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164 pages

English

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Autobiography and intellectual journey of Bill Freund, leading analyst on African history; his family’s escape from Nazi-Germany to Chicago, finding his writing voice in Nigeria and settling in South Africa.
Bill Freund, the late social historian and leading analyst of African history, passed away in 2020 soon after finishing his autobiography. Often described as the academy’s ‘outsider insider’, he was an eminent South African historian who published prodigiously in the areas of labour, capital and economic history. What influenced this American-educated academic to become such an astute and trusted observer of the political economy in Africa?

In this deeply introspective autobiography, we follow Bill’s intellectual journey from a modest Jewish home in Chicago in the 1950s – where new vistas were opened up through voracious reading, inspiring teachers and intellectual engagement – to the Universities of Chicago, Yale, Ahmadu Bello, Dar es Salaam and Harvard, and finally to a permanent teaching position at the University of KwaZulu-Natal in Durban, South Africa in 1985. Peppered in between the commentaries on academic life are stories of his travels, poems he wrote for loved ones, and endearing anecdotes of friendships that shaped his life.

His autobiography reveals the intellectual man and the world that shaped him – and which he in turn influenced through a deep commitment to rigorous scholarship. It includes a select bibliography of his many publications as well as a foreword by Robert Morrell on the making of this book.

Foreword: Bill Freund and the Making of His Autobiography, by Robert Morrell

A Brief Introduction

Bill Freund’s Family Tree

Chapter 1 The Austrian Past

Chapter 2 The Aftermath of War: A Perilous Modernity

Chapter 3 The Dark Years

Chapter 4 A New Life in America

Chapter 5 Adolescence: First Bridge to a Wider World

Chapter 6 As a Student: Chicago and Yale

Chapter 7 As a Student: Africa and England

Chapter 8 The Tough Years Begin

Chapter 9 An Intellectual and an African: Nigeria

Chapter 10 An Intellectual and an African: Dar es Salaam and Harvard

Chapter 11 South Africa, My Home

Notes

Select Bibliography of Bill Freund’s Publications

List of Illustrations

Author’s Acknowledgements

Supplementary Acknowledgements

Index

Sujets

Political Science

Histoire

General officer

Theory

General

History

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Publié par	WITS University Press
Date de parution	01 mai 2021
Nombre de lectures	0
EAN13	9781776146758
Langue	English
Poids de l'ouvrage	3 Mo

Informations légales : prix de location à la page 0,1300€. Cette information est donnée uniquement à titre indicatif conformément à la législation en vigueur.

