South Africa has experienced one of the world's most dramatic political transformations. David Goodman, a journalist and activist who has witnessed South Africa's struggles since the darkest days of apartheid, chronicles the historic transition from apartheid to democracy. This compelling story is told through the lives of four pairs of South Africans who have experienced apartheid from opposite sides of the racial and political divide. Taken together, these profiles provide the first in-depth look at the social dynamics of post-apartheid South Africa. Part social history and part personal drama, "Fault Lines" is an account of what happens to real people when their country is reinvented around them. The struggle to reconcile past evils is captured in the stories of a former police assassin and his intended victim. The rise and fall of South African racism is portrayed through the lives of the late Prime Minister H.F. Verwoerd - the notorious 'architect of apartheid' - and his grandson, now a member of the ruling African National Congress. The battle to break out of poverty is detailed in the story of two black women: one an impoverished domestic worker and new city councilor, the other a Mercedes-driving member of South Africa's new black elite. The struggle for the land is told through the eyes of two neighbors: a black farmer who was evicted from his lands in the 1980s and has returned to start over, and a conservative white farmer who participated in the eviction and now does business with the man whose life he nearly destroyed. These powerful stories are accompanied by the photography of award-winning South African documentary photographer Paul Weinberg.
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"This is a searingly honest book by someone who really knows his subject. Goodman is sympathetic to the attempts at transformation in my beloved motherland. The message of this book applies just as easily to the United States, where the fault lines run very deep, too. And the U.S. has been trying to solve these problems a great deal longer than the new South Africa." - Archbishop Desmond Tutu
About the Author
David Goodman is a freelance journalist who began traveling to South Africa at the height of apartheid in the 1980s. His work has appeared in Mother Jones, The Washington Post, Outside, The Nation, Village Voice, Boston Globe and many other publications. A graduate of Harvard University, he lives with his wife and two children in Vermont. Paul Weinberg is a South African documentary photographer. He is the recipient of the Mother Jones International Documentary Award for his photography
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Rev. Frank Chikane makes his point as a member of the Independent Electoral Commission, 1994. Read the first page
Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Index | Back Cover
Rev. Frank Chikane makes his point as a member of the Independent Electoral Commission, 1994. Read the first page
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
By A Customer
Format:Hardcover
I first heard about this book on a radio talk show and immediately ordered it through Amazon.com. Listening to the author talk about his views on South Africa was quite interesting because he loves the country and its people and is cautiously enthusiastic about its future, but reading his book reveals that the vast problems South Africa faces are incredibly complex and that it may well take several generations to create an egalitarian society. One really wonders if South Africa will stand the test of time and not become another Rwanda or Yugoslavia.
The author intelligently divided the book into four parts: an introduction in which he talks about his early trips in South Africa under apartheid and the current social situation of the country, four portrait sections in which he includes a pair of interviews with people on opposite sides of the current post-apartheid experience, and a sensible personal conclusion. The reader should expect moving as well as harrowing personal accounts of apartheid and post-apartheid South Africa. Many things throughout the book will bring hope to the reader; however, that hope will be checked by Goodman's well-informed statistics on criminality and unemployment in present-day South Africa. The book definitively deserves a wide readership.
By A Customer
Format:Hardcover
Having visited South Africa in October, 1998, and seen the extensive squatters areas described by the author, I do not believe that readers of his book can adequately understand the extreme poverty he describes. It has to be seen and experienced to be appreciated. Mr. Goodman's portraits of the eight people in his book gives flesh and humanity to the otherwise dehumanizing nature of apartheid. I think his work is best appreciated if you have seen South Africa for yourself. For your readers who have not been to South Africa, they owe it to themselves to see it. I believe you can not remain unmoved by what you see and one must come away from that experience a better person.
Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta)
Amazon.com:
4.2 out of 5 stars
5 reviews
12 of 13 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars
An excellent introduction to present-day South Africa
22 May 1999
By carlos_lugo-ortiz@entm.purdue.edu
- Published on Amazon.com
Format:Hardcover
I first heard about this book on a radio talk show and immediately ordered it through Amazon.com. Listening to the author talk about his views on South Africa was quite interesting because he loves the country and its people and is cautiously enthusiastic about its future, but reading his book reveals that the vast problems South Africa faces are incredibly complex and that it may well take several generations to create an egalitarian society. One really wonders if South Africa will stand the test of time and not become another Rwanda or Yugoslavia.
The author intelligently divided the book into four parts: an introduction in which he talks about his early trips in South Africa under apartheid and the current social situation of the country, four portrait sections in which he includes a pair of interviews with people on opposite sides of the current post-apartheid experience, and a sensible personal conclusion. The reader should expect moving as well as harrowing personal accounts of apartheid and post-apartheid South Africa. Many things throughout the book will bring hope to the reader; however, that hope will be checked by Goodman's well-informed statistics on criminality and unemployment in present-day South Africa. The book definitively deserves a wide readership.
8 of 10 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars
Expands on what I saw in South Africa, October, 1998
10 April 1999
By A Customer
- Published on Amazon.com
Format:Hardcover
Having visited South Africa in October, 1998, and seen the extensive squatters areas described by the author, I do not believe that readers of his book can adequately understand the extreme poverty he describes. It has to be seen and experienced to be appreciated. Mr. Goodman's portraits of the eight people in his book gives flesh and humanity to the otherwise dehumanizing nature of apartheid. I think his work is best appreciated if you have seen South Africa for yourself. For your readers who have not been to South Africa, they owe it to themselves to see it. I believe you can not remain unmoved by what you see and one must come away from that experience a better person.
3 of 4 people found the following review helpful
4.0 out of 5 stars
Views from both sides
22 Jan 2004
By Robert Orion
- Published on Amazon.com
Format:Paperback
Goodman has compiled a great book here with views on important events in South African history. These events are examined with narratives from both sides, white and black. The aftermath of each event is traced as well.
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4.2 out of 5 stars
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