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Author: Robert Vicat Turrell
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Published: 1987-09-17
Total Pages: 322
ISBN-13: 9780521333542
DOWNLOAD EBOOK →Based on new documentary sources, this history of diamond mining in Kimberley is a major study of South Africa's mineral revolution and the formation of De Beers Consolidated Mines, one of the most successful African mining companies.
Author: Jade Davenport
Publisher: Jonathan Ball Publishers
Published: 2013-12-18
Total Pages: 756
ISBN-13: 1868424049
DOWNLOAD EBOOK →Before the advent of the great mineral revolution in the latter half of the 19th century, South Africa was a sleepy colonial backwater whose unpromising landscape was seemingly devoid of any economic potential. Yet lying just beneath the dusty surface of the land lay the richest treasure trove of gold, diamonds, platinum, coal and a host of other metals and minerals that has ever been discovered in one country. It was the discovery and exploitation of first diamonds in 1870 and then gold in 1886 that proved the catalyst to the greatest mineral revolution the world has ever known, which transformed South Africa into the supreme industrialised power on the African continent. Here for the first time is the complete history of South Africa's phenomenal mineral revolution spanning a period of more than 150 years, from its earliest commercial beginnings to the present day, incorporating seven of the major commodities that have been exploited. Digging Deep describes the establishment and unparalleled growth of mining, tracing the history of the industry from its humble beginnings where copper was first mined on a commercial basis in Namaqualand in the Cape Colony in the early 1850s, to the discovery and exploitation of the country's other major mineral commodities. This is also the story of how mining gave rise to modern South Africa and how it compelled the country to develop and progress the way in which it did. It also incorporates the stories of the visionary men - Cecil Rhodes, Alfred Beit, Barney Barnato, Sir Ernest Oppenheimer, Sammy Marks and Hans Merensky - who pioneered and shaped the development of the industry on which modern South Africa was built.
Author: Todd Cleveland
Publisher: Ohio University Press
Published: 2014-05-26
Total Pages: 113
ISBN-13: 0821444824
DOWNLOAD EBOOK →Africa supplies the majority of the world’s diamonds, yet consumers generally know little about the origins and history of these precious stones beyond sensationalized media accounts of so-called blood diamonds. Stones of Contention explores the major developments in the remarkable history of Africa’s diamonds, from the earliest stirrings of international interest in the continent’s mineral wealth in the first millennium A.D. to the present day. In the European colonial period, the discovery of diamonds in South Africa ushered in an era of unprecedented greed during which monopolistic enterprises exploited both the mineral resources and the indigenous workforce. In the aftermath of World War II, the governments of newly independent African states, both democratic and despotic, joined industry giant De Beers and other corporations to oversee and profit from mining activity on the continent. The book also considers the experiences of a wide array of Africans—from informal artisanal miners, company mineworkers, and indigenous authorities to armed rebels, mining executives, and premiers of mineral-rich states—and their relationships to the stones that have the power to bring both wealth and misery. With photos and maps, Stones of Contention illustrates the scope and complexity of the African diamond trade as well as its impact on individuals and societies.
Author: Mariusz Lukasiewicz
Publisher: Springer Nature
Published:
Total Pages: 266
ISBN-13: 3031519477
DOWNLOAD EBOOK →Author: Christopher M. Paulin
Publisher: Africa World Press
Published: 2001
Total Pages: 278
ISBN-13: 9780865439290
DOWNLOAD EBOOK →This book contends that one of the primary motivations of British colonialism in southern Africa at the end of the 19th century was to create a cheap, readily available supply of African labour through conquest, dispossession, taxation and the creation of native reserves or locations, doing everything in its power to reduce southern Africa's indigenous population to wage earners dependent on Europeans for their survival. In doing so, they laid the foundation for apartheid in the 20th century.
Author: KEVIN SHILLINGTON.
