Religion, Science, and Empire

Religion, Science, and Empire PDF Author: Peter Gottschalk
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
ISBN: 0195393015
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 442

Get Book Here

Book Description
Peter Gottschalk offers a compelling study of how, through the British implementation of scientific taxonomy in the subcontinent, Britons and Indians identified an inherent divide between mutually antagonistic religious communities. England's ascent to power coincided with the rise of empirical science as an authoritative way of knowing not only the natural world, but the human one as well. The British scientific passion for classification, combined with the Christian impulse to differentiate people according to religion, led to a designation of Indians as either Hindu or Muslim according to rigidly defined criteria that paralleled classification in botanical and zoological taxonomies. Through an historical and ethnographic study of the north Indian village of Chainpur, Gottschalk shows that the Britons' presumed categories did not necessarily reflect the Indians' concepts of their own identities, though many Indians came to embrace this scientism and gradually accepted the categories the British instituted through projects like the Census of India, the Archaeological Survey of India, and the India Museum. Today's propogators of Hindu-Muslim violence often cite scientistic formulations of difference that descend directly from the categories introduced by imperial Britain. Religion, Science, and Empire will be a valuable resource to anyone interested in the colonial and postcolonial history of religion in India.

Religion, Science, and Empire

Religion, Science, and Empire PDF Author: Peter Gottschalk
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
ISBN: 0195393015
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 442

Get Book Here

Book Description
Peter Gottschalk offers a compelling study of how, through the British implementation of scientific taxonomy in the subcontinent, Britons and Indians identified an inherent divide between mutually antagonistic religious communities. England's ascent to power coincided with the rise of empirical science as an authoritative way of knowing not only the natural world, but the human one as well. The British scientific passion for classification, combined with the Christian impulse to differentiate people according to religion, led to a designation of Indians as either Hindu or Muslim according to rigidly defined criteria that paralleled classification in botanical and zoological taxonomies. Through an historical and ethnographic study of the north Indian village of Chainpur, Gottschalk shows that the Britons' presumed categories did not necessarily reflect the Indians' concepts of their own identities, though many Indians came to embrace this scientism and gradually accepted the categories the British instituted through projects like the Census of India, the Archaeological Survey of India, and the India Museum. Today's propogators of Hindu-Muslim violence often cite scientistic formulations of difference that descend directly from the categories introduced by imperial Britain. Religion, Science, and Empire will be a valuable resource to anyone interested in the colonial and postcolonial history of religion in India.

The Science of Empire

The Science of Empire PDF Author: Zaheer Baber
Publisher: SUNY Press
ISBN: 9780791429204
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 316

Get Book Here

Book Description
Investigates the complex social processes involved in the introduction and institutionalization of Western science in colonial India.

Nature and the Godly Empire

Nature and the Godly Empire PDF Author: Sujit Sivasundaram
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 9780521848367
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 264

Get Book Here

Book Description
A study of the relations between nineteenth-century science and Christianity.

God and the Folly of Faith

God and the Folly of Faith PDF Author: Victor J. Stenger
Publisher: Prometheus Books
ISBN: 1616145994
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 412

Get Book Here

Book Description
Looking at both historical and contemporary contexts, the author argues that religion has played a major role in suppressing scientific pursuit.

Science and Religion

Science and Religion PDF Author: Yves Gingras
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
ISBN: 1509518967
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 272

Get Book Here

Book Description
Today we hear renewed calls for a dialogue between science and religion: why has the old question of the relations between science and religion now returned to the public domain and what is at stake in this debate? To answer these questions, historian and sociologist of science Yves Gingras retraces the long history of the troubled relationship between science and religion, from the condemnation of Galileo for heresy in 1633 until his rehabilitation by John Paul II in 1992. He reconstructs the process of the gradual separation of science from theology and religion, showing how God and natural theology became marginalized in the scientific field in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. In contrast to the dominant trend among historians of science, Gingras argues that science and religion are social institutions that give rise to incompatible ways of knowing, rooted in different methodologies and forms of knowledge, and that there never was, and cannot be, a genuine dialogue between them. Wide-ranging and authoritative, this new book on one of the fundamental questions of Western thought will be of great interest to students and scholars of the history of science and of religion as well as to general readers who are intrigued by the new and much-publicized conversations about the alleged links between science and religion.

