In my personal career development I became a regional history expert.mAfter my postgraduate work, my research in regional history gradually matured towards four central foci. Initially, I focused on (i) Gold mining as the region’s economic driver and (ii) Local economic developments and related environmental distortions. Once I had a more comprehensive multidisciplinary understanding of the FWR and regional histories as field, I (iii) advanced the methodological paradigm for doing regional and micro (local) histories, as well as the historiography of regional history in South Africa (SA).