1.

6 Imperialist Diffusion of Science and Technology

1.6 a. The Spread of Western Science

The Western European nations: Italy, France, England, the Netherlands, Germany, Austria, and the Scandinavian countries was the
scene of Scientific Revolution = what we now identify as MODERN SCIENCE.

How did modern science diffuse from Western Europe and spread around the world?
- through direct contact with a Western European country, military conquest, colonization, imperial influence, commercial and
political relations, and missionary activity

Basalla generalized the repeated pattern of events (phases) during the diffusion all over Eastern Europe, North and South America,
India, Australia, China, Japan and Africa through this model.

Sequence of phases in the diffusion of Western Science

Source: http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-
kYGQonxz9nM/Tjqqs-VLWII/AAAAAAAAAJY/FrXgFZ3jkXQ/s1600/basalla.JPG

3 Phases of the Spread of Western Science

Phase 1: Geographic Exploration
- Source: nonscientific society or the absence of modern Western science, not to the lack of ancient, indigenous scientific
thought.
- characterized by Europeans visiting the land, observing its physical features, takes back data to Europe and studies it
- Botany, Zoology, and Geology predominated in this phase
- Astronomy, Geophysics, and a cluster of Geographical Sciences: Topography, Cartography, Hydrography, Meteorology,
sometimes rival them in importance
- TAKE NOTE: the observer is a product of a scientific culture that values the systematic exploration of nature
- Science in this phase includes appraisal of natural resources (organic and inorganic environment)
- Francis Bacon: If Europeans decide to settle in the territory being observed, they must also study crops or food naturally
yielded in their soils then help the territory in producing it
- Trade and the prospect of settlement both influence the European observer’s investigation of a new land but ultimately his
work is to be related to the scientific culture he represents
- Naturalists of the New World
● 16th century: Gonzalo Fernandez de Oviedo, first naturalist of the New World, his book delineating the natural
history of the West Indies
● 17th and 18th centuries - constant stream of Spanish, French, German, Dutch, Swedish, and English naturalists
traveling on scientific expeditions to South America
● Early decades of the 19th century - culminates in the work of Alexander Von Humboldt and Charles Darwin
- When the exploration of the region east of the Mississippi River was done, it shifted the interest to the Western lands, making
the American West the scene of Phase 1 science
- Eastern United States: Boston, Philadelphia, and Washington, served as a center for the diffusion of modern science
- Pacific Ocean: opened to European scientists by the three exploratory voyages undertaken by Captain James Cook between
1768 and 1780
 ● Sir Joseph Banks: uncovered the botanical, zoological, and ethnological treasures of Australia
● Robert Brown: gathered some 3900 Australian plants
● Later, Sir Joseph Dalton Hooker and Alfred Russell Wallace: made significant contributions to science based on
their collecting ventures in Antarctica and the Malay Archipelago
- China, India, and Japan posed new problems for the spread of Western Science because ancient and civilized people not
encountered elsewhere inhabited these places
- China, once it opened itself to Western ideas from the Jesuit missionaries, posed new and various opportunities for European
explorations
● Jesuit missionaries as carriers of the new astronomy of Copernicus and Galileo to the learned men of China
- Portuguese, in pursuit of the spice trade, opened a sea route to India with the first European science-collectors to that
continent
● but in the 18th century, the English became the masters of Indian trade
- Napoleon Bonaparte: most ambitious 18th-century scientific expedition mounted in 1798, as part of his military campaign in
Egypt
In conclusion:
“Phase 1 science may be scattered around the globe, but only nations with a modern scientific culture can fully appreciate, evaluate
and utilize it.”
“The scientist who went out on an exploratory expedition often found that the experience gained from studying natural history in a
foreign land modified his own scientific views”
“Thus European science… underwent a significant transformation while it was in the process of being diffused to a wider world.”

Phase 2: Colonial Science

- Began much later but eventually reached a higher level of scientific activity than phase 1.
- Colonial science is dependent science.
- Natural history is the major scientific interest.
- A colonial scientist is a native or a transplanted European colonizer or settler, but the sources of his education and
institutional attachments are beyond the boundaries of the land in which he carries his scientific work.
- Drawback of Colonial Science
● Lack of colonial scientific institutions so the scientists cannot share in the informal scientific organizations of that
culture.
- Colonial science does provide the proper milieu through its contact with the established scientific cultures and a small
number of gifted individuals.
- The ultimate strength of Colonial Science
● It lies in the scientists’ education and work supported by an external scientific tradition illustrated by US and Japan.
- Nationalism, both political and cultural and the possession of essential features for the next stage are what spurs the scientist
to move from dependency to independency.

