Baruch Hirson--historian and political scientist--was a towering figure of the intellectual Left in South Africa for much of the twentieth century. Yael Hirson has collected and edited his writings to produce a comprehensive picture which includes the role of trade unions, the Communist Party, Trotyskist groups, aspects of workers's resistence to oppression by the state and big business--so often closely linked--and the vital questions of race, color and class in the struggle against the apartheid state. This book provides a unique insight into the formative influences which helped to guide...

Decades after its original publication, Year of Fire, Year of Ash still stands as one of the leading accounts of the 1976-77 Soweto Revolt, one of the most significant acts of resistance in the history of the South African anti-apartheid movement. Written by Baruch Hirson, a South African activist and scholar who was intimately involved in the movement, the book provides an unparalleled insight into the origins and events of the uprising, from its antecedents in the early 1970s to its role in galvanizing the global struggle against apartheid.
Crucially, the book overturned the...