Publisher's Synopsis
One of the central features of South African industrialization as it developed after 1968 was the direction and control of African labour. The progressive collapse of apartheid-style labour regulations from the 1970s onwards has led historians to re-examine the period between the wars when the modern system was created.;David Duncan complements other studies of labour in this period by putting the focus squarely on the regulation of African labour in all its aspects and on the role of Native Affairs Department and other departments in creating and operating the system.;With chapters on the regulation of working conditions, health and welfare, wage regulation, the emergence of African trade unions and the state's efforts to control them, this study covers important aspects of the subject not dealt with anywhere else in the literature. Moreover, the author is not concerned only with the evolution of policy in the centralized institutions of the government, but examines the actual operation of the bureaucracy at every level. The result provides new insights into the nature of the state and its limitations in the period.