Phase 3: Independent Scientific Tradition

- Completes the process of transplantation to achieve an independent scientific tradition.
- Western Europe was replaced by the United States and Russia as leading scientific nations.
- The major ties of the scientists in this phase are within the boundaries of the country where he work. They must:
● Receive most of his training from home.
● Gain respect for his calling or in living as a scientist in his own country.
● Find intellectual stimulation within his own expanded scientific community.
● Be able to communicate ideas easily to his fellow scientists at home and abroad.
● Have better opportunity to open new fields of scientific endeavor.
● Look forward to the reward of national honors.
- This phase is marked by a conscious struggle to reach an independent status.
- Tasks are to be completed to attain an independent scientific culture:
● Encourage scientific research and overcome anti-science belief.
● Determine the social role and place of the scientists.
● Clarify the relationship between science and the government.
● Introduce the teaching of science at all levels of the educational system.
● Institute native scientific organizations to the promotion of science.
 ● Open channels for scientific communication
● Establish a proper technological base for the growth of science.

1.6 b. Case of India

I. Imperialism vs Colonialism
a. Imperialism
i. Exercise power over a conquered region, politically or economically
ii. Govern a separate territory without significant settlement
b. Colonialism
i. To conquer, rule, and move/settle into a new area/country
ii. Exploiting resources of conquered country for benefit of conqueror
II. Why is there imperialism and colonialism
a. Expectations of large returns from colonial acquisition
b. Concentration on social returns obscures economic importance of colonies
III. What would happen without imperialism?
a. Did it prevent capitalist development in nations that may have developed independently
b. Did it directly or indirectly inhibit successful modernization of economies
IV. Start of Imperialism in India
a. As Mughal empire declined, and British increased their presence
i. Formation of East India Company
b. Unlike china, not politically unified
c. Europeans came in slowly at first in search of trade rather than invasion
V. Indian Government assumed by British Crown
a. Uprising called “the Indian Mutiny”
b. Large administration and police force removed effective sovereignty from people
VI. Britain’s failure in India (according to Komarov)
a. Pre-colonial india evidenced growth
i. Of towns as centers for handicraft and trade
ii. Emergence of private land ownership
iii. Showed signs of transition to late feudalism
b. Loss of economic sovereignty in form of trading monopolies secured by the East India Company
i. Decline of Indian merchant capital
c. British reforms intensified feudal exploitation of Indian peasantry
i. Altered fundamental nature of tenure
ii. Investing the feudal landlord with greater powers over the person and property of the
peasant
d. Revenue exploitation due to demand of increase of foreign trade and investment
i. "the economic and political domination of British capital in India necessarily retarded
the development of new [indigenous] productive forces and the replacement of feudal relations by capitalist
relations."
e. Further destruction of indigenous capitalism
i. Ruthless exploitation of industrial workers
f. Agricultural reform of tenure and revenue system affected peasants
i. Occupancy rights and peasant holdings passed onto hands of traders
ii. Created class of landless labourers and unemployed
iii. EFFECT
1. Surplus of labor + lack of employment forced down wages
2. Retard emergence of labor-saving technological innovations in agriculture
g. Indian industrial sector not like the Western model
i. Domestic industries flooded with competing colonial imports
ii. No encouragement of industry by financial aid, protective tariffs, etc.
VII. De-industrialization and the Economic Role of the British Raj
a. Conversion of India into a market for British goods
 i. Inhibited India’s own manufacturing industries
ii. Converted India into agricultural hinterland of Great Britain
b. As industrial growth accelerated (in Indian handicraft industry), proportion of employed labor did not change
i. Lack of increase of income (demand), and capital accumulation
c. Absence of essential services and tariff protection discouraged movement of resources into handicraft based industries
i. The Raj invested into administrative, policing, and military activities instead
d. Infrastructural investments like canals and railways was advanced for short-term revenue instead of long-term
i. Projects as such were to divide the region/be more enclavist rather than linked to the
indigenous economic structure
ii. Indian revenue transferred into the british-oriented sector of the economy
e. Dictation of external trade by British Policy
i. No specialization in areas of greatest advantage
ii. No free (market-led) movement of internal resources
iii. No tariffs or other protection of infant industries
f. GENERALLY RETARDED FEATURES OF INDIAN LIFE AND CULTURE
i. The caste system which served box people into roles instead of motivating them to make achievements.
ii. Hinduism was not belonging with the rigid caste system. The rise of the Parsees in industry and finance
would add to this.
iii. Multiple Hindu sects were not as one in their behavioral attributes.
iv. A significant portion of India was outside of both Hinduism and British rule.
VIII. Transfer, diffusion, and the British
a. EIC (East India Company) set a pattern for British science policy
i. The object of the Company was to transfer the European “natural history enterprise” to INdia for purely
commercial purposes.
b. The Geological Survey of India’s policy was to concentrate research activity upon the discovery of resources to be refined
or processed in Britain, rather than to investigate any possibility of the manufacturing usage of resources in India itself.
i. The Geological Survey of India directed its attention to the commercial potential of coal, iron, manganese, and
gold deposits
c. EIC education policy emphasized medicine and administration rather than engineering or commerce, and settled around a
philosophy of “downward filtration.”
e. From 1837 British schools developed in order to give general education to the Indian upper classes, who were increasingly
drawn into government employment as a result of depressed agricultural conditions.
i. The curriculum was English and literary and entrance was only gained through the payment of fees.
ii. The main purpose of British education of natives was to effect a transfer of loyalties as part and parcel of what
Professor Ambirajan has recently termed a "philosophy of occupation."
f. The British interest remained with commerce, acclimatization and the natural history enterprise, and Raj policy
did not erect institutions which could provide even a significant cadre of skilled workers for service in either Indian or
Western industrial enterprise.
g. Furthermore, general socio-economic policy had reduced the ability of progressive indigenous groups to
compensate for their loss of traditional systems of instruction. At most, as far as technical instruction was concerned, the
British believed only in the "educational" function of successful industrial projects.
h. The fully modern sector projects became the last resort of those who sought a transfer mechanism. One Company
employee, the novelist Thomas Love Peacock, stressed the importance of irrigation, navigational and transport improvements, and
went on to argue that the introduced technologies of iron and steam boats, and of steam-powered foundries and works for the
manufacture of steam engines and machinery had significant economic impacts.
i. But another influential commentator of 1859 admitted that little of this required the service of Indian engineers or foremen,
even at the less prestigious levels of Company activity.
i. an ambitious project as the proposed railway was seen as a means of lowering the costs of imports of grain, oil
seeds, flax and hemp to Britain and strengthening Indian production of raw materials rather than as serving to encourage their Indian
manufacture.
ii. In contrast, the introduction of the railway system has been seen as the high mark of British technological
achievement in India.
CONCLUSIONS
a. We might admit that the overall financial impact of British rule is difficult to estimate. However, the analysis made strongly
 suggests that
i. general British economic policy retarded structural change in the economy of India for a great variety of reasons
ii. there seems to have been no overwhelming socio-cultural retardative factors operating dynamically within Indian
society--so called "barriers" to development may magically change during initial industrialization in such a way that
they determine the character, rather than the level, of development in particular nations
iii. the wider scientific-technical environmental impact of the British was at best neutral
b. As the author ends it, he says “Growth in India was enclavist.”

