WHITE GOLD AND THIRSTY COMMUNITIES, the Cold War, apartheid and the Lesotho Highlands Water Project

204pp., illus., maps, paperback, Africa Institute of South Africa, Pretoria, 2026

ISBN: 9780798305457

A study of the 1986 Lesotho Highlands Water Project, signed between apartheid South Africa and military-led Lesotho - a technical success that transfers hundreds of millions of cubic metres of water to Gauteng Province, yet a social failure that resulted in displacement, unequal benefits, and ongoing resistance.

John Aerni-Flessner traces the twenty-year negotiations leading up to the signing of the treaty, assesses how the Cold War and anti-apartheid struggles shaped these negotiations, and considers the effect of global geopolitical battles on the process.

"Through an unprecedented exploration of the Lesotho Highlands Water Project, John Aerni-Flessner shows us how this feat of transnational engineering serves as a living relic of inequality and global uncertainty. For those interested in how the residues of the past are shaping the future in southern Africa, this is the book we have been waiting for." Rachel King, Professor of Cultural Heritage Studies, University College London Institute of Archaeology, and author of Outlaws, Anxiety, and Disorder: Material histories of the Maloti-Darkensberg

"Delving into the politics of water in Lesotho and South Africa, this book reveals the history and implications of the Lesotho Highlands Water Project. It is a remarkable work that lays bare the entrenched racial and class injustices that have shaped dam development in southern Africa." Nthabiseng Mokoena-Mokhali, archaeologist and lecturer, Department of Historical Studies, National University of Lesotho

John Aerni-Flessner is Associate Professor of African and World History at Michigan State University.