HPS205H1

Science, Technology, and Empire

This gateway course introduces the emergence of modern science and technology and the rise of European mercantile and colonial empires as closely intertwined processes. Beginning with the European discovery of the Americas, this course provides a broad thematic overview of the transformation of scientific practices in imperial contexts, including but not limited to geography and cartography; medical botany and plantation agriculture; biogeography and evolutionary biology; ecology and environmentalism; and race science and anthropology. The course primarily focuses on British and French colonial contexts in South Asia, Africa, Australasia and the Americas, but also considers Iberian, Russian, Dutch, and other imperial formations.