa

"I just got hold of this book on Southern Africa and have just finished reading it, what a worthwhile read! I found the book rewarding because it is akin to us ""writing our own story"". The latter portion of the book is most interesting for obvious reasons. For one thing, I feel like one has lived that part. More importantly, perhaps, this is a portion of the story that is still unfolding--further to be shaped. Needless to say, I could not read this latter portion without wondering what this or the other comrade was now doing. We--all of us--owe Dr. Horne a great debt of gratitude for the tributes he has rendered for the lives of struggle that make up the book!! A TRULY GREAT WORK!! Victor Mashabela Former ANC representative to the United Nations Present Director of the Department of Trade and Industry of South Africa"

Author Information

Gerald Horne is Moores Professor of History and African American Studies at the University of Houston, has published more than 30 books, including 'The Apocalypse of Settler Colonialism: The Roots of Slavery, White Supremacy and Capitalism in 17th Century North America and the Caribbean.

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