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‘This is the story of an examined life. Bill Freund tells us how Africa became the focus of interest of a smart Jewish kid from Chicago, about the obstacles the American academic establishment threw in his way, of his own evolving thinking about African politics, race, Marxism, and the role of the intellectual in society, and how he finally found a place for himself in university life and left politics in South Africa on the eve of apartheid’s collapse. He has written an insightful and often moving account of the life of the mind in a time of political conflict.’
— Fred Cooper, Professor Emeritus at New York University and the author of Africa since 1940: The Past of the Present
‘A beautifully told memoir that combines Bill Freund’s love for travel with the curiosity of the historian. Freund’s astutely-observed commentary on the societies in which he lived, his wry and yet empathetic accounts of people caught in the midst of the large political and economic movements of the twentieth century, and his unerring eye for the quirky and familiar make this an enthralling read.’
— Shireen Hassim, Canada 150 Research Chair in Gender and African Politics, Visiting Professor at WiSER, University of the Witwatersrand and the author of Fatima Meer: Voices of Liberation
‘This is an extraordinarily honest and insightful memoir of the making of a worldly and theoretically savvy historian of South Africa. Bill Freund writes eloquently about his unconventional, and intriguing, personal and academic journey from Chicago to England, Nigeria and South Africa.’
— Steven Robins, Professor, Department of Sociology and Social Anthropology, Stellenbosch University and the author of Letters of Stone: From Nazi Germany to South Africa
BILL FREUND
An Historian’s Passage to Africa
An Autobiography
Published in South Africa by:
Wits University Press
1 Jan Smuts Avenue
Johannesburg 2001
www.witspress.co.za
Copyright © William M. Freund 2021
Published edition © Wits University Press 2021
Images © Copyright holders
First published 2021
http://dx.doi.org.10.18772/12021056727
978-1-77614-672-7 (Paperback)
978-1-77614-673-4 (Hardback)
978-1-77614-674-1 (Web PDF)
978-1-77614-675-8 (EPUB)
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the written permission of the publisher, except in accordance with the provisions of the Copyright Act, Act 98 of 1978.
All images remain the property of the copyright holders. The publishers gratefully acknowledge the publishers, institutions and individuals referenced in captions for the use of images. Every effort has been made to locate the original copyright holders of the images reproduced here; please contact Wits University Press in case of any omissions or errors.
Project manager: Shaharazaad Louw
Copyeditor: Russell Martin
Proofreader: Tessa Botha
Indexer: Sanet le Roux
Cover design: Hybrid Creative
Typeset in 11.5 point Crimson
Contents
Foreword: Bill Freund and the Making of His Autobiography, by Robert Morrell
Family Tree
A Brief Introduction
1  The Austrian Past
2  The Aftermath of War: A Perilous Modernity
3  The Dark Years
4  A New Life in America
5  Adolescence: First Bridge to a Wider World
6  As a Student: Chicago and Yale
7  As a Student: Africa and England
8  The Tough Years Begin
9  An Intellectual and an African: Nigeria
10  An Intellectual and an African: Dar es Salaam and Harvard
11  South Africa, My Home
Notes
Select Bibliography of Bill Freund’s Publications
List of Illustrations
Author’s Acknowledgements
Supplementary Acknowledgements
Index
Foreword Bill Freund and the Making of His Autobiography
I n 1985 Bill Freund arrived in Durban as full professor and head of the Economic History Department at the University of Natal. At this point I was a lecturer in history at the neighbouring University of Durban-Westville, established exclusively for ‘Indians’ in terms of apartheid segregationist policy, and definitely the poor cousin of the much older University of Natal. I had not yet published an academic article or completed a PhD. Bill, by contrast, was already an accomplished academic, with global networks, over ten years of academic experience and two books to his name, one of which, The Making of Contemporary Africa , was described in the Journal of African History as ‘a landmark in African historiography’. 1
From soon after his arrival Bill became a close friend of mine. He also became my PhD supervisor and, in 1989, once I had joined the University of Natal, Durban, a colleague. It says a lot about Bill, Durban and the times that the personal and professional gulf between us did not prevent a strong and long friendship from developing. Bill was no snob and he welcomed all overtures of friendship. His arrival in Durban also coincided with an increase in levels of anti-apartheid activity, which created a community of like-minded people who knew one another and who welcomed Bill as a long-lost brother. Bill’s views on apartheid, capitalism and injustice were well known, and he found himself among people who appreciated his views and were keen to involve him in academic and social life.
Increased repression, culminating in a national State of Emergency in 1986, cast a shadow over these times. The country was in the throes of what some at the time called a low-level civil war, particularly in KwaZulu-Natal. The heat was felt at the University of Natal where certain books could not be taken out of the Library (they were seen as a threat to national security) and forms of activism frequently attracted the attention of the security police. Yet, for all this, Bill began the happiest years of his life.
He became part of a group of mostly white, politically progressive men who played a game of touch rugby once a week. 2 He loved the game and the camaraderie, and seldom missed a session. Although he’d never played rugby before and his skills set was limited, the game made him feel manly. No longer on the sidelines and neglected, he was embraced as a team member. I think his happiness enhanced his writing and made him more confident.
The touch rugby game connected Bill with a number of high-profile activists, trade unionists, lawyers, doctors and academics. Bill’s expertise was harnessed to the left-wing project of envisioning a post-apartheid society. He became part of Cosatu’s Emerging Trends group, which discussed economic policy. His new life had a tempo and sociality that Bill was not used to, but he adapted quickly.
He built up the Economic History Department, giving it a profile and revisionist energy that it had never had before. He developed the postgraduate menu of the department and offered his supervision skills to those, like myself at the time, still embarking on a PhD.
I knew Bill as a supervisor, as touch rugby player, and as a man who loved ideas. In the years that followed, especially when I found myself as a lecturer at the University of Natal in 1989, I would have lunch every week with him at the staff club. Bill was interested in so many things that lunches were always lively. He was interested to talk about South African politics but, particularly after his mother died, he began to discuss his family and its history, about which you will learn a lot in this book. He was a good listener (although he preferred the role of raconteur) and he found my own history and family fascinating. There were some things that Bill wasn’t much interested in, and this included my own interest in psychology and what Scott Peck called the road less travelled. And there were things that made him mad, including the increasing managerialism evident at the University of Natal (which Bill saw as ceding control of an academic institution to technocrats and managers). He also had strong and critical views about the quality of university students, as South Africa’s transition advanced.
Bill’s reputation was built on his writings about Africa, especially South Africa. It was from here that his primary academic affirmation came. And yet he sought recognition also from academics and scholars in the global North. He recognised the inequalities that divided North from South, identified with the position of writers in the global South, but never renounced his Northern roots. If anything, he sought to reconcile the possibly contradictory positions of being American and living, working and writing in Africa.
Bill’s life came to an end prematurely. He was seventy-six years old. He had just had an operation to repair his wrist. He went home with a carer but two days later died in his own bed – an end that many would choose. Bill needed the operation because he had been involved in a very typical South African event, a mugging. Making his way by foot from his flat in Durban to the local shopping centre, Bill was confronted by a young man who demanded his wallet and cellphone. Bill, ordinarily timid, refused. He held onto his wallet but at great cost. He was flung to the ground, his shoulder was dislocated and his wrist badly broken. In an email to me on 29 August 2018, Bill wrote, ‘You will be fascinated, Rob, to know that I felt a certain pride in resisting attack rather than just being a victim. I know it’s foolish, but you know me well enough not to be surprised.’ An initial operation failed to restore full mobility, and so he went into hospital for a further operation at a time when a national lockdown occasioned by Covid-19 was still in force.
While in hospital Bill’s thoughts were still on his work. He was busy examining a dissertation, offering thoughts on the Industrial Commercial and Workers’ Union (ICU) to Dave Johnson, planning for a chapter for inclusion in the Oxford Handbook of the South African Economy , co-edited by Imraan Valodia, working on a project of pu