Abstract
Rapid economic growth in Southern Africa since the discovery of diamonds in the Kimberley region in the 1870s provided the economic background to the formation of Union in 1910. The diamond diggings had triggered this move to rapid economic growth, the roots of which stretched back to the arrival of the English settlers in the 1820s. Great though this impact of the diamond discoveries had been, it was soon overshadowed by the still greater impact of the discovery of the world’s greatest gold mines on the Witwatersrand in the southern Transvaal. And ever since, the growth of the South African economy has been associated with mining developments in one form or another.
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Notes
D.C. North, ‘A Framework for Analysing the State in Economic History’, Exploration in Economic History, Vol. 16, 1979, p. 249.
George B.N. Ayittey, ‘The Political Economy of Reform in Africa’, Journal of Economic Growth, Vol. 3, no. 3, Spring 1989, p. 4.
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© 1992 Stuart Jones and André Müller
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Jones, S., Müller, A. (1992). Introduction. In: The South African Economy, 1910–90. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-22031-1_1
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-22031-1_1
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, London
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Online ISBN: 978-1-349-22031-1
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