Book contents
- Frontmatter
- 1 Introduction: science, colonialism and modernity
- 2 Science under the 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
- THE NEW CAMBRIDGE HISTORY OF INDIA
Bibliographical essay
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 28 March 2008
- Frontmatter
- 1 Introduction: science, colonialism and modernity
- 2 Science under the 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
- THE NEW CAMBRIDGE HISTORY OF INDIA
Summary
General
There have been few general surveys of the history of science, technology and medicine in colonial India and a dearth of interpretative essays. Standard histories of science, technology and medicine written from the perspective of Europe and North America give little coverage to India. At most there might be some initial acknowledgement of the mathematics, medicine, chemistry and astronomy of ancient India, but Joseph Needham’s work on China (unparalleled in range and quality for India) is more often cited by authors in search of non-European comparisons. Of the specifically Indian works, D. M. Bose, S. N. Sen and B. V. Subbarayappa (eds.), A Concise History of Science in India (New Delhi, 1971), provides a convenient overview of a longer period than that covered by this book, but the chapter by Subbarayappa Western Science in India up to the End of the Nineteenth Century AD’(pp. 484-567) is a useful summary across several scientific fields. Unfortunately, no attempt is made to cover the twentieth century or to discuss medicine and technology.
There has been a tendency to partition the study of India’s science, technology and medicine, like much else in the region’s history, along conventional lines into ancient (Hindu), medieval (Muslim) and modern (colonial) periods. Of works that do link the pre-colonial and colonial periods of Indian scientific history, particularly useful are Ahsan Jan Qaisar, The Indian Response to European Technology and Culture (AD 1498–1707) (Delhi, 1982); and two articles by S. N. Sen, ‘Scientific Works in Sanskrit, Translated into Foreign Languages and Vice Versa in the 18th and 19th Century AD’, IJHS, 7, 1972, pp. 44–70, and ‘The Character of the Introduction of Western Science in India during the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries’, IJHS, 1, 1966, pp. 112–22.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Science, Technology and Medicine in Colonial India , pp. 217 - 226Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2000