This is a collection of essays on African life in 20th-century Durban. It brings alive a vibrant city culture of crowds and violence, militant women, beer brewing, ricksha-pulling, shebeens and popular music and dance. Histories of Lamontville, Inanda and Clermont complement studies of workers, trade union organisation and political resistance. This is an engrossing picture of the city, which evolved the 'Durban system' of control and exploitation, prototype for the rest of South Africa. And it shows why such a system could not endure.