Science and Technology: How the East Was Won

Paper Summary:

This paper shows how Headrick discusses the effects of technology on the process of imperialism. while Prakash considers the development of "Scientific Hinduism" in India. thanks to the influence of the British. The writer states that there are constructive and destructive effects of technology and that the development of "Scientific Hinduism" was unique to the Indian subcontinent.

From the Paper:

"When one contemplates the "Age of Imperialism" (commonly considered to be from the early to mid-18th century until the beginning of the First World War in 1914), during which the European nations branched out to foreign lands in the hopes of exploiting them for their resources, the idea of a "civilizing mission" comes to mind. The Western source of self-assured superiority was their understanding of modern science and they believed that by bringing knowledge to the primitive peoples of non-Western civilizations they (the Europeans) would be imparting grace and power upon these unsophisticated natives. The reality of the process became more of an imposition of Western ideals upon societies that were by their very nature incompatible with Europeans conceptions of civilization. Such is the interest of two books, Tools of the Empire by Daniel Headrick and Another Reason by Gyan Prakash; however the two authors take different stances on the overall outcome of Western influence upon their imperial subjects. Headrick argues that the Europeans (most importantly the British) aimed to build empires through the introduction of then-modern technology (henceforth to be referred to as simply "modern technology"). Improved weaponry, steamboats, medicine, and ever-quickening communications were developed, though some were far more effective (communications, transportation, medicine) in terms of actually building healthy empires as opposed to subjugating the unwilling (weaponry). The results of such advances, according to Headrick, garnered distinct winners (the Europeans) and losers (the conquered; Africans, Burmese, etc.). Prakash discusses the so-called modernization of India by the British; however he sees the Indian result as a hybrid of the two unique nations one that is superior to the original thanks to changed incited by British imperial rule. Headrick attempts to tackle the general process of empire-building while Prakash discuses a very interesting special case, thereby making Another Reason less suited to address the overall nature of imperialism."

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