Publisher: Routledge
Published: 2005
Total Pages: 1908
ISBN-13: 1135456704
DOWNLOAD EBOOK →Author: Tijl Vanneste
Publisher: Reaktion Books
Published: 2021-09-16
Total Pages: 433
ISBN-13: 1789144361
DOWNLOAD EBOOK →A sweeping history of our enduring passion for diamonds—and the exploitative industry that fuels it. Blood, Sweat and Earth is a hard-hitting historical exposé of the diamond industry, focusing on the exploitation of workers and the environment, the monopolization of uncut diamonds, and how little this has changed over time. It describes the use of forced labor and political oppression by Indian sultans, Portuguese colonizers in Brazil, and Western industrialists in many parts of Africa—as well as the hoarding of diamonds to maintain high prices, from the English East India Company to De Beers. While recent discoveries of diamond deposits in Siberia, Canada, and Australia have brought an end to monopolization, the book shows that advances in the production of synthetic diamonds have not yet been able to eradicate the exploitation caused by the world’s unquenchable thirst for sparkle.
Author: Z.A. Konczacki
Publisher: Routledge
Published: 2014-01-14
Total Pages: 309
ISBN-13: 1135198942
DOWNLOAD EBOOK →First Published in 1990. Volume Two of Studies of Economic History of South Africa, looks at the Lesotho and Swaziland regions. The unfolding history and historiography of Southern Africa pose profound challenges for both analysis and praxis in the last decade of the twentieth century. These challenges are reflected in the range of investigations and contradictions, some of which are treated here, which together constitute an intellectual and political conjuncture. This collection of studies deals with the countries which were not included in the companion book on the economic history of the Front- Line States. Most of the space in the present volume is devoted to South Africa, primarily because of its importance to the region but also because contributions to the economic history of that country in English are very extensive as compared to the other states of Southern Africa.
Author: Haroon Bhorat
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
Published: 2014
Total Pages: 457
ISBN-13: 0199689245
DOWNLOAD EBOOK →In 1994 South Africa saw the end of apartheid. The new era of political freedom was seen as the foundation for economic prosperity and inclusion. The last two decades have seen mixed results. Economic growth has been volatile. While inequalities in public services have been reduced, income inequality has increased, and poverty has remained stagnant. As the twentieth anniversary of the transition to democracy approaches in 2014, the economic policy debates in South Africa are in full flow. They combine a stocktake of the various programs of the last two decades with a forward looking discussion of strategy in the face of an ever open but volatile global economy. Underlying the discourse are basic and often unresolved differences on an appropriate strategy for an economy like South Africa, with a strong natural resource base but with deeply entrenched inherited inequalities, especially across race. This volume contributes to the policy and analytical debate by pulling together perspectives on a range of issues: micro, macro, sectoral, country wide and global, from leading economists working on South Africa. Other than the requirement that it be analytical and not polemical, the contributors were given freedom to put forward their particular perspective on their topic. The economists invited are from within South Africa and from outside; from academia and the policy world; from international and national level economic policy agencies. The contributors include recognized world leaders in South African economic analysis, as well as the very best of the younger crop of economists who are working on the study of South Africa, the next generation of leaders in thought and policy.
Author: Raymond E. Dumett
Publisher: Routledge
Published: 2016-12-05
Total Pages: 276
ISBN-13: 1351917323
DOWNLOAD EBOOK →The years of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, aptly described by Mark Twain as the 'Gilded Age' witnessed an unprecedented level of technological change, material excess, untrammled pursuit of profit and imperial expansion. Within this dynamic and often ruthless environment many colorful characters strode across the world stage, among them the great mining tycoons, who with the thousands of prospectors, diggers, shift bosses, timbermen, 'blastmen' and 'muckers' in mining enterprise constituted one of the major spearheads of global capitalistic expansion and colonial exploitation. This volume, which carries the epic story to the mid-twentieth century provides a truly international perspective on the role of mining entrepreneurs, investors and engineers in shaping the economic and political map of the globe, in testing management techniques and in setting a vogue for extravagant displays of wealth among the world's rich. Each chapter is loosely focussed on a biographical account of a particular mining tycoon that allows for broad and comparative accounts to be made about the individuals, their business interests, the technologies they employed and the national and international political considerations under which they operated. Furthermore, this structure also allows for consideration of the effect that these tycoons had on the countries and territories in which they worked, particularly the often long-lasting impact on indigenous populations, the environment, transport links and economic development. By approaching the subject matter through this stimulating mix of cultural, social, economic, business and colonial history, many intriguing and thought provoking conclusions are reached that will reward any scholars with an interest late nineteenth and early twentieth century history.
