The history of a radical group of intellectuals who founded the New Era Fellowship, which shaped human rights precedents and social justice policy in South Africa In 1937 a group of young Capetonians, socialist intellectuals from the Workers’ Party of South Africa, embarked on a project they called the New Era Fellowship (NEF). In doing so they sought to disrupt and challenge not only prevailing political narratives but the very premises – class and ‘race’ – on which they were based. In different forums – public debates, lectures, study circles and cultural events – the seeds of radical thinking were planted, nurtured and brought to full flower. Taking a position of non-collaboration and non-racialism, the NEF played a vital role in challenging society’s responses to events ranging from the problem of taking up arms during the Second World War for an empire intent on stripping people of colour of their human rights to the Hertzog Bills, which foreshadowed apartheid in all its ruthless effectiveness. In subsequent narratives of liberation their significance has been overlooked, even disparaged, and has never been fully understood and acknowledged. By shining a contemporary light on the NEF and locating its contribution in current sociological and political discourse, educationist Crain Soudien shows how its members were at the forefront of redefining the debate about social difference in a racially divided society.

In 1937 a group of young Capetonians, socialist intellectuals from the Workers’ Party of South Africa, embarked on a project they called the New Era Fellowship (NEF). In doing so they sought to disrupt and challenge not only prevailing political narratives but the very premises – class and ‘race’ – on which they were based. In different forums – public debates, lectures, study circles and cultural events – the seeds of radical thinking were planted, nurtured and brought to full flower. Taking a position of non-collaboration and non-racialism, the NEF played a vital role in challenging society’s responses to events ranging from the problem of taking up arms during the Second World War for an empire intent on stripping people of colour of their human rights to the Hertzog Bills, which foreshadowed apartheid in all its ruthless effectiveness. In subsequent narratives of liberation their significance has been overlooked, even disparaged, and has never been fully understood and acknowledged. By shining a contemporary light on the NEF and locating its contribution in current sociological and political discourse, educationist Crain Soudien shows how its members were at the forefront of redefining the debate about social difference in a racially divided society.

What is the link, if any, between race and disease? How did the term baster as ‘mixed race’ come to be mistranslated from ‘incest’ in the Hebrew Bible? What are the roots of racial thinking in South African universities? How does music fall on the ear of black and white listeners? Are new developments in genetics simply a backdoor for the return of eugenics? For the first time, leading scholars in South Africa from different disciplines take on some of these difficult questions about race, science and society in the aftermath of apartheid. This book offers an important foundation for students pursuing a broader education than what a typical degree provides, and a must-read resource for every citizen concerned about the lingering effects of race and racism in South Africa and other parts of the world.

This authoritative work examines 500 years of interaction between the races in a country that during the apartheid era became a byword for racial disharmony. Nelson Mandela's release from prison in February 1990 was the defining moment in South Africa's transition from apartheid to democracy. But as this fascinating study shows, the racial history of South Africa is much more complex than a simple struggle between black and white. How did South Africa become a crossroads for peoples as diverse as the Zulu, the Xhosa, the Dutch, and the Chinese? Did the end of apartheid really herald a new dawn in race relations, or have the scars of those years yet to truly heal? To answer these questions, this timely volume examines South Africa's ethnic history over 500 years. From the earliest contacts between Europeans and Africans to the country's changing role in the post-apartheid era, this reference work traces the fascinating racial history of South Africa before, during, and after the apartheid years.

A history of the erosion of democracy across the globe Democracy is being destroyed. This is a crisis that expresses itself in the rising authoritarianism visible in divisive and exclusionary politics, populist political parties and movements, increased distrust in fact-based information and news, and the withering accountability of state institutions. Over the last four decades, democracy has radically shifted to a market democracy in which all aspects of human, non-human and planetary life are commodified, with corporations becoming more powerful than states and their citizens. This is how neoliberal capitalism functions at a systemic level and if left unchecked, is the greatest threat to democracy and a sustainable planet. Volume six of the Democratic Marxism series focuses on how decades of neoliberal capitalism have eroded the global democratic project and how, in the process, authoritarian politics are gaining ground. Scholars and activists from the political left focus on four country cases – India, Brazil, South Africa and the United States of America – in which the COVID-19 pandemic has fuelled and highlighted the pre-existing crisis. They interrogate issues of politics, ecology, state security, media, access to information and political parties, and affirm the need to reclaim and re-build an expansive and inclusive democracy. Destroying Democracy is an invaluable resource for the general public, activists, scholars and students who are interested in understanding the threats to democracy and the rising tide of authoritarianism in the global south and the global north.

Before the Civil War, Northern, Southern, and Western political cultures crashed together on the middle border, where the Ohio, Mississippi, and Missouri Rivers meet. German Americans who settled in the region took an antislavery stance, asserting a liberal nationalist philosophy rooted in their revolutionary experience in Europe that emphasized individual rights and freedoms. By contextualizing German Americans in their European past and exploring their ideological formation in failed nationalist revolutions, Zachary Stuart Garrison adds nuance and complexity to their story. Liberal German immigrants, having escaped the European aristocracy who undermined their revolution and the formation of a free nation, viewed slaveholders as a specter of European feudalism. During the antebellum years, many liberal German Americans feared slavery would inhibit westward progress, and so they embraced the Free Soil and Free Labor movements and the new Republican Party. Most joined the Union ranks during the Civil War. After the war, in a region largely opposed to black citizenship and Radical Republican rule, German Americans were seen as dangerous outsiders. Facing a conservative resurgence, liberal German Republicans employed the same line of reasoning they had once used to justify emancipation: A united nation required the end of both federal occupation in the South and special protections for African Americans. Having played a role in securing the Union, Germans largely abandoned the freedmen and freedwomen. They adopted reconciliation in order to secure their place in the reunified nation. Garrison’s unique transnational perspective to the sectional crisis, the Civil War, and the postwar era complicates our understanding of German Americans on the middle border.