Presents a bibliographic essay on the vigorous, but fragmented, writings on South Africa’s economic history from the 1600’s to the 1990’s. Among the topics covered are slavery in the Cape Colony and emancipation under the British; the trekboer economy and the subjugation of the Khoisan; British capitalism and the establishment of a dynamic imperial economy; the demise of African smallholders by state-supported European competition; mining and African migration to the mines, the development of the manufacturing industry and the modernization of agriculture; and South African monopolies and oligopolies. The review ends with a look at three analyses of the late 20th-century economic crisis.
