Monopolizing Knowledge
The East India Company and Britain's Second Scientific Revolution

An exploration of the colonial political economy of science through the East India Company's library and museum in Britain.

Jessica Ratcliff (Author)

9781009379496, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 16 January 2025

306 pages
23.5 x 16 x 2 cm, 0.571 kg

'Deeply researched and engagingly written, Ratcliff's captivating account of the East India Company's often controversial efforts to assert a 'natural monopoly' over scientific knowledge offers a refreshingly new interpretation of the Company's colonial expansion and its enduring legacies, all while provoking readers to reflect on the fundamental tensions between private and public claims to 'own' knowledge that very much remain with us today.' Philip Stern, Duke University

In the nineteenth century, an ambitious new library and museum for Asian arts, sciences and natural history was established in the City of London, within the corporate headquarters of the East India Company. Funded with taxes from British India and run by the East India Company, this library-museum was located thousands of miles away from the taxpayers who supported it and the land from which it grew. Jessica Ratcliff documents how the growth of science at the Company depended upon its sweeping monopoly privileges and its ability to act as a sovereign state in British India. She explores how 'Company science' became part of the cultural fabric of science in Britain and examines how it fed into Britain's dominance of science production within its empire, as well as Britain's rising preeminence on the scientific world stage. This title is part of the Flip it Open program and may also be available open access. Check our website Cambridge Core for details.

Introduction: a natural monopoly
Part I. The Making of Company Science, 1600–1813: 1. Science under the Company before Company science
2. The roots of Company science in Asia
3. The pull of Company science to London
Part II. From Company Science to Public Science, 1813–58: 4. Patterns of accumulation
5. Systematic possession
6. Becoming national
7. The commercializing mission
Conclusion
Bibliography
Index.

Subject Areas: History of engineering & technology [TBX]