SHADOW OF LIBERATION, contestation and compromise in the economic and social policy of the African National Congress, 1943-1996

273pp., paperback, Johannesburg, 2019

Examines the African National Congress' economic and social policy-making, beginning with its 1943 'African Claims' policy framework and focusing on the transition era of the 1990s. Drawing on primary archival sources and interviews with protagonists across the political, non-government and business sectors, Padayachee and van Niekerk explore why the liberation movement embraced an essentially market-dominated approach.

"Padayachee and van Niekerk's achievement in researching this story from the surviving archival materials as well as the recollections of participants is impressive. Combining fine scholarship with vivid narrative, this is an economist's detective story." Tom Lodge, Dean of the Faculty of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences and Professor of Peace and Conflict Studies, University of Limerick

"This book provides the first comprehensive account of the ANC's 'trickle up' economic plan, and sheds light on a chapter of our recent history that is often forgotten." Z. Pallo Jordan, member of the ANC's National Executive Committee until 2014

Vishnu Padayachee is Distinguished Professor and Derek Schrier and Cecily Cameron Chair in Development Economics at the School of Economic and Business Sciences, University of the Witwatersrand.
Robert van Niekerk is Chair of Public Governance at the Wits School of Governance, University of the Witwatersrand.