20-50
A01=Charles van Onselen
African history
Age Group_Uncategorized
Age Group_Uncategorized
Author_Charles van Onselen
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black labour
Category1=Non-Fiction
Category=HBJH
Category=HBTK
Category=HBTQ
Category=NHH
Category=NHTK
Category=NHTQ
Colonialism
COP=United Kingdom
Delivery_Delivery within 10-20 working days
eq_bestseller
eq_history
eq_isMigrated=2
eq_nobargain
eq_non-fiction
Language_English
Mozambique
PA=Available
Price_€20 to €50
PS=Active
softlaunch
South Africa
Product details
- ISBN 9781787384040
- Dimensions: 138 x 216mm
- Publication Date: 05 Nov 2020
- Publisher: C Hurst & Co Publishers Ltd
- Publication City/Country: GB
- Product Form: Paperback
- Language: English
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This seminal book reveals how black labour was exploited in twentieth-century South Africa, the human costs of which are still largely hidden from history. It was the people of southern Mozambique, bent double beneath the historical loads of forced labour and slavery, then sold off en masse as contracted labourers, who paid the highest price for South African gold. An iniquitous intercolonial agreement for the exploitation of ultra-cheap black labour was only made possible through nightly use of the steam locomotive on the transnational railway linking Johannesburg and Lourenço Marques. These night trains left deep scars in the urban and rural cultures of black communities, whether in the form of popular songs or a belief in nocturnal witches' trains that captured and conveyed zombie workers to the region's most unpopular places of employment.
By tracing the journeys undertaken by black migrants, Charles van Onselen powerfully reconstructs how racial thinking, expressed logistically, reflected the evolving systems of segregation and apartheid. On the night trains, the last stop was always hell.
Charles van Onselen is an acclaimed historian of Southern Africa and Research Professor at the University of Pretoria. He has been honoured with visiting fellowships at the University of Cambridge, the University of Oxford and Yale University.
