THE ANC YOUTH LEAGUE

172pp., illus., paperback, Reprint, Johannesburg, (2012) 2021

A short history of the ANC Youth League from its origins in the 1940s to the Julius Malema era.

“As Clive Glaser notes in his nuanced and lively account, the Youth League have, at certain times, played a pivotal role in shaping policy in its parent organisation. For Glaser, the rise of the YL needs to be seen in the context of the broader political and economic landscape of industrialisation and urbanisation, when ‘the townships of Johannesburg became an extraordinary melting pot of young, educated Africans” Kate Law, Journal of African History

“Glaser’s book provides a well-written analysis of the competition between ideologies and strategies within the ANC … Throughout, Glaser highlights the tensions between those leaders who stood for ideological purity as Africanists and those who gravitated to a more pragmatic approach that stressed ideological pluralism ... perceptively [analyzes] the ways in which South African youth have ignited and fueled the nationalist cause in South Africa over the last seventy-five years.” African Studies Review

Clive Glaser lectures in History at the University of the Witwatersrand. He is the author of Bo-Tsotsi: The youth gangs of Soweto 1935-1976 and co-author of volume 6 in the series From Protest to Challenge, a documentary history of African politics in South Africa, 1882-1990, Challenge and Victory, 1980-1990