White Gold and Thirsty Communities: The Cold War, Apartheid, and the Lesotho Highlands Water Project

Material Histories of the Maloti-Drakensberg “Delving into the politics of water in Lesotho and South Africa, this book reveals the history and implications of the Lesotho Highlands Water Project. It is a remarkable work that lays bare the entrenched racial and class injustices that have shaped dam development in southern Africa.” Nthabiseng Mokoena-Mokhali, Archaeologist and Lecturer, Department of Historical Studies, National University of Lesotho

HSRC Press

Product Information

Format:

234x156mm

Pages:

264pp

ISBN-13:

978-0-7983-0545-7

Publish Year:

January 2026

Rights:

World Rights

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Prologue: Selling Gravity
Chapter 1: Dreams of Water in Southern Africa
Chapter 2: The History of the Water Deal and an Independent Foreign Policy for Lesotho, 1966-72
Chapter 3: Toward Soweto: Southern Africa’s Shifting Politics and the Anti-Apartheid Struggle, 1972-76
Chapter 4: Regional Security and the Project in the Balance, 1976-85
Chapter 5: 1986: The Lesotho Coup and the Highlands Water Treaty
Chapter 6: Gravity and Displacement: The LHWP in Action
Epilogue: The Botswana Scheme

Heike Becker is currently Professor (emerita) of Social and Cultural Anthropology at the University of the Western Cape (UWC) and has recently been a fellow at STIAS (Stellenbosch Institute for Advanced Studies). Before her appointment at UWC in 2001, she was a researcher and lecturer at the University of Namibia (UNAM). She has conducted more than three decades of research on Namibian history, politics, and social movements, currently completing a study that explores how anti-colonial struggles, and their legacies have been remembered in postcolonial Namibia. She is the author of Namibian Women’s Movement 1980 to 1992: From Anti-colonial Resistance to Reconstruction.

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