Drinking With Ghosts: The Aftermath of Apartheid's Dirty War

Drinking with Ghosts is a fascinating exploration of the dark corners of South Africa's past by a seasoned journalist. Schmidt's revelations move from South Africa's nuclear program under apartheid to the problems of today's deeply unequal society, tracing the threads of secrecy, privilege, racism, and violence that are needed to maintain it.

The book is also a testament to Schmidt's career as an investigative journalist: his dedicated and uncompromising quest to uncover the truth shines through on every page. Schmidt's journalism and his activism took him "behind the curtain" of the transition in South Africa from autocracy to democracy, exploring the impact of the Cold War's end on sub-Saharan Africa, including the continent's war-zones, from Lesotho and Mozambique to the former Zaire and Darfur. His path led him to challenge the dominant liberal/progressive narrative of a "peaceful transition" in the region and to substitute the story of an often-bloody, hotly-contested continuity in which Nelson Mandela's ANC fulfilled the long-term, strategic, neoliberal objectives of their old apartheid enemies, and in which democratic South Africa, the world's most unequal society, plays a sub-imperialist continental role.