Not the peace train but the piece train
Date
2020-05-27
Authors
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
ASSAf
Abstract
In what should fall foul of any literary trades description Act, Charles van Onselen describes his latest work as a
‘little book’ (p.14). It is, as anyone who opens The Night Trains will quickly discover, anything but that. Forged as
a ‘self-contained outgrowth’ of a larger regional study underway into the historical nexus between ‘industrial and
Protestant South Africa’ and ‘rural, commercial and Catholic Mozambique’ (p.209), this is a pioneering, relentlessly
nightmarish transnational story of human exploitation. More than anything, what The Night Trains resembles is an
insistently high-octane treatise or an extended forensic investigation with unimaginably disturbing recurring findings.
In his introduction, Professor Van Onselen suggests that any choice of the technological innovations of the early
19th century that had the deepest and most enduring influence on the making of world history well into the first half
of the 20th century, would surely have to include the locomotive. Indeed, far more so than, say, the telegraph or the
steamship, the locomotive train has long enjoyed the lion’s share of attention, with various notable writers having
singled it out as a dazzling element of material progress by the age of iron.
Description
CITATION: Nasson, B. 2020. Not the peace train but the piece train. South African Journal of Science, 116(5/6):8136,
doi:10.17159/sajs.2020/8136.
The original publication is available at https://sajs.co.za
The original publication is available at https://sajs.co.za
Keywords
History, Van Onselen, Charles -- The night trains -- Criticism and interpretation, Foreign workers, Mozambican -- South Africa -- History -- Review, Miners -- Mozambique -- History -- Review
Citation
Nasson, B. 2020. Not the peace train but the piece train. South African Journal of Science, 116(5/6):8136,
doi:10.17159/sajs.2020/8136.