South Africa’s mining journey began with the discovery of
‘mountains of copper’ in the drylands of Namaqualand, laying the
foundation of an industry that would forever shape a nation’s
destiny. Nowhere else in the world has a mineral revolution proved
so influential in weaving the political, economic and social fabric of a
society.

Digging Deep explores South Africa’s great mineral revolution – the
lucky strikes and the struggles of prospecting in the late 1800s, the
rushes to boom-and-bust towns in the Eastern Transvaal Goldfield,
the dubious beginnings of the Witwatersrand, and the stories of the
visionary men like Cecil Rhodes, Alfred Beit, Barney Barnato, Sir
Ernest Oppenheimer, Sammy Marks and Hans Merensky who
pioneered and shaped the industry on which modern South Africa
was built.

This epic retelling is the only single-volume account of how South
Africa’s gold, diamonds, platinum, coal and a host of other metals
and minerals – the richest treasure trove ever discovered in one
country – transformed a colonial backwater into the greatest
industrialised power on the African continent.

In this second edition, Jade Davenport adds two new chapters that
closely examine the era since the advent of democracy in which time
the mining industry has gone through a profound and distressing
transformation.