Not since ANC stalwart Govan Mbeki published South Africa: The Peasants' Revolt in 1964, has a book so convincingly located the epicentre of the African National Congress (ANC) in the Transkei's rural hinterland. As such, this book is long overdue. Timothy Gibbs charts the ANC's emergence in Transkei alongside the hardening of apartheid policies and the birth of the Bantustan ‘homeland’ system, which by the 1980s comprised almost 50% of South Africa's black population. Educated in Transkei's highly reputed mission schools such as Fort Hare and St John's, the Xhosa elites that emerged from rural Transkei played key leadership roles in the ANC and the Pan-African Congress (PAC). Mandela himself was emblematic of this trend, but Gibbs also traces the trajectories of Winnie Madikizela-Mandela, Govan and Thabo Mbeki, Chris Hani, Mamphela Ramphele, and others whose hinterlands were situated in Transkei's rural kinship networks, even as they rose to prominence on South Africa's national stage. These rural hinterlands served as reservoirs of support for the ANC throughout its turbulent history, playing prominent roles in its political mobilisation and the operations of its armed wing, MK.

These kin-based networks, rooted in traditional modes of authority, stand in contrast to the urban and mass-based politics that have been the focus of most books on South Africa. Yet one of the main features of the anti-apartheid struggle was the tug-of-war between the ANC's recruitment through traditional kinship ties in Transkei, and the Bantustans' exploitation of those same ties to create an African leadership that would be subservient to Pretoria. Gibbs's study highlights the intimacy of insurgency in a context where siblings, cousins and different branches of the Transkeian royal family chose different sides in the conflict. This dynamic was especially prominent in the rivalry between Bantustan leader KD Matanzima and his cousin Sabata Dalindyebo, the abaThembu monarch who sympathised with, and ultimately joined, the ANC.

Gibbs has interviewed a wide range of actors, including former civil servants, ANC and MK activists, plus Transkei strongman-turned-ANC member Bantu Holomisa, and has consulted archives extensively, uncovering documents and letters from obscure, Bantustan-era collections. The result captures everyday gestures of collaboration and resistance between grassroots activists, elites and the Bantustan state. He examines elites' intersecting roles within the chieftainships, schools, government agencies and security forces that comprised the Bantustan system until the ANC took power and the Bantustans were dismantled in 1994. Throughout the book, Gibbs highlights the historical tension between the ANC's professed non-racialism and its use of ethno-regionalism as a tool for recruitment and legitimation. Considering that in recent years the former Bantustans have seen the fastest-growing ANC membership in the country, this tension between kinship ties and mass appeal seems destined to remain a key feature of post-apartheid politics. Gibbs's book provides a refreshing challenge to studies of insurgency that are rooted exclusively in economic factors or rational choice methodologies. At the same time, his analysis of kinship links illuminates the micro-networks that have underpinned class relations and traditional socio-political dynamics in Transkei, while sidestepping static interpretations of traditional societies. In the process, Gibbs makes important contributions to both the literature on insurgency and to the study of South African politics.