We have called our book the ‘scientific imagination’ firstly because we wanted to link science, power and ideas about society. Science and technology profoundly shaped the country’s history. Secondly we also aim to discuss science as an expression of human curiosity, ingenuity, and the ability to make unlikely connections. South Africa was a regional rather than a world power, and in global terms it was not a major centre for invention. Yet its geographic position at the southern foot of the African continent made it a staging post for Portuguese, Dutch and British maritime empires and it became part of an expanded European and global imaginary. Colonisation by Britain in 1806 brought the region into tight connection with one of the most powerful, and technologically advanced, world empires.
From the late-eighteenth century, following the publication of Linnaeus’s ordered system of classifying nature, the Cape became an important site for botanical and zoological exploration. Thousands of plant species, as well as the extraordinarily diverse wildlife, attracted sustained attention. Indigenous and local knowledge was a reference point for early scientific travellers. By the early twentieth century, ancient fossil and hominin remains suggested that the country may have constituted the ‘cradle’ of modern human evolution.
South Africa was at key moments a significant incubator and testing ground of innovation. In the nineteenth century, improved agricultural technology underpinned exports of wool and ostrich feathers. Devastating new rifles helped to change the balance of power in favour of colonial regimes. The mineral revolution of the late nineteenth century launched a phase of rapid industrialisation. This necessitated developments in applied geology and the chemistry of gold extraction. Mining delineated scientific practice and thickened the web of science, but there was also momentum in fields such as veterinary medicine and oil from coal technology. The scientific imagination was also more exploratory in curiosity-driven fields such as astronomy, palaeontology, and wildlife conservation.
South Africa gave birth both to Afrikaner and African nationalism which impacted on its scientific as well as political trajectory. White South Africans were also carriers of a darker tradition – the attempts to justify racial segregation in scientific terms. In the relatively brief era of African nationalist rule after 1994, the state has espoused more universalist goals and the segregationist drive to account for racial difference has yielded to an emphasis on common humankind.
This book is a history of individuals, ideas and institutions that were at the fulcrum of important scientific developments. We argue that science and technology played a major role in shaping South African society, but also that diverse and multi-sited scientific endeavour is central to addressing the priorities of the new South Africa.
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