THE AFRICAN NATIONAL CONGRESS, and the regeneration of political power

515pp., paperback, Johannesburg, 2011

Susan Booysen explores how the African National Congress has acted since 1994 to continuously regenerate its power and how South African politics is likely to unfold in the years to come.

"Few outsiders have been able to penetrate the complex worls of the ANC in power as Susan Booysen has. This is a superlative and passionate work by a critical observer, researcher, analyst who is miles ahead of the field. The author is that magical fly on the wall and has produced a masterpiece that has educated, beguiled, intrigued and challenged me. I couldn't put the book down and will re-read it again and again." Ronnie Kasrils, former ANC government minister and lifetime ANC/SACP activist and author of "The Unlikely Secret Agent".

"'The ANC and the Regeneration of Political Power' shows the ANC holding onto power by continually reinventing itself. It tells the story of how that process happened and is happening still. Exceedingly well-documented and completely devoid of polemics and hagiography, this book weighs judiciously the credits and debits of the ANC's achievement in maintaining its mass popularity. Booysen's great gift is to offer a point of view seemingly from the inside - without an insider's partisanship." Diana Wylie, Professor of History, African Studies Centre, Boston University