CITY BUILT ON GOLD BY LE NEAME

"CITY BUILT ON GOLD BY LE NEAME. HARD COVER, DUST JACKET HAS WEAR AND TEAR, 248 PAGES, IN GOOD CONDITION, NO INSCRIPTIONS OR NAMES. 

"CITY BUILT ON GOLD" tells the fascinating story of how a little mining camp grew into the wealthiest city in Africa. It describes the harsh conditions under which the pioneers of the Rand lived when the world's greatest gold field was first worked, and the hectic life of the cosmopolitan crowd of fortune-seekers who swarmed into a rural republic ill-equipped to deal with such an invasion. It records the rough amusements (from dog fights and prize fights to gambling for large sums of money), the epidemics, riots, drought, famine, disasters and wars which marked the early years of a community long known simply as "the camp". Drawn from the newspapers of the period and other sources the book describes the social and economic conditions in early Johannesburg in more detail than any other volume. It quotes the prices of commodities and the cost of living, and in fact gives a wonderfully complete account of the old days on the Rand. Old Johannesburgers still talk about the Rand Steam Tram, the Telephone Tower, the Tin Temple, Between the Chains, the Brickfields, the Freda Bridge and other now almost forgotten landmarks of the Johannesburg of long ago. The book tells what they were and how they began. It is a volume that will delight all who know something of the older Jo'burg and will interest the younger generation by showing how the city was founded and developed."

Drawn from research of newspapers and other sources, it describes the social and economic conditions of a little mining camp that grew into the wealthiest city in Africa and records the harsh conditions of the early town - the epidemics, riots, drought, famine, disasters and wars which marked the early history of the town, right through to how the city looked in 1959. The photographs are from The Star, the city's first newspaper.