The Tentacles of Progress Technology Transfer in the Age of Imperialism, 1850-1940

by Headrick, Daniel R.

• ISBN13: 9780195051162
• ISBN10: 0195051165
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 1988-03-10
• Publisher: Oxford University Press

Summary

This penetrating examination of a paradox of colonial rule shows how themassive transfers of technology--including equipment, techniques, andexperts--from the European imperial powers to their colonies in Asia and Africaresulted not in industrialization but in underdevelopment. Examining the mostimportant technologies--shipping and railways, telegraphs and wireless, urbanwater supply and sewage disposal, economic botany and plantation agriculture,irrigation, and mining and metallurgy--Headrick provides a new perspective oncolonial economic history and reopens the debate on the roots of Asian andAfrican underdevelopment.

Table of Contents

Imperialism, Technology, and Tropical Economies	3	(15)
Technologies and Western-Tropical Relations
The Transfer Process
The Setting and the Argument
Notes
Ships and Shipping	18	(31)
Characteristics of World Shipping
Steamships before 1869
The Suez Canal
Shipbuilding after 1869
Tropical Harbors
The New Organization of Shipping
The Major Shipping Companies
The Causes of British Supremacy
Notes
The Railways of India	49	(48)
Origins of the Indian Railways
Building the Trunk Lines (1853-71)
The Era of State Construction (1870-79)
The New Guarantee Period (1880-1914)
World War I and After (1914-47)
The Locomotive Industry
Consequences and Comparisons
Notes
The Imperial Telecommunications Networks	97	(48)
Submarine Telegraph Cables, 1850-70
Cable Technology to 1914
Submarine Cables and the British Empire, 1870-1914
The French Cable Network, 1856-95
British Abuses and French Reactions, 1884-1914
The Indian Telegraphs
French Colonial Posts and Telegraphs
Colonial Wireless Networks to 1918
British Wireless after 1918
French Wireless after 1918
Notes
Cities, Sanitation, and Segregation	145	(26)
Hong Kong Water
Calcutta Sewage and Sanitation
Dakar and the Plague
Notes
Hydraulic Imperialism in India and Egypt	171	(38)
Precolonial Irrigation and British Restorations to 1837
The Classic Era of Indian Irrigation, 1838-54
The Era of Private Irrigation, 1854-69
Productive and Protective Works, 1866-98
The Indian Irrigation Commission and After, 1897-1940
Egypt, the Nile, and the British
Conclusion
Notes
Economic Botany and Tropical Plantations	209	(50)
Tropical Crops from Plunder to Science
Plant Transfers and the British Botanic Empire
Agricultural Research in the British Tropics
Science and Agriculture in the Dutch East Indies
Tropical Botany in France
Botany and Plantations in the French Empire
Cinchona
Sugar Cane
Rubber
Conclusion
Notes
Mining and Metallurgy	259	(45)
Malayan Tin and Chinese Technology in the Nineteenth Century
The Western Takeover of Malayan Tin
Opening the African Copperbelt
Katanga Copper, 1911-40
Iron and Steel in India: the Demand Side Indian Iron before 1914
Background of the Indian Steel Industry
The Tata Iron and Steel Company
Conclusion
Notes
Technical Education	304	(48)
Technical Education in Egypt
Vocational Education in West Africa
Technical Education in India: Demand and Supply
The Politics of Technical Education in India
Foreign Study and Independent Schools
Technical Education after World War I
Conclusion
Notes
Experts and Enterprises	352	(27)
The Smallholders
The Experts
The Cotton Mills
Indian Shipping and Shipbuilding
Indianizing the Steel Industry
Conclusion
Notes	352	(27)
Technology Transfer and Colonial Politics	379	(6)
Bibliographical Essay	385	(6)
Index	391