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The twentieth century has brought considerable political, social, and economic change for South Africa. While many would choose to focus only on the issues of race, segregation, and apartheid, this book tries to capture another facet: its drive towards modernisation and industrialisation. While considering the achievements and failures of that drive, as well as how it related to ethnic and racial policy making, Bill Freund makes the economic data come alive by highlighting people and places. He proposes that South Africa in the twentieth century can actually be understood as a nascent developmental state, with economic development acting as a key motivating factor. As a unique history of South Africa in the twentieth century, this will appeal to anyone interested in a new interpretation of modern South African economic development or those in development studies searching for striking historical examples

What is really meant by 'development' in twenty-first-century post-apartheid South Africa? What are the challenges and complexities of real transformation in this context? The contributions in this title address the ways in which people in all sectors of South African society are confronting its development dilemmas: from the energy crisis, environmental sustainability and environmental justice to grassroots social movements, problems of policy implementation, land and agricultural reform and gender inequality. Written by leading academics and activists, this is an essential and illuminating in-depth study of the dilemmas facing post-apartheid South Africa, and the historical, political, economic and social context out of which a new democracy is being built. Collectively, the authors suggest that there is no easy way to attain development; it is a process, not an event, and is fraught with failures and loss, as well as gains."--P. [4] of cover

AbstractThis article attempts to introduce readers to the impressive and influential historical and contemporary literature on South African labour. A literature with some earlier antecedents effectively applied classic sociological and historical themes to the specific conditions of South African political and economic development. Research on the phase of politicized and militant white worker action ties up with research into the international pre-World War I labour movement. The strength of this literature reflected the insurgent labour movement linked to political struggle against apartheid before 1990. After this review, the second half of the paper tries to consider and contextualize the challenging post-apartheid labour situation together with its political aspects. With the successful conclusion of the anti-apartheid struggle, students of the labour movement, as well as of South African society, have become more aware of the distance between establishing a liberal democracy and actually changing society itself in a direction leading towards less inequality and an improved life for those at the bottom of society, or even the broad mass of the population. As recent literature reveals, the development of post-apartheid South Africa has been a differential and problematic experience for labour.