TWENTIETH-CENTURY SOUTH AFRICA, a developmental history

259pp., paperback, Cambridge, 2019

"At a time when debate about the role of the state in the post-apartheid economy is so sharply polarised, Freund's innovative reinterpretation of twentieth-century South Africa as a 'developmental state' is especially welcome. Without losing sight of the brutal oppression that characterised the past, it asks us to look anew at the changing relationship between the state and capital through exemplary historical scholarship that is as lucid as it is relevant." Gavin Capps, University of the Witwatersrand

"Painstakingly researched and authored by a leading scholar of African economic history, this volume is of profound significance not only for understanding the economic history of South Africa, but also for the light it sheds on the contemporary unravelling in which the post-apartheid state finds itself." Ben Fine, SOAS, University of London

Bill Freund is Professor Emeritus of Built Environment and Development Studies at the University of KwaZulu-Natal and Visiting Professor the University of the Witwatersrand.