Abstract

QUINTERO TORO, Camilo. What is new in the history of science and imperialism? Local knowledge, colonial dynamics and the role of the United States in twentieth-century science. hist.crit. [online]. 2006, n.31, pp.151-172. ISSN 0121-1617.

This essay surveys some recent trends in the historiography of science and colonialism and their connection to the new cultural history and postcolonial studies. It emphasizes the importance of actors from the colonial world, particularly the subaltern, and the processes of change both in the colonized and the colonizer in the development of modern science. Likewise, it examines the absence of the United States in the studies of science and imperialism. Based on some of the few studies on the topic, it proposes new tools to understand the origin of the imperial character of U.S. science, as well as the influence of scientific practices in the twentieth-century expansion of the United States. It ends with a concrete case study that illustrates how the growth of the United States’ international networks affected the development of the natural sciences in the first half of the twentieth century.

Keywords : History of science; science and imperialism; United States; colonialism; history of biology.

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