Exploration, Religion and Empire in the Sixteenth-Century Ibero-Atlantic World

Exploration, Religion and Empire in the Sixteenth-Century Ibero-Atlantic World PDF Author: Mauricio Nieto
Publisher: Maritime Humanities
ISBN: 9789463725316
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 340

Get Book Here

Book Description
The book offers convincing evidence to incorporate the Catholic world of early modernity into the history of modern science. The research is supported by the analysis of not widely studied primary sources such as the sixteenth century Iberian nautical manuals. Through the use of theoretical frameworks such as the Actor Network Theory, the book sheds light on the need to incorporate the role of heterogeneous human actors and artifacts (ships, navigation tools, sails, cannons), natural and geographical agents (ocean currents, winds, the sun, the moon and the stars), and divine entities (gods, daemons and saints) into the political history of early modernity.

Religion and Empire

Religion and Empire PDF Author: Geoffrey W. Conrad
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 9780521318969
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 292

Get Book Here

Book Description
A provocative, comparative study of the formation and expansion of the Aztec and Inca empires. Argues that prehistoric cultural development is largely determined by continual changes in traditional religion.

The Science of Satyug

The Science of Satyug PDF Author: Daniel Heifetz
Publisher: State University of New York Press
ISBN: 1438481721
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 320

Get Book Here

Book Description
The All World Gayatri Pariwar is a modern religious movement that enjoys wide popularity in North India, particularly among the many STEM workers who joined after becoming disillusioned with their lucrative but unfulfilling private-sector careers. Founded in the mid-twentieth century, the Gayatri Pariwar works to popularize practices inspired by ancient religious texts and breaks with convention by framing these practices as the foundation of a universal spirituality. The movement appeals to science in its advocacy of these practices, claiming that they have medical benefits that constitute proof that rational people around the world should find persuasive. Should these practices become sufficiently widespread, the belief is that humanity will enter a new satyug, or "golden age." In The Science of Satyug, Daniel Heifetz focuses on how religion and science are objects of intense emotion that help to constitute identities. Weaving engaging ethnographic anecdotes together with readings of Gayatri Pariwar literature, Heifetz interprets this material in light of classic and contemporary theory. The result is a significant contribution to current conversations about the globalized middle classes and the entanglement of religion and science that will appeal to anyone interested in understanding these aspects of life in modern India.

War, Religion and Empire

War, Religion and Empire PDF Author: Andrew Phillips
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1139494015
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 385

Get Book Here

Book Description
What are international orders, how are they destroyed, and how can they be defended in the face of violent challenges? Advancing an innovative realist-constructivist account of international order, Andrew Phillips addresses each of these questions in War, Religion and Empire. Phillips argues that international orders rely equally on shared visions of the good and accepted practices of organized violence to cultivate cooperation and manage conflict between political communities. Considering medieval Christendom's collapse and the East Asian Sinosphere's destruction as primary cases, he further argues that international orders are destroyed as a result of legitimation crises punctuated by the disintegration of prevailing social imaginaries, the break-up of empires, and the rise of disruptive military innovations. He concludes by considering contemporary threats to world order, and the responses that must be taken in the coming decades if a broadly liberal international order is to survive.

The Routledge Handbook of Science and Empire

The Routledge Handbook of Science and Empire PDF Author: Andrew Goss
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1000404854
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 339

Get Book Here

Book Description
The focus of this volume is the history of imperial science between 1600 and 1960, although some essays reach back prior to 1600 and the section about decolonization includes post-1960 material. Each contributed chapter, written by an expert in the field, provides an analytical review essay of the field, while also providing an overview of the topic. There is now a rich literature developed by historians of science as well as scholars of empire demonstrating the numerous ways science and empire grew together, especially between 1600 and 1960.