Internal Frontiers

Jon Soske is an assistant professor of history at McGill University and research associate at the Centre for Indian Studies in Africa, University of the Witwatersrand. He has co-edited three books, One Hundred Years of the ANC: Debating Liberation Histories Today, Apartheid Israel: The Politics of an Analogy, and Ties That Bind: Race and the Politics of Friendship in South Africa.

"Ambitious and rivetingly intelligent, Internal Frontiers offers a decolonized model of global history. Located at the intersection of South Africa's anti-apartheid struggle with the idea of India, this book rescripts notions of race, empire, nation, diaspora and much more. Exquisitely written with exceptional interdisciplinary depth, it will become a model of intellectual transnational history." "This paradigm-shifting book locates a radical strain of South African nationalism in the political firmament of postwar Durban. Deeply researched and beautifully written, Internal Frontiers reveals how insurgent intellectuals such as Anton Lembede and Albert Luthuli, influenced by India's independence movement and the challenges of building solidarity with Natal's Indian diaspora, conceived a vision of the nation 'from below' that affirmed African agency while also embracing a diverse, multiethnic political community." "Soske's combination of 'high' political narrative with material histories of class, race and sexuality is indispensable. This book is an extremely important counter to sentimental ideas about social and political relations between Africans and people of South Asian descent in South Africa during turbulent times."