New Babylon New Nineveh by Charles Van Onselen

ISBN: 9781868421114

Publisher: Jonathan Ball Publisher , August 2001

Hardcover, 487 pages

New Babylon, New Nineveh explores the past struggles of everyday people on the Witwatersrand, 1886 - 1914.
Charles van Onselen explores a host of practices, processes and problems which, in many ways, make for startling comparisons with modern-day South Africa.
Van Onselen investigates the pervasive but highly problematic use of alcohol and prostitution, which were used to control both Black and White mine workers by the state and the mine owners.
This exploitation of the lifestyle of the single miners later gave way to the official encouragement of working-class family life. This gave rise to the advent of domestic servants and the introduction of a systematic programme of suburbanisation and cheap public transport.
We see how not even these developments were able to protect the poorest and weakest South Africans of the time - the Afrikaners and the Blacks.