This book explains why the assassination of Chris Hani, general secretary of the SACP, in 1993 had a decisive influence on the transition to democracy in South Africa. It traces his rural roots in the Transkei, his introduction to religious and politics at school and university, and his recruitment to the ANC, SACP and MK. Emphasising his physical and moral courage, his interest in people and his leadership skills, it examines his military role in the Wankie Campaign, his critical reaction in its aftermath, and the part he played in the organisation of civil society and the underground from Lesotho. It also looks at his later role as political commissar and chief of staff of MK, and as a leader of the ANC and the SACP in the transition. It concludes with an analysis of his vision f a new South Africa.

Thabo Mbeki is the most important African political figure of his generation and the dominant figure in South African politics for 14 years. A pan-African philosopher-king who spent two decades in exile, as a president of Africa's most industrialised state, he set out a sweeping vision of an African Renaissance. As a key liberation leader in exile, Mbeki was instrumental in his party's anti-apartheid struggle. During the South African transition, he helped build one of the world's most respected constitutional democracies. As president, despite some successes, he was unable to overcome South Africa's inherited socio-economic challenges and his disastrous AIDS policies will remain a major blemish. He will, however, be remembered more as a foreign policy president for his peacemaking efforts in Africa and building of continental institutions such as AU and NEPAD. This book seeks to rescue Mbeki from South African parochialism and to restore him to the pan-African pantheon.

The Land is Ours tells the story of South Africa's first black lawyers, in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. In an age of aggressive colonial expansion, land dispossession and forced labour, these men believed in a constitutional system that respected individual rights and freedoms, and they used the law as an instrument against injustice.

The book follows the lives, ideas and careers of Henry, Sylvester Williams, Alfred Mangena, Richard Msimang, Pixley ka Isaka Seme, Ngcubu Poswayo and George Montsioa, most of whom were also members of the ANC. It analyses the legal cases they took on, explores how they reconciled the law with the political upheavals of the day, and considers how they sustained their fidelity to the law when legal victories were undermined by politics.

The Land is Ours shows how these lawyers developed the concept of a Bill of Rights, which is now an international norm. Amid current suspicion of the Constitution and its protection of individual rights, the book clearly demonstrates that, from the beginning, the struggle for freedom was based on the ideas of constitutionalism and the rule of law.