Ebook: Civilizing Natures: Race, Resources, and Modernity in Colonial South India

Kavita Philip unravels unexpected relationships between science, technology, and administrative systems in colonial India from the 1850s to the 1930s, deepening our perspective on continuing conflicts over race, resources, and empire. This is a story about the construction of nature in southern India that is deeply local and irreducibly global. Through detailed case studies, Kavita Philip shows how race and nature are fundamental to understanding colonial modernities. Through its insightful combination of methodologies from both the humanities and the social sciences, Civilizing Natures casts new light on our understanding of the relationships between science and religion, premodern and civilized, and environment and society.