Paul Holden 
The Arms Deal In Your Pocket 

The Arms Deal’s taint of corruption has hovered spectre-like over South African politics since 1999, when Patricia de Lille’s revelations first hit Parliament. In the foreword to The Arms Deal in Your Pocket, former ANC MP Andrew Feinstein describes the Arms Deal as ‘the moment at which the ANC and the South African government lost their moral compass’. Paul Holden’s succinct, informative and devastating handbook tells the story in the simplest way possible, providing a guide to what was bought (and why), who was involved and what was covered up. The chapters are ordered chronologically to allow the reader to follow the story as it unfolded on the ground, and each chapter includes an info box and short timeline of the key dates to remember. Paul Holden is a freelance writer, researcher and historian, and the co-author (with Hennie van Vuuren) of The Devil in the Detail: How the Arms Deal Changed Everything.

About the author

Paul Holden is the author of The Arms Deal in Your Pocket (2009) and The Devil in the Detail (2011).