Ravi Mbeki is a South African historian of technology and empire whose work explores how machines, materials, and human judgment collide at sea and on land. Raised in Durban and educated at the University of Cape Town and the University of Oxford, he has taught modern history at the University of the Western Cape and served as a research fellow with the Centre for Maritime Studies in Cape Town.
Ravi Mbeki is the author of Tides of Iron: Gunnery and Empire, 1850–1918 and numerous essays in the Journal of Military History and The Mariner's Mirror. His research has taken him from the National Archives at Kew to the Istanbul Naval Museum and dockyards in Simon's Town and Yokosuka. He has consulted for museum exhibitions and radio documentaries, and his work was awarded the Society for Nautical Research Anderson Medal and shortlisted for the Sunday Times Alan Paton Award. He lives in Cape Town with his partner and two dogs.
