Clifton Crais – författare

In The Politics of Evil, Clifton Crais provides a unique interpretation of South African history and a fresh approach to the study of power, culture and resistance in the modern world. Encompassing all of South Africa's history in his analysis, Crais examines the formation of an authoritarian political order and the complex ways people understood and resisted the colonial state. He explores state formation as a cultural and political process as well as a moral problem and he looks at indigenous concepts of power, authority and evil, analysing how they shaped cross-cultural encounters and the making of a colonial order. Apartheid represented one of the great evils of the twentieth century. This book reveals how the victims of apartheid understood the triumph of this evil in their lives as they elaborated rich and at times violent visions of a just world. Professor Crais concludes by looking at political transition, the challenges to creating a durable democracy and the persistence of evil in South Africa.

In The Politics of Evil, Clifton Crais provides a unique interpretation of South African history and a fresh approach to the study of power, culture and resistance in the modern world. Encompassing all of South Africa's history in his analysis, Crais examines the formation of an authoritarian political order and the complex ways people understood and resisted the colonial state. He explores state formation as a cultural and political process as well as a moral problem and he looks at indigenous concepts of power, authority and evil, analysing how they shaped cross-cultural encounters and the making of a colonial order. Apartheid represented one of the great evils of the twentieth century. This book reveals how the victims of apartheid understood the triumph of this evil in their lives as they elaborated rich and at times violent visions of a just world. Professor Crais concludes by looking at political transition, the challenges to creating a durable democracy and the persistence of evil in South Africa.

Displayed on European stages from 1810 to 1815 as the Hottentot Venus, Sara Baartman was one of the most famous women of her day, and also one of the least known. As the Hottentot Venus, she was seen by Westerners as alluring and primitive, a reflection of their fears and suppressed desires. But who was Sara Baartman? Who was the woman who became the Hottentot Venus? Based on research and interviews that span three continents, Sara Baartman and the Hottentot Venus tells the entwined histories of an illusive life and a famous icon. In doing so, the book raises questions about the possibilities and limits of biography for understanding those who live between and among different cultures. In reconstructing Baartman's life, the book traverses the South African frontier and its genocidal violence, cosmopolitan Cape Town, the ending of the slave trade, the Industrial Revolution, the French Revolution, the Napoleonic Wars, London and Parisian high society, and the rise of racial science.The authors discuss the ramifications of discovering that when Baartman went to London, she was older than originally assumed, and they explore the enduring impact of the Hottentot Venus on ideas about women, race, and sexuality. The book concludes with the politics involved in returning Baartman's remains to her home country, and connects Baartman's story to her descendants in nineteenth- and twentieth-century South Africa. Sara Baartman and the Hottentot Venus offers the authoritative account of one woman's life and reinstates her to the full complexity of her history.

The South Africa Reader is an extraordinarily rich guide to the history, culture, and politics of South Africa. With more than eighty absorbing selections, the Reader provides many perspectives on the country's diverse peoples, its first two decades as a democracy, and the forces that have shaped its history and continue to pose challenges to its future, particularly violence, inequality, and racial discrimination. Among the selections are folktales passed down through the centuries, statements by seventeenth-century Dutch colonists, the songs of mine workers, a widow's testimony before the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, and a photo essay featuring the acclaimed work of Santu Mofokeng. Cartoons, songs, and fiction are juxtaposed with iconic documents, such as "The Freedom Charter" adopted in 1955 by the African National Congress and its allies and Nelson Mandela's "Statement from the Dock" in 1964. Cacophonous voices-those of slaves and indentured workers, African chiefs and kings, presidents and revolutionaries-invite readers into ongoing debates about South Africa's past and present and what exactly it means to be South African.

‘Combines brilliant storytelling with rich and deeply researched evidence . . . essential reading’ – Caroline Elkins, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Imperial Reckoning and Legacy of Violence'Synoptic in its reach, overwhelming in its detail, The Killing Age leaves one feeling like Jonathan Swift’s Gulliver, who came to prefer the company of peaceable horses to membership of humankind' – J. M. Coetzee, Nobel Prize-winning author of Disgrace--------------------A bold, trailblazing history that asks: what if the movements that built the modern world – the Enlightenment, democracy, the Industrial Revolution – were more catastrophic than we ever imagined?In this radical rethinking of modernity, Professor Clifton Crais argues that the era between 1750 and the early 1900s – seen by many as the birth of the Anthropocene – should instead be known as the Mortecene: the Age of Killing.Killing brought the world together and tore it apart, as violence and commerce converged to create a new and terrible world order that drove the growth of global capitalism. Profiteering warlords left a trail of devastation across Africa, Asia, and the Americas, committing mass-scale slaughter of humans and animals, and sparking an environmental crisis that remains the most pressing threat facing the world today.Drawing on decades of scholarship and a range of new sources, The Killing Age turns our vision of past and present on its head, illuminating the Mortecene in all its horror: how it has shaped who we are, what we value, what we fear, and the precarious planet we must now confront.'Crais obliges us to confront the naked reality of a modern world order spawned from the barrel of a gun . . . This is a courageous and highly readable work' – David Wengrow, co-author of The Dawn of Everything

‘Combines brilliant storytelling with rich and deeply researched evidence . . . essential reading for anyone seeking a global history that reexamines the past on a massive scale’ – Caroline Elkins, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Imperial Reckoning and Legacy of Violence'Synoptic in its reach, overwhelming in its detail, The Killing Age leaves one feeling like Jonathan Swift’s Gulliver, who came to prefer the company of peaceable horses to membership of humankind' – J. M. Coetzee, Nobel Prize-winning author of Disgrace--------------------A bold, trailblazing history that asks: what if the movements that built the modern world – the Enlightenment, democracy, the Industrial Revolution – were more catastrophic than we ever imagined?In this radical rethinking of modernity, Professor Clifton Crais argues that the era between 1750 and the early 1900s – seen by many as the birth of the Anthropocene – should instead be known as the Mortecene: the Age of Killing.Killing brought the world together and tore it apart, as violence and commerce converged to create a new and terrible world order that drove the growth of global capitalism. Profiteering warlords left a trail of devastation across Africa, Asia, and the Americas, committing mass-scale slaughter of humans and animals, and sparking an environmental crisis that remains the most pressing threat facing the world today.Drawing on decades of scholarship and a range of new sources, The Killing Age turns our vision of past and present on its head, illuminating the Mortecene in all its horror: how it has shaped who we are, what we value, what we fear, and the precarious planet we must now confront.'Crais obliges us to confront the naked reality of a modern world order spawned from the barrel of a gun . . . This is a courageous and highly readable work' – David Wengrow, co-author of The Dawn of Everything

Poverty and violence are issues of global importance. In Poverty, War, and Violence in South Africa, Clifton Crais explores the relationship between colonial conquest and the making of South Africa's rural poor. Based on a wealth of archival sources, this detailed history changes our understanding of the origins of the gut-wrenching poverty that characterizes rural areas today. Crais shifts attention away from general models of economic change and focuses on the enduring implications of violence in shaping South Africa's past and present. Crais details the devastation wrought by European forces and their African auxiliaries. Their violence led to wanton bloodshed, large-scale destruction of property, and famine. Crais explores how the survivors struggled to remake their lives, including the adoption of new crops, and the world of inequality and vulnerability colonial violence bequeathed. He concludes with a discussion of contemporary challenges and the threats to democracy in South Africa.