BOOKS
BONES AND BODIES: HOW SOUTH AFRICAN SCIENTISTS STUDIED RACE BY ALAN G MORRIS WITS UNIVERSIT Y PRESS, 2022
Professor Emeritus Alan G Morris (PhD 1984) is based in the Department of Human Biology at the University of Cape Town and has published widely on the origin of anatomically modern humans, and the Later Stone Age, Iron Age and historical populations of Kenya, Malawi, Namibia and South Africa, as well as forensic anthropology. He was born in Canada, obtaining his undergraduate degree in biology from Wilfrid Laurie University in Waterloo Ontario. In Bones and Bodies Professor Morris critically examines the history of evolutionary anthropology in South Africa. He uncovers the stories of individual scientists and how they contributed to knowledge of the peoples of southern Africa, both ancient and modern. Using old correspondences, interviews as well as published resources, he argues that much of the earlier anthropological studies have been tainted with the tarred brush of race science. Modern methods in physical anthropology rely on sophisticated mathematics and molecular genetics but are difficult to translate and sometimes fail to challenge preconceived assumptions. It is described by one reviewer as “an excellent read. In the contemporary moment of decolonial and Black Lives Matter thinking, it has particular resonance”.
ONE VIRUS, T WO COUNTRIES: WHAT COVID-19 TELL S US ABOUT SOUTH AFRIC A BY STEVEN FRIEDMAN WITS UNIVERSIT Y PRESS, 2022
Professor Steven Friedman (BA 1974, BA Hons 1975) offers a searing analysis of South Africa’s COVID-19 response. The former trade unionist, political scientist and public commentator writes that South Africa is two societies in one – a “First World” which resembles Western Europe and North America, and a “Third World” which looks much like the rest of Africa or South Asia. The South African state, the media and the scientific community have, however, largely tried to deal with the virus through a “First World” lens in which much of the country was either 94 W I T S R E V I E W
invisible or a problem – not a partner. Senior economist at Trade and Industrial Policy Strategies, Neva Makgetla, says: “Friedman provides an important case study of the damage caused when we develop policies by copying ‘best practice’ from Europe and the US, without testing them consistently against South African realities.” Professor Friedman is also author of Power in Action: Democracy, citizenship and social justice (Wits Press, 2018) and Prisoners of the Past: South African democracy and the legacy of minority rule (Wits Press, 2021).
