Building a New South Africa

"The conversation transcripts are rich with possibilities both analytical and practical and make for fascinating reading for historians of contemporary South Africa, as well as those interested in urban histories more broadly."—Journal of Contemporary History

"Building a New South Africa is quite wonderful. It's one of the few books I know that can breathe life into that worn word 'community' and do it with eloquent specificity."—Jackson Lears, Board of Governors Professor of History, Rutgers University

"A distinctive and original contribution, this book engages with a community which has changed so much over the past 30 years. It underscores how people, isolated in their homes aspire to turn strangers into neighbors and asks about how to raise and educate children, how to sustain a family life, and how to overcome crime. It records conversations among groups, not individual interviews, and it illustrates how conversation itself can actually bring a community into being."—Philip Bonner, University of the Witwatersrand