Science and Technology in South Africa, 1939-1946: The Mind at War

This book addresses the ways in which science and technology were employed in South Africa during the Second World War. A key theme underlying the chapters is the human mind: in Chapter One, which addresses the submission of ideas to the Union Defence Force, this is the inventive mind; in Chapter Seven with its focus on aviation medicine, there is the description of human will and agency, and their ultimate subordination to technology; and in Chapter Eight which considers psychiatry, it is the measurement of the mind that is addressed on the part of medical experts. The final chapter concludes with the concept of the ’world mind’ and the use of science to create a new post-war world order. Each chapter employs a case study to highlight the ways in which science and technology were interwoven with society and identity--national, racial and gendered--in wartime South Africa. The overarching theme explored is the hierarchies of knowledge creation, whether in relation to South Africa as a dominion within the British Empire, as a member of the Allies, or as a nation rife with societal tension exacerbated by the war.

Suryakanthie Chetty is a senior lecturer in the Department of Historical and Heritage Studies, University of Pretoria, South Africa. She has published two books with Palgrave Macmillan: Reconstructive Surgery and Modernisation in Twentieth-Century South Africa: The Professional and Public Life of Jack Penn (2023), and ’Africa Forms the Key’ Alex Du Toit and the History of Continental Drift (2021).