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South African urban history

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  09 February 2009

Extract

Johannesburg, in certain respects the Republic'sleading urban centre, celebrates her centenary in1986. Acquisitive citizens and indifferent officialshave, however, long driven much of her past from thestreets. Today carnival history is beingmanufactured hurriedly beyond remote tarmac parkinggrounds and behind ticketing turnstiles. Althoughits popularization is also overdue, scholarlyinterest in South African urban history fortunatelyhas not attracted only whimsical attention. In thebrief review which follows an attempt is made tosketch the outlines of the South African urban past,to capture the flavour of substantive research intoSouth African urban history and to contour theintellectual climate in which this has beenconducted and shaped. Emphasis is placed on researchreported in scholarly outlets. Not unexpectedlythere is a wide range of other publications whichcontain elements of urban historical interest, theseranging from newspapers and magazines to generalhistorical texts and finely liveried, lavishlyillustrated Africana. For the purposes of thispresentation, the ‘modern period’ of South Africanurban history is closed during the 1950s.

Information

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1985

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