Triumph of the expert : Agrarian doctrines of development and the legacies of British colonialism / Joseph Morgan Hodge.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Hodge, Joseph Morgan, 1965-

Series:

Ohio University Press series in ecology and history

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Rural development.

Colonies.

History.

Agriculture and state--Colonies.

Agriculture and state.

Economic policy.

Great Britain--Colonies--Economic policy--History.

Great Britain.

Agriculture and state--Colonies--Great Britain--History.

Rural development--Colonies--Great Britain--History.

Imperialism and science.

Physical Description:

xiv, 402 pages, 8 unnumbered pages of plates : illustrations ; 24 cm.

Place of Publication:

Athens : Ohio University Press, [2007]

Summary:

In this lucid, engaging, and important book, Joseph Morgan Hodge changes the way we think about the evolution of scientific policies in the colonial and postcolonial world. By focusing on the applied scientists-the technical experts who came to wield considerable power in the late colonial period-he constructs a new understanding of how the policies developed and who developed them. The end product was the doctrine of development that continued to be preached into the late twentieth century and beyond. Triumph of the Expert sheds light on this critically important field of world history. Hodge argues that late British colonial imperialism was an imperialism of science and technology under which academics and scientific experts rose to positions of unparalleled authority. Scientific advisers and technical officers became the principal conduit for new ideas and influence as authority moved away from the fabled district administrator who "knew his natives" to the specialist who "knew his science."

Triumph of the Expert tells a dramatic and nuanced story of Britain's expansionist schemes to pry open the colonies for investment, settlement, and access to commodities and of the tensions and constraints that afflicted the empire's efforts to impose its will on other peoples. The author shows how competing agendas of power and the conflicts within colonial states shaped debates about the contribution of science and expertise to colonial development and how the voice of imperial science increasingly prefigured ideas of restraint and sustainable management for the long term. This pathbreaking work explores the fields of agriculture, education, and medicine and bridges the wide gulf between Eurocentric studies of the British Colonial Office and the field of development studies, bringing a much-needed historical perspective.

Contents:

Introduction: Expertise, Development, and the State at the Climax of Empire 1

Chapter 1 Setting the Terms of the Debate: Science, the State, and the "New Imperialism" 21

Chapter 2 Developing the "Imperial Estate": Early Patronage and Pessimism for Colonial Scientific Research and Technical Assistance, 1895-1914 54

Chapter 3 Science for Development: The Expansion of Colonial Agricultural Research and Advisory Networks, 1914-35 90

Chapter 4 The "Human Side" of Development: Trusteeship and the Turn to "Native" Health and Education, 1918-35 117

Chapter 5 View from the Field: Rethinking Colonial Agricultural and Medical Knowledge between the Wars, 1920-40 144

Chapter 6 View from Above: The Consolidation of Knowledge and the Reorganization of the Colonial Office, 1935-45 179

Chapter 7 Triumph of the Expert: Development, Environment, and the "Second Colonial Occupation," 1945-60 207

Conclusion: Postcolonial Consultants, Agrarian Doctrines of Development, and the Legacies of Late Colonialism 254.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages [361]-394) and index.

ISBN:

9780821417171

0821417177

9780821417188

0821417185

OCLC:

77004264

Online:

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