Rethinking the South African Crisis

In the imagination of many, Mandela’s South Africa sits between nostalgia and fantasy, a place where Hollywood – and the ANC – has painted a story of happily ever after. Peeling away the veneer, Gill Hart brings her considerable scholarly talents, and a relentless curiosity, to understand today’s South Africa. Not only is it required reading, it’s very readable. Dive into this book, and you’ll find pictures, conversations, clippings and memoir, all in the service of explaining what South Africa is now and, using cutting edge theory, what it might become. Better yet, Rethinking the South African Crisis shows how African theory can matter to the rest of the world. It’s a terrific analytical model for pulling apart nationalism in its neoliberal forms, for understanding what happens when people get together and chant under the sign of Nike: USA! USA! USA!"

* author of Stuffed and Starved: The Hidden Battle for the World Food System and The Value of Nothing *

A book of this calibre recasts how we think about what has been happening in South Africa. Hart has conjured an exceptional work that might just help the left begin figuring out how to stop spinning its wheels.

* author of South Africa Pushed to the Limit: The Political Economy of Change *

Hart's text is extremely important and courageous in the context of South Africa's fiercely contested political discourse. Hart steps in front to contest exisiting understandings of the state, racial geographies, crisis, hegemony, and transition. Her attempt to challenge what exists is not only an academic intervention but also grounded in deep normative concerns about the trajectory of South African politics. . . . Hart's contribution is a welcome addition to the ongoing challenge to make sense of the complicated field of South African politics.

* Antipode *

Gillian Hart offers a defining challenge to our understanding of the contemporary crisis in South Africa. This book raises the bar in scholarly and political debate, and is a long-awaited sequel to Disabling Globalization.

* author of The Mandela Decade 1990–2000: Labour, Culture and Society in Post- Apartheid South Africa *

Rethinking the South African Crisis provides an insightful and much-needed deconstructive lens for interpreting the increasing socioeconomic disparity in post [-] apartheid South Africa. . . . [Hart] deftly integrates nuanced critical understandings to rethink the present crisis . . . It is precisely her intimate knowledge, involvement, and investments in these places that lend a personalized touch often missing in academic projects.

* Social & Cultural Geograp