In mid-1982, shortly after I succeeded Chester Crocker as director of the African Studies Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), we published the first of a series of monthly briefing papers modestly entitled csis Africa Notes. the title of this first issue -- To Demystify and Unsimplify -- remains the guiding principle of the publication (and the csis African Studies Program) in 1994. As stated in the masthead of each of the 164 issues published over the ensuing 12 years, csis Africa Notes is "a briefing paper series designed to serve the special needs of decision makers and analysts with Africarelated responsibilities in governments, corporations, the media, research institutions, universities, and other arenas." It has, over time, established a wide readership in all of these categories within the United States and in some 30 other countries.

The lasting relevance of the content of the briefing papers is demonstrated by the fact that two collections of issues published by Praeger in the 1980s -- Angola, Mozambique, and the West (1987) and South Africa: in Transition to What? (1988) -- have not outlived their pertinence to the still-unfolding story of southern Africa's political evolution.

Following the format of our previous volume on South Africa, each of the chapters in South Africa: Twelve Perspectives on the Transition was previously published as an . . .