If you stand on the hill at the corner of Louis Botha Avenue and Boundary Road in Parktown,  Johannesburg, and look northwards, you will see the road sloping down to the thickly forested suburbs below. A few paces down the hill on your left is an unlovely but historic beacon … now part of a reinterpreted landscape, called Wits Junction, a uniquely historical precinct.

Jozi is noted for its diversity – if there was the crassness of naked commerce, there were also the more subtle, countervailing cultures of millions of men and women who came to make their home or occupation in Johannesburg.

In Who Built Jozi? Luli Callinicos weaves a fascinating fabric, exploring the foundations of  Johannesburg by making the connections between the legacy of those first newcomers to the city and today’s post-apartheid generation living in the residential complex, a conversation between the present and the past.

This book is a treasure trove of local history. Written in an accessible style, it is richly illustrated in full colour, using both historic and contemporary photographs and maps.

Luli Callinicos is the author of the social history trilogy, Gold and Workers (1981), Working Life (1987) and A Place in the City (1993). She received the Noma Award for Publishing in Africa in 1989. The World that made Mandela: a Heritage Trail was published in 2000, followed by Oliver Tambo: Beyond the Engeli Mountains. She has served as chairperson of the National Heritage Council and is currently council member of the Robben Island Museum, the Mapungubwe Institute for Strategic Reflection, the South African History Archives and Khanya College.