how does science empire the nation
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Over the past few decades a burgeoning new field of historical research has taken shape; one that draws our attention to the relationship that developed between science and British imperialism. Taken as a whole, the resulting corpus of work provides a rich and diverse picture of the part science played in colonial expansion and power. Recent scholarship, in particular, highlights the multi-layered and varied ways in which science supported, justified, and at times challenged, the British colonial enterprise, especially after 1750. What follows in this opening chapter is an overview of some of the more important contributions to the historical scholarship of the last four decades.1 It also situates the approach taken in this book within the wider fields of the ‘new imperial history’ and the history of science. We argue that a networked conception of empire, if engaged critically, offers much potential for future research endeavors in the field. Careful attention must be paid, however, both to the unevenness and inequalities of power that operated within specific networks of imperial science, and to the complex and often hybridized nature of scientific knowledge making in particular geographical and historical contexts.