Scholar's book gets local release

Following on its international release by Brill Academic Publishers in 2005, Democracy Compromised - Chiefs and the Politics of Land in South Africa by UCT's Associate Professor Lungisile Ntsebeza (MP vol 24 no 21) has now been brought out locally by the Human Sciences Research Council Press. In Democracy Compromised, Ntsebeza, based in UCT's Department of Sociology, directed the spotlight at South Africa's traditional authorities, tracking their heritage from the colonial past through to post-apartheid South Africa. Ntsebeza uses the area of Xhalanga in the Transkei region of the Eastern Cape as the case study for his text. "Superb historical scholarship together with hard-hitting contemporary comment provide the framework in which two main issues are explored: the survival of traditional authorities, and how they derive their authority," says HSRC Press of the title. Copies of all of HSRC Press published titles are available from leading booksellers nationally, and from its online bookshop at www.hsrcpress.ac.za.