A Commonwealth of Knowledge

A Commonwealth of Knowledge
Author :
Publisher : OUP Oxford
Total Pages : 308
Release :
ISBN-10 : 9780191516344
ISBN-13 : 0191516341
Rating : 4/5 (341 Downloads)

Book Synopsis A Commonwealth of Knowledge by : Saul Dubow

Download or read book A Commonwealth of Knowledge written by Saul Dubow and published by OUP Oxford. This book was released on 2006-10-19 with total page 308 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A Commonwealth of Knowledge addresses the relationship between social and scientific thought, colonial identity, and political power in nineteenth- and twentieth-century South Africa. It hinges on the tension between colonial knowledge, conceived of as a universal, modernizing force, and its realization in the context of a society divided along complex ethnic and racial fault-lines. By means of detailed analysis of colonial cultures, literary and scientific institutions, and expert historical thinking about South Africa and its peoples, it demonstrates the ways in which the cultivation of knowledge has served to support white political ascendancy and claims to nationhood. In a sustained commentary on modern South African historiography, the significance of `broad' South Africanism - a political tradition designed to transcend differences between white English- and Afrikaans-speakers - is emphasized. A Commonwealth of Knowledge also engages with wider comparative debates. These include the nature of imperial and colonial knowledge systems; the role of intellectual ideas and concepts in constituting ethnic, racial, and regional identities; the dissemination of ideas between imperial metropole and colonial periphery; the emergence of amateur and professional intellectual communities; and the encounter between imperial and indigenous or local knowledge systems. The book has broad scope. It opens with a discussion of civic institutions (eg. museums, libraries, botanical gardens and scientific societies), and assesses their role in creating a distinctive sense of Cape colonial identity; the book goes on to discuss the ways in which scientific and other forms of knowledge contributed to the development of a capacious South Africanist patriotism compatible with continued membership of the British Commonwealth; it concludes with reflections on the techno-nationalism of the apartheid state and situates contemporary concerns like the `African Renaissance', and responses to HIV/AIDS, in broad historical context.


A Commonwealth of Knowledge Related Books

A Commonwealth of Knowledge
Language: en
Pages: 308
Authors: Saul Dubow
Categories: History
Type: BOOK - Published: 2006-10-19 - Publisher: OUP Oxford

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

A Commonwealth of Knowledge addresses the relationship between social and scientific thought, colonial identity, and political power in nineteenth- and twentiet
A Commonwealth of Knowledge
Language: en
Pages: 309
Authors: Saul Dubow
Categories: History
Type: BOOK - Published: 2006-10-19 - Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

This is the first full study of the relationship of knowledge to national identity formation in modern South Africa. It explores how the cultivation of knowledg
A World of Knowledge
Language: en
Pages: 62
Authors: Commonwealth of Learning
Categories: Distance education
Type: BOOK - Published: 2003 - Publisher:

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Towards a Commonwealth of Learning
Language: en
Pages: 100
Authors: Expert Group on Commonwealth Co-operation in Distance Education and Open Learning
Categories: Education
Type: BOOK - Published: 1987 - Publisher: Commonwealth Secretariat

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Report of the Expert Group on Commonwealth Co-operation in Distance Education and Open Learning that proposes the creation of a University of the Commonwealth f
The Scientific Imagination in South Africa
Language: en
Pages: 419
Authors: William Beinart
Categories: History
Type: BOOK - Published: 2021-05-20 - Publisher: Cambridge University Press

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

An innovative three hundred year exploration of the social and political contexts of science and the scientific imagination in South Africa.