Xolela Mangcu 
The Arrogance of Power 
South Africa’s Leadership Meltdown

Xolela Mangcu has earned a reputation as one of the most vibrant and engaging public voices in South Africa. This selection of his best columns, published locally and internationally over the past two decades, is vivid, polemical and poignant. It records the initial excitement – and growing disillusionment – about the ANC in government, and the leadership meltdown at the heart of the South African crisis. Placing South Africa in an African context, Mangcu examines political transitions and the limits to the politics of patronage in post-colonial societies. He also casts rare light on the relationship between black intellectuals and South Africa’s black-led government.

About the author

Professor Xolela Mangcu is Associate Professor of Sociology at the University of Cape Town and Oppenheimer Fellow at the Hutchins Centre for African and African American Research at Harvard University. He has held fellowships at the Brookings Institution, the Rockefeller Foundation, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Harvard. He was also a Distinguished Fellow and Executive Director at the Human Sciences Research Council. He holds a Ph D from Cornell University. Mangcu, a regular columnist for Business Day, the Weekender, the Sowetan and the Sunday Independent, has authored and co-authored seven previous books, including The Meaning of Mandela (2007), To the Brink (2008), The Democratic Moment (2009) and Becoming Worthy Ancestors (2011). His book Biko: A Biography (2012), a South African bestseller also published in the UK and US by IB Tauris, was shortlisted for the Recht Malan Nonfiction Prize as well as the Sunday Times Alan Paton Award. Mangcu was the founding Executive Director of the Steve Biko Foundation and grew up in King William’s Town.