About the Book
Gold and Workers tells the story of the formation of the South African working class beginning with the discovery of minerals in the 1870s, and ending with the Rand Revolt of 1992. First published in 1981, this book was one of the first to popularise a critical and radical approach to South African history and making of South African working class.
This edition was published following the massacre of 34 miners in Marikana, and it provides a link between poverty and exploitation in today’s mines to the process of the formation of the working class more than a century ago. This book, steeped in analysis and accessibly written, will assist activist cadre to critically reflect, understand and act in the world in which they live.
About the Author
Luli Callinicos was born in Johannesburg, and is of Hellenic descent. She began her involvement in the struggle for democracy at an early age. She began her career teaching history at schools and was involved in the trade union movement. She is well known for her work on the formation of the South African working class, which includes a trilogy of books, namely Gold and Workers (1981), Working Life: Factories, Townships and Popular Culture (1987), which won the Noma Award for Publishing in Africa, and A Place in the City: the Rand on the Eve of Apartheid (1993).
Callinicos has also taught history, lectured and pioneered workshops at the University of the Witwatersrand (Wits). She is credited with putting forward the often neglected history of ‘ordinary’ South Africans. She continues to research and to write on the history of struggle in South Africa. She is a trustee of Khanya College and that of Freedom Park in Pretoria.
