Manzo examines, by means of historical analysis, the effects of global power relationships on the politics of South Africa. The author looks at the ways in which global power constructs identity, normalizes relations of domination, and shapes the form that resistance takes. She asks, for example, why dominated people are so often waging conflicts among themselves rather than directing their resistance unfailingly toward their oppressors. Why, too, is open defiance relatively rare and mass action infrequently used?

South Africa, as an example, is used to illustrate the much...