★Nature and Empire: Science and the Colonial Enterprise

Roy MacLeod

★Nature and Empire: Science and the Colonial Enterprise

(Osiris, Second Series, Vol. 15; Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2001).

 

 

 

Surveying Africa, Asia, and the Americas, this important new collection looks at roles of science, medicine, and technology during five centuries of colonialism. This thought-provoking history examines the many intersections of science, politics, and culture during colonialism, including the relation between racism and medical science, "exploration" and its potential for wealth, and the perceived differences between indigenous knowledge and European science. Sixteen chapters focus on such topics as intellectual property rights and biodiversity, "acclimatizing" the world, and science and development. Bringing together contributions from scholars of history and science from around the globe, Nature and Empire forges a new path for readers interested in science and society during the modern era.

 

ROY MACLEOD: Introduction

 

PART I. IMPERIAL LEGACIES

 

JUAN PIMENTEL: The Iberian Vision:Science and Empire in the Framework of a Universal Monarchy, 1500-1800

 

JAMES E. MCCLELLAN III AND FRANÇOIS REGOURD: The Colonial Machine: French Science and Colonization in the Ancien Régime

 

SVERKER SÖRLIN: Ordering the World for Europe: Science as Intelligence and Information as Seen from the Northern Periphery

 

ALBERTO ELENA AND JAVIER ORDÓNEZ: Science, Technology and the Spanish Colonial Experience in the Nineteenth Century

 

PART II. MILIEUX AND METAPHOR

 

SUZANNE ZELLER: The Colonial World as a Geological Metaphor:Strata(gems) of Empire in Victorian Canada

 

MARIA MARGARET LOPES AND IRINA PODGORNY: The Shaping of Latin American Museums of Natural History, 1850-1990

 

KAPIL RAJ: Colonial Encounters and the Forging of New Knowledge and National Identities:Great Britain and India, 1760-1850.

 

MICHAEL A. OSBORNE: Acclimatizing the World: A History of the Paradigmatic Colonial Science

 

PART III. SCIENCE, CULTURE, AND THE COLONIAL PROJECT

 

ANTONIO LAFUENTE: Enlightenment in an Imperial Context:Local Science in the Late-Eighteenth-Century Hispanic World

 

SILVIA FIGUEIROA AND CLARETE DA SILVA: Enlightened Mineralogists:Mining Knowledge in Colonial Brazil, 1750-1825

 

HARRIET DEACON: Racism and Medical Science in South Africa's Cape Colony in the Mid- to Late Nineteenth Century

 

MICHAEL WORBOYS: The Colonial World as Mission and Mandate:Leprosy and Empire, 1900-1940

 

PART IV: COLONIAL SCIENCE AND THE NEW WORLD SYSTEM

 

DAVID WADE CHAMBERS AND RICHARD GILLESPIE- Locality in the History of Science: Colonial Science, Technoscience, and Indigenous Knowledge

 

DEEPAK KUMAR- Reconstructing India: Disunity in the Science and Technology for Development Discourse, 1900-1947

 

CHRISTOPHE BONNEUIL- Science and State Building in Late Colonial and Postcolonial Africa, 1930-1970.

 

JOHN MERSON: Bio-prospecting or Bio-piracy: Intellectual Property Rights and Biodiversity in a Colonial and Postcolonial Context

 

BIBLIOGRAPHY
NOTES on CONTRIBUTORS
INDEX