Short description
This reference is aimed at a wide audience of general readers interested in the city of Johannesburg's social and political history and its cultural life.
Long description
Johannesburg's evolution provides important insights into the history and transformation of South Africa as a whole. This work should therefore be of interest to readers who wish to understand the events that shaped South Africa in the successive eras of gold discovery, British colonization, Nationalist Party apartheid legislation, and transformation after 1994. The authors include information on the original indigenous inhabitants who occupied the area of the future city long before the first white settlers, and whose descendants, through their intensive labour on the gold mines, played a decisive role in the development of Johannesburg. The more than 600 alphabetical entries not only cover the economic and political history of the city but also give an account of its cultural aspects, including architecture, art, music and theatre. The authors have extended the scope of the book by including certain adjoining urban areas such as Sandton, Randburg, Soweto and Edenvale, some of which have only recently been brought into the orbit of Greater Johannesburg.;The detailed chronology which precedes the alphabetical entries highlights the important events which helped to determine the city's destiny.