MAGA and the return of Trump
‘GOODBYE, America; it was nice knowing you.’ Those were the words of the British writer Philip Pullman the day Donald Trump was re-elected president of the United States. John Cusack, the American actor, reminded his […]
-
-
The Truth about Cape Slavery
Patric Tariq Mellet, The Truth about Cape Slavery: The Foundations of Colonial South Africa (Cape Town: Tafelberg, 2024) CAPE slavery has often been described as relatively benign, a sideshow to the main drama of South […]
-
Persistent urban legend
EVERY Monday morning in the grounds of our local Anglican church modest food parcels are handed out. This began at a garden gate during the pandemic to help people who had lost jobs and resorted […]
-
Hunting with the Hawks: Untold Stories from the Elite South African Crime-Fighting Unit
Graham Coetzer, Hunting with the Hawks: Untold Stories from the Elite South African Crime-Fighting Unit (Cape Town: Tafelberg, 2024) THE FAMED Scorpions, the Directorate of Special Operations which fell under the NPA and combined investigative […]
-
Hunting the Seven: How the Gugulethu Seven Assassins were Exposed
Beverley Roos-Muller, Hunting the Seven: How the Gugulethu Seven Assassins were Exposed (Johannesburg: Jonathan Ball, 2024) THE ATTEMPTED ambush of a police van in Gugulethu on 3 March 1986 resulted in the deaths of seven […]
-
Social media: a world of hatred and fakery
FOR the last few years of my formal working life, I was employed in the newsroom of a medium-size, well-established paper. It was a happy experience in a non-hierarchic, team-orientated environment and a relief after […]
-
High Times: The Extraordinary Life of a Joburg Dope Smuggler
Roy Isacowitz and Jeremy Gordin, High Times: The Extraordinary Life of a Joburg Dope Smuggler (Johannesburg: Jonathan Ball, 2024) CHARM, charisma and confidence are worth more than any academic qualification; but they can spill over […]
-
Botha, Smuts and the First World War
Antonio Garcia and Ian van der Waag, Botha, Smuts and the First World War (Johannesburg: Jonathan Ball, 2024) MEMORIALS to generals Louis Botha and Jan Smuts have not fared well in recent years; removed or […]
-
Pissing in, or pissing out
THE rather crude image of a political tent with one’s adversaries outside pissing in, or alternatively inside pissing out, is attributed to US President Lyndon Johnson. In South Africa, following the 29 May elections the […]
-
Crash and Burn: A CEO’s Crazy Adventures in the SA Airline Industry
Glenn Orsmond, Crash and Burn: A CEO’s Crazy Adventures in the SA Airline Industry (Johannesburg: Jonathan Ball, 2024) FOR nearly thirty years I was regularly told that higher education needed to follow a business model. […]