This book tells how the dramatic changes across Southern Africa in the last year have swung the regional balance of power in favour of white South Africa, just as it faces its most serious internal challenge ever. Defeated in the bush war in Angola, Pretoria was forced finally to concede Namibian independence, but continued its attempt to control Africa's last colony by other desperate and violent means. The book describes how Mozambique and Angola have been brought to the verge of social disintegration, aided, in Angola's case, by American support. But in fighting off the challenges of black majority rule, South Africa and its western backers have crippled not just two countries but an entire continent.