Science, Technology and Medicine in Colonial India

by David Arnold

Overview

Interest in the science, technology and medicine of India under British rule has increased in recent years and has played an important part in the reinterpretation of modern South Asian history. David Arnold's wide-ranging analysis combines a discussion of all three fields across the entire colonial period—from the 1860s through to Independence—offering both a survey of recent scholarship and an original overview. Arnold assesses the role of science in the making of colonial India and in the fashioning of Indian responses to British rule.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780521563192
Publisher:	Cambridge University Press
Publication date:	04/20/2000
Series:	The New Cambridge History of India , #5
Pages:	248
Product dimensions:	6.34(w) x 9.33(h) x 0.91(d)
Lexile:	1790L (what's this?)

Table of Contents

List of illustrations; List of tables; General editor's preface; Preface; List of abbreviations; 1. Introduction: science, colonialism and modernity; 2. Science under the East India Company; 3. Western medicine in an Indian environment; 4. Technologies of the steam age; 5. Imperial science and the Indian scientific community; 6. Science, state and nation; Conclusion; Biographical notes; Bibliographical essay; Index.

Editorial Reviews

Spanning the whole colonial period from the establishment of the East India Company in 1760 to independence in 1947, Arnold (South Asian history, School of Oriental and African Studies, London) examines the role of science, technology, and medicine in conjunction with the development of the British engagement in India and in the formation of Indian responses to western intervention. He considers the relationship between Indian and western science, the creation of state scientific services, the rise of an Indian scientific community, and other aspects. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

Booknews

"...exceptional...Exceedingly well written and well organized, with a wealth of ideas and historical detail, this volume is an outstanding contribution to the understanding of the British impact on India...belongs in all college and university libraries." Choice

"This survey makes a substantial contribution to our understanding if Indian technology...This is a fine book that specialists will find engaging. It is also sufficiently well written that it may also be used to introduce the globalization of technology to advance undergraduates and graduate students." Technology and Culture

"Arnold's Cambridge History joins a thoughtful set of reflections on science, colonialism, and modernity in India with a mass of valuable information. The volume will secure for the history if Indian science and technology a central place both in the larger history of science, and in that of colonial India." Jrnl of Interdisciplinary History

"Science, Technology, and Medicine in Colonial India is a welcome antidote both to presentations of twentieth-century Indian science as the simple fruit of transplanted European learning and to fundamentalist offerings that seek to establish Hindu precedents for modern science, accusing the latter of merely borrowing from ancient oriental learning." Isis

"Arnold's book provides the best single interpretive survey of the history of science in colonial India...its succeeds in providing an intelligent and economical synthesis of a vast amount of research." Victorian Studies

From the Publisher