Ronald Segal

Ronald Michael Segal (14 July 1932 – 23 February 2008) was a South African activist, writer and editor, founder of the anti-apartheid magazine Africa South and the Penguin African Library.^[1]

Life

Ronald Segal was born on 14 July 1932, into a rich South African Jewish family. He was educated at

Returning to South Africa in 1956, he founded the anti-apartheid magazine Africa South. After the 1960 Sharpeville massacre, he went into exile with Oliver Tambo, and settled in England, continuing his anti-apartheid political activity and pursuing activity as a writer.^[1] Segal's best-known work is The State of the World Atlas (first edition, 1981), which he co-founded with Michael Kidron, another South African-born Jew, who shared most of his political views.^[2]

After Segal was unbanned from South Africa, he visited the country several times, receiving a hero's welcome on stage alongside Mandela, Tambo and Slovo in 1992. Segal died on 23 February 2008.^[1]

Works

• Tokolosh of the Townships, 1960 [3]
• Political Africa: A Who’s Who of Personalities and Parties, 1961
• African Profiles, 1962
• Into Exile, 1963
• Sanctions against South Africa, 1964
• The Anguish of India, 1965
• The Race War: The Worldwide Conflict of Races, 1966
• America’s Receding Future
• The Americans: A Conflict of Creed and Reality, 1969
• The Struggle Against History, 1971
• Whose Jerusalem? The Conflicts of Israel, 1973
• Decline and Fall of the American Dollar, 1974
• Southern Africa: New Politics of Revolution, 1976
• Leon Trotsky: a biography, 1979
• (with Michael Kidron) The State of the World Atlas, 1981
• The Black Diaspora, 1995
• Islam's Black Slaves: The Other Black Diaspora, 2001

References