The New Cambridge History of India, Volume 3, Part 5: Science, Technology and Medicine in Colonial India [Hardcover]

David Arnold (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0521563194 | ISBN-13: 978-0521563192 | Publication Date: April 28, 2000

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.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"...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

Book Description

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 asserts the role of science in the making of colonial India and in the fashioning of Indian responses to British rule.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 248 pages
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press (April 28, 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0521563194
• ISBN-13: 978-0521563192
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.3 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.3 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,840,805 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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7 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Surprisingly little studied till now, April 20, 2004

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This review is from: The New Cambridge History of India, Volume 3, Part 5: Science, Technology and Medicine in Colonial India (Hardcover)

It is a little ironic that in some histories of science throughout the world, you can find greater coverage of India before the British arrived, than during the colonial era. Partly, perhaps, it may be from a desire to describe the purely Indian contributions to science.

But what happened in science, engineering and medicine when the British ruled India has been relatively neglected, compared to both the pre and post colonial eras. Arnold attempts to redress this deficit here. He describes how indigenous Indian scientists and doctors learned from and also influenced the British.

Especially in the area of tropical medicine. From their African colonies, the British also had experiences in this field. But India had much higher population densities and a more highly developed infrastructure than in Africa. Plus the Indians had perhaps better, though incomplete, knowledge of solutions.

It is still surprising that up till now, there has been little scholarly work done on this subject. One might speculate that previous British authors might have concentrated on science done in Britain itself. And Indian authors might have wanted, even if only subconsciously, to deprecate the colonial period.