German Science in the Age of Empire
Enterprise, Opportunity and the Schlagintweit Brothers

A path-breaking study of national, imperial and indigenous interests at stake in a controversial German expedition to British India.

Moritz von Brescius (Author)

9781108446068, Cambridge University Press

Paperback / softback, published 12 November 2020

428 pages, 50 colour illus.
23 x 15.3 x 3 cm, 0.85 kg

'It is … unquestionably a significant contribution to the history of science in modern Europe and the history of European imperialism-it is, in fact, an important illustration of how they are inextricably linked.' Nicholas A. Germana, The American Historical Review

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.

Introduction: empires of opportunity
1. Entering the company service: Anglo-German networks and the Schlagintweit mission to Asia
2. Imperial recruitment and transnational science in India
3. An ingenious management of patronage communities
4. Making science in the field: a Eurasian expedition on the move
5. The inner life of a 'European' expedition: cultural encounters and multiple hierarchies
6. Contested exploration and the Indian Rebellion: the fateful year 1857
7. The Schlagintweit collections, India museums, and the tensions of German museology
8. Asymmetric reputations: memories of exploration and German colonial enterprise
Conclusion.

Subject Areas: Colonialism & imperialism [HBTQ], General & world history [HBG]