BULLS, BEARS, BOERS AND BRITS, finance and the coming of war in Southern Africa, 1894-1899

189pp., illus., paperback, Afrika-Studiecentrum series, vol. 44, Brill, Leiden, 2025

ISBN: 9789004690783

In this study author Ian Phimister challenges the view that South Africa's gold industry was ruthlessly focused on minimising costs and maximising output, arguing that the main business of the industry was not profitable production of gold but share manipulation, which meant that the Randlords had little interest in agitating for war against the Boer authorities in Pretoria. He demonstrates that investors in London and Paris suffered more as a result of the Randlords' market making than they did under the Transvaal Government's concessions policy, and that accounts that focus on mining company complaints as the root cause of the Jameson Raid and the outbreak of war in 1899 are missing a key dimension of the past.

Ian Phimister is Senior University Research Professor at the University of the Free State. He has published widely on British overseas investment, and on the history of Central Africa, including An Economic and Social History of Zimbabwe, 1890-1948 (1988).