In his second round-up, EWAN CAMERON picks excellent solo shows that deal with Scottishness, Englishness and race as highlights
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South Africa’s complex relationship with the camera
BOB NEWLAND recommends an outstanding study of how images have shaped narratives of identity, resistance and power in South Africa
Omar Badsha, Funeral of Stembiso Nzuza and Moses Ramatlotlo, killed in an armed clash with police, KwaMashu, KwaZulu-Natal, 1984
[Courtesy Omar Badsha] 
Fiery words from the Bard in Blackpool and Edinburgh, and Evidence Based Punk Rock from The Protest Family
MATTHEW HAWKINS is mesmerised by a performance that dissolves the line between audience and performer
MATTHEW SHARPE recommends the essays of a Renaissance politician that instruct and unnerve after 400 years
GAVIN O’TOOLE welcomes the reissue of a seminal work of revolutionary theory that have genuine relevance in the current context
RON JACOBS rides shotgun with a member of Black Bloc on the wave of anti-capitalist protests of the 1990s and early 2000s
Life Itself: Photography and South Africa
Simon A Clarke, Reaktion, £35
I’M NOT an artist or a photographer, but this book does not simply look at these skills. Rather, it explores the role of the art of photography in the fight against apartheid in South Africa.
As if to help non-experts like me, the book opens with a detailed and beautifully illustrated, easily understood, explanation of the development of the technology of photography in the context of the history of South Africa.
It then poses some challenging questions regarding the use of photography to present a picture of South Africa through colonial eyes.
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SALEEM BADAT and VASU REDDY introduce a new book about an outstanding interpreter of the world, and an activist scholar committed to changing society
GAVIN O’TOOLE explores the resistance expressed by central American artists to their own erasure by US imperialist policies
JOHN GREEN appreciates the clarity with which a GDR-born photographer observes the ‘post-competitive cannibalism’ of the contemporary US
BOB NEWLAND applauds a demonstration of the existence of a substantial African history that contributed much to world development long before European colonialism