1.6 c. China and Beyond

China was the “victim of imperialism without annexation” and a proving ground for a
variety of industrial powers.

A major break in China’s relation with the West was the Treaty
of Nanking of 1842 which gave in to Britain the Island of Hong Kong and opened the ports of
Amoy, Foochow, Ningpo, and Shanghai to foreign trade.

Because of the fall of the Treaty, China became an open economy.

Effects
1. New treaty ports were established.
2. Trade in opium was legalized
3. Foreign imports were subject to favorable inland transit duties.
4. Missionaries were free to wander the interior.
On the other hand, More rapid movement of troops and gunboats came because of the Suez Canal.

Two possibilities cited by Stephen Thomas on why China failed to respond further industrialization.
1. The internal barrier or resistance to development.
● Confucianism
● The emperor system
● Power of officialdom in the class culture
● Lack of entrepreneurship or firm government policy.
2. “Foreign intervention” Approach.
China’s slow progress in industrialization is attributed by its patterns of trade, investment and technology transfer.

Confucianism bred a high-cost economy conservatism characterized by a level of agrarian extraction, conservatism,
corruption and an environment with which risk taking in material matters was regarded with disgust. Such a traditionalistic
value system was carried over into business matters.

Late 18th and 19th century

- China demonstrated signs of economic efficiency relative to other nations.
- China was self sufficient in most handicrafts and manufacturers possessed a low cost for water transport over large
areas that lead to unweighted effects of agricultural taxation.

According to Eckstein, productivity of both land and labor in the 19th century China was higher than Japan.

Investment and Trade did not act as leading sectors for growth in the internal economy because, China trade was locked into the
export of a few major raw materials and suffered a decline in her terms of trade

1895, The Treaty of Shimonoseki legalized foreign production in the ports. The effects were highly significant in employment and
training. It is also represented a conduit for technology transfer.
Shanghai is the largest of Treaty Ports and later on, it established it’s Gas Company, Improved water works and an Electric Power
Plant.
 Because of the need to reduce the cost of transaction in the marketplace they promoted the Compradores. These are Chinese
merchant who became the effective business managers of foreign firm. It established the comprador system which secure the
relationship between Chinese Merchants and Chinese Officialdom.
Treaty Ports were also the center of direct challenge to Imperial Government. Chinese residents of the settlements were
treated as second class citizens. Taxed equally with foreigners.
The development of the Railway System was insignificant because of its small size. This smallness may have been dictated not by
Chinese cultural attitudes, but by a lack of revenue, a proper fear of Western control and doubts about the righteousness of a policy.