THE SCIENTIFIC IMAGINATION IN SOUTH AFRICA, 1700 to the present

406pp., illus., maps, paperback, Cambridge, 2021

"Viewed locally and globally, the history of science in South Africa is an astonishing mix of achievement and conflict that is difficult for even experts to understand. At last, two of the region's finest historians have produced a synthetic account that makes this fascinating story intelligible to amateurs and specialists alike." Keith Breckenridge, University of the Witwatersrand

"In this magisterial account of the place of South Africa in the global history of science, William Beinart and Saul Dubow have once again demonstrated why they are the leading historians of South Africa. As they point out, the scientific endeavor in South Africa has always been political, from the early days of European forays into the region in the fifteenth-century to the dawn of a nonracial democracy in 1994. Written in that learned and lucid style that defines their work, this will set the standard by which future accounts of the history of science in South Africa are judged." Jacob Dlamini, Princeton University

William Beinart is Emeritus Professor, St Antony's College, University of Oxford, and former Director of the African Studies Centre. His latest publications include Rights to Land (with Peter Delius and Michelle Hay), African Local knowledge & Livestock Health (with Karen Brown) and Prickly Pear: the social history of a plant in the Eastern Cape (with Luvuyo Wotshela).

Saul Dubow is Smuts Professor of Commonwealth History at the University of Cambridge. His publications include South Africa's Struggle for Human Rights and Scientific Racism in Modern South Africa.