Technological innovation was crucial to the process of European expansion: advances in astronomy and navigation and changes in weaponry all contributed to the emergence of European commercial enclaves in Africa and Asia, and the conquest of the Americas. This volume illustrates the ways in which these European technological advantages shaped the expansion of the global system, whilst making clear that Western technology both adapted models from other cultures and was at times seriously challenged by them. In the arts of war, the West had much less of a technological edge over its Asian adversaries than is usually believed. Substantially dealing with the issue of technology transfer between the world and Europe, these studies underline the interactive nature of the process.

"This volume has much to recommend it -- providing fascinating and stimulating insights into many arenas of material culture, many of which still remain only superficially explored in the archaeological literature." -- Archaeological Review "... a vivid introduction to the topic.... A glimpse into the unique and changing identities in an ever-changing world." -- Come-All-Ye Fourteen interdisciplinary essays open new perspectives for understanding African societies and cultures through the contextualized study of objects, treating everything from the production of material objects to the meaning of sticks, masquerades, household tools, clothing, and the television set in the contemporary repertoire of African material culture.

In the interest of reducing financial support some policy makers in Washington and in state capitols are questioning the contributions of science to society. Or they believe research can be made more useful if it is controlled and directed by government to solve specific problems. The authors disagree with both these strategies and discuss how understanding nature (that is, science) is the underpinning of humankind's progress in improved comforts, economic progress, and health. In making their case they also address the primary requirement of ensuring a pool of competent scientists, mathematicians, and engineers as well as the need for educating non-scientists about science.

In this timely reexamination of such issues, a group of the most distinguished economists who have written on science policy over the past decade evaluates the continuing relevance of Bush's arguments and conclusions.

Technological Change gathers together examples of the best current thinking on methodology and the theoretical perspectives that are increasingly of concern to historians of technology, whilst at the same time presenting other papers which reflect the 'state of the art' in key areas of historical debate. The volume emphasises the need both to establish a common forum for theoretical and empirical research and also to delineate the shared concerns of these two treatments, which are too often reflected as conflicting rather than mutually supportive approaches to the writing of the history of technology.

This book explores the links between science, technology and the process of colonization in the context of Victorian India. It begins with a study of the concept of colonial science and then moves on to early exploratory activities in this area; problems in science administration; science education; scientific researches; and Indian responses to all these activities. Colonial scientists had a dual mandate - to serve the state and to serve science. But as the colonial arteries hardened, science became a form of official knowledge, with official hierarchies and rituals. The evolution and progress of colonial science in India reveal a pattern which can be discerned. Science had an ideology, a string of institutions, and a set of committed people to serve very specific colonial ends. The questions asked are: what were the colonial postures in science? To what extent were scientific knowledge and discourses used to achieve political and cultural goals? How did the recipient culture appropriate or redefine the metropolitan ideology of science?

In Science, Technology, and the Environment: Multidisciplinary Perspectives, James Rodger Fleming and Henry A. Gemery have collected thirteen essays that explore the various ways in which scientists and humanists apprehend environmental problems.