The Routledge Handbook of Science and Empire introduces readers to important new research in the field of science and empire. This compilation of inquiry into the inextricably intertwined history of science and empire reframes the field, showing that one could not have grown without the other.
The volume expands the history of science through careful attention to connections, exchanges, and networks beyond the scientific institutions of Europe and the United States. These 27 original essays by established scholars and new talent examine: scientific and imperial disciplines, networks of science, scientific practice within empires, and decolonised science. The chapters cover a wide range of disciplines, from anthropology and psychiatry to biology and geology. There is global coverage, with essays about China, Southeast Asia, the Pacific, Australia and New Zealand, India, the Middle East, Russia, the Arctic, and North and South America. Specialised essays cover Jesuit science, natural history collecting, energy systems, and science in UNESCO.
With authoritative chapters by leading scholars, this is a guiding resource for all scholars of empire and science. Free of jargon and with clearly written essays, the handbook is a valuable path to further inquiry for any student of the history of science and empire.
1. Introduction: an imperial turn in the history of science
Andrew Goss
2. Situating the empire in history of science
Pratik Chakrabarti
3. Cartography and empire from early modernity to postmodernity
Thomas Simpson
4. Racial science
James Poskett
5. Meteorology and empire
Martin Mahony
6. Colonial psychiatry
Matthew M. Heaton
7. Anthropology and empire
Fenneke Sysling
8. Natural history collections and empire
Andreas Weber
9. Non-Western collectors and their contributions to natural history, c. 1750–1940
Jennifer R. Morris
10. Energy and empire
Nathan Kapoor
11. Science, empire, and the old Society of Jesus, 1540–1773
Maria Pia Donato and Sabina Pavone
12. Networks of knowledge in the Indo-Pacific, 1600–1800
Dorit Brixius
13. Between transimperial networking and national antagonism: German scientists in the British Empire during the long nineteenth century
Ulrike Kirchberger
14. Iberian science, Portuguese Empire, and cultures of inquiry in early-modern Europe
Hugh Cagle
15. The dynamic trajectory of French colonialism and science
Michael A. Osborne
16. Another empire: science in the Ottoman lands
Daniel A. Stolz
17. The planting of "colonial" science in Russian soil
Anna Kuxhausen
18. Scientific knowledge in the Qing Empire: engaging with the world, 1644–1911
James Flowers
19. Empire, cultivation, and the environment in Southeast Asia since 1500
Timothy P. Barnard
20. Science and its publics in British India
Charu Singh
21. From history of science to history of knowledge?: themes and perspectives in colonial Australasia
James Beattie and Ruth A. Morgan
22. Empires and science: the case of the sixteenth-century Iberian Empire
Antonio Barrera-Osorio
23. Science in early North America
Cameron B. Strang
24. Science, the United States, and Latin America
Megan Raby
25. Arctic science
Nanna Katrine Lüders Kaalund
26. Science and decolonisation in UNESCO
Casper Andersen
27. Decolonising science and medicine in Indonesia
Hans Pols
Biography
Andrew Goss is Professor of History at Augusta University, Georgia.
"Overall, the handbook is an excellent resource for any scholar interested in the topic. I would recommend it to graduate students for their comprehensive exams, to course instructors to provide readings for an undergraduate class, and to scholars engaging with or looking for a quick introduction to any of these topics." - Sarah Qidwai, University of Regensburg
