In the first half of the nineteenth century, race and science were interconnected. The emergence of a science of race has been mistakenly aligned with the spread of Darwinism across the imperial realms. The sciences were central to the identification of racial and national types and thus were an important part of the framework that upheld empire. Biology showed how races and peoples could be “improved,” providing a justification for rule by the supposedly superior colonizers and neutralizing the question of (...) whether empire was moral. The fundamental synergies between race and empire emphasize the role of the study of the human body in European expansion from the very beginning. Before addressing race, empire, and biology before Darwinism, this chapter focuses on what might be called the Atlantic world of Europe, America, and to a lesser extent, the Caribbean and West Africa. It then looks at the greater Indian Ocean, stretching from the South Pacific to South Asia, to demonstrate how and why biology was globalized. (shrink)

An interest in global histories of science is not new. Yet the project envisioned by this Focus section is different from that pursued by natural historians and natural philosophers in the early modern age. Instead of tracing universal patterns, there is value in attending to the connections and disconnections of science on the global stage. Instead of assuming the precision of science's boundaries, historians might consider the categories of “science” and “indigenous knowledge” to have emerged from globalization. New global histories (...) of science will be characterized by critical reflection on the limits of generalization, as well as a creative adoption of new sources, methods, and chronologies, in an attempt to decenter the European history of science. Such a project holds the promise of opening up new conversations between historians, anthropologists, philosophers, and sociologists of science. It is of critical importance if the discipline is not to fragment into regional and national subfields or become dominated by structural frameworks such as imperialism. -/- . (shrink)