September 8, 2025
AnalysisMining After Apartheid
South Africa’s New Black Capitalists
The mining industry has long been considered the fulcrum not only of South Africa’s economy, but of its social and racial order as well. With the discovery of gold in 1886, the mineral revolution turned the disparate colonies under Boer…
February 5, 2025
AnalysisAfter the Diamond Rush
South Africa and the internationalization of mineral extraction
For over 150 years, mining has constituted a core feature of the South African economy. The seemingly inexhaustible bounty of the earth made the country the wealthiest in the continent and financed one of the most all-encompassing systems of racial…