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German science in the age of empire : enterprise, opportunity, and the Schlagintweit brothers

Title
German science in the age of empire : enterprise, opportunity, and the Schlagintweit brothers / Moritz von Brescius, University of Bern.
ISBN
9781108427326
1108427324
9781108446068
110844606X
Publication
Cambridge, United Kingdom ; New York, NY, USA : Cambridge University Press, 2018.
Physical Description
xiii, 414 pages : illustrations (some color) ; 24 cm.
Summary
This seminal study explores the national, imperial and indigenous interests at stake in a major survey expedition undertaken by the German Schlagintweit brothers, while in the employ of the East India Company, through South and Central Asia in the 1850s. It argues that German scientists, lacking in this period a formal empire of their own, seized the opportunity presented by other imperial systems to observe, record, collect and loot manuscripts, maps, and museological artefacts that shaped European understandings of the East. Drawing on archival research in three continents, von Brescius vividly explores the dynamics and conflicts of transcultural exploration beyond colonial frontiers in Asia. Analysing the contested careers of these imperial outsiders, he reveals significant changes in the culture of gentlemanly science, the violent negotiation of scientific authority in a transnational arena, and the transition from Humboldtian enquiry to a new disciplinary order. This book offers a new understanding of German science and its role in shaping foreign empires, and provides a revisionist account of the questions of authority and of authenticity in reportage from distant sites.
Format
Books
Language
English
Added to Catalog
May 28, 2019
Series
Science in history
Bibliography
Includes bibliographical references (pages 367-400) and index.
Contents
Empires of opportunity
Entering the company service: Anglo-German networks and the Schlagintweit mission to Asia
Imperial recruitment and transnational science in India
An ingenious management of patronage communities
Making science in the field: a Eurasian expedition on the move
The inner life of a European expedition: cultural encounters and multiple hierarchies
Contested exploration and the Indian rebellion: the fateful year 1857
The Schlagintweit collections, India museums, and the tensions of German museology
Asymmetric reputations: memories of exploration and German colonial enterprise.
Citation

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