In this book John Saul examines the grim reality of postliberation southern Africa and also the forms of resistance that the resubordination of the continent now calls for. In the process he exposes and contests the rhetoric that serves as apologia for the ‘Empire of Capital,’ and shows the linkages between inequalities and injustices reinforced by the ‘free’ market on the one hand and, on the other, by the assertive religiosity and ethnic messianism that the ‘Empire’ helps to emerge and then uses as ‘justification’ for renewed imperialist intervention. His book makes a significant contribution to the discussion on imperialism and resistance to it in the present day.

John Saul tells this story forcefully with reference to southern Africa and ‘its struggle against white colonial overlordship and authoritarian capitalist imposition.’ The first part evokes both the decolonization of southern Africa and its grim recolonization. The book then moves on to critique the ideologues of empire and to mark the emergence of new struggles against the new subordination in southern Africa and elsewhere, to discuss their contours and assess their possibilities. The book asserts the relevance of socialism as the only real alternative to the logic of empire and the marketplace.

John S Saul is Profesor Emeritus of Social and Political Science at Toronto’s York University, Canada.