Michael Cardo writes that in the push for Jan Smuts hall at UCT to be renamed, it would be a shame if the racial chauvinism of the past were to be resculpted and acclaimed as the politics of progress in the present.
Event description
A conversation on Gondwana s modern human and earth histories presented by the New Earth Histories Research Program, UNSW. About this Event
What does it mean to write the modern history of an ancient supercontinent?
Earth scientists know a great deal about the geological history of Gondwanaland and its breakup that began 180 million years ago, eventually creating present day Africa, Australia, New Zealand, South America, South Asia and Antarctica. This panel of historians addresses the possibilities that emerge when we consider Gondwanaland’s national and continental fragments according to a series of modern environmental, cultural, political, colonial, and postcolonial histories.
The Scientific Imagination in South Africa
The Scientific Imagination in South Africa
The Scientific Imagination in South Africa
1700 to the Present
Publisher:
Cambridge University Press
Print publication year:
2021
Online ISBN: 9781108938198
The Scientific Imagination in South Africa
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Book description
South Africa provides a unique vantage point from which to examine the scientific imagination over the last three centuries, when its position on the African continent made it a staging post for Portuguese, Dutch, and British colonialism. In the eighteenth century, South African plants and animals caught the imagination of visiting Europeans. In the nineteenth century, science became central to imperial conquest, devastating wars, agricultural intensification and the exploitation of rich mineral resources. Scientific work both facilitated, and offered alternatives to, the imposition of segregation and apartheid