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It was only used for the special gatherings to taste the fruit of the harvest. The pot was made of dark clay and decorated with intricate light-blue lines. Each line, the elders explained, told a story. And in those gatherings everything was solved—the hurricane was tamed and the absence of rain was given a name and the dead were given a meaning. The pot was eventually broken. For decades people tried to remake it: they used dark clay and light-blue paints, they dug deeper than a goldmine for the right consistency; they even used twigs, sackcloth and diamonds; they even stole old pots from museums. They failed. The hurricane lifted cows off the ?elds, the drought parched the soul, the dead were meaningless. The new pots were wonderful to look at.

This is an advance summary of a forthcoming article in the Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Politics. Please check back later for the full article.South African trade unions had a decisive role in the political life of the territory that became the Union of South Africa and later the Republic of South Africa. Such a role was both formative and reactive; since their inception in the 1880s, trade unions attempted to shape the body politic, its legislation, its inclusions and exclusions, its bill of rights, and a whole range of social rights. They had a formative role to play in the construction and destruction of the country's racial order. They also reacted to policy and law in all periods, creating serious challenges that continue well into the Post-Apartheid period.