The Tentacles of Progress

The Tentacles of Progress
Author: Daniel R. Headrick
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 416
Release: 1988-03-10
Genre: Technology & Engineering
ISBN: 0190281499

This penetrating examination of a paradox of colonial rule shows how the massive transfers of technology--including equipment, techniques, and experts--from the European imperial powers to their colonies in Asia and Africa resulted not in industrialization but in underdevelopment. Examining the most important technologies--shipping and railways, telegraphs and wireless, urban water supply and sewage disposal, economic botany and plantation agriculture, irrigation, and mining and metallurgy--Headrick provides a new perspective on colonial economic history and reopens the debate on the roots of Asian and African underdevelopment.

Capital and Labour on the Rhodesian Railway System, 1888–1947

Capital and Labour on the Rhodesian Railway System, 1888–1947
Author: Jon Lunn
Publisher: Springer
Total Pages: 200
Release: 1996-11-20
Genre: History
ISBN: 1349139718

This important book is the first in-depth history of the Rhodesian railway system. Covering the period 1888-1947, when the Rhodesian railway system was privately owned by Cecil Rhode's British South Africa Company, this book uses the Rhodesian railway system as a prism through which it refracts many dimensions of the imperial experience in central and southern Africa, ranging from the impulses underpinning the regional ambitions of Rhodes himself to the origins of black worker protest in the Rhodesias.

The Invisible Weapon

The Invisible Weapon
Author: Daniel R. Headrick
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 300
Release: 2012-09-01
Genre: History
ISBN: 0199996326

A vital instrument of power, telecommunications is and has always been a political technology. In this book, Headrick examines the political history of telecommunications from the mid-nineteenth century to the end of World War II. He argues that this technology gave society new options. In times of peace, the telegraph and radio were, as many predicted, instruments of peace; in times of tension, they became instruments of politics, tools for rival interests, and weapons of war. Writing in a lively, accessible style, Headrick illuminates the political aspects of information technology, showing how in both World Wars, the use of radio led to a shadowy war of disinformation, cryptography, and communications intelligence, with decisive consequences.

South Africa in the Global Imaginary

South Africa in the Global Imaginary
Author: Leon de Kock
Publisher: BRILL
Total Pages: 306
Release: 2021-11-15
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 9004491325

This award-winning collection of essays about culture and identity was written from the perspective of post-apartheid South Africa. Voted best special issue of 2001 by the Council of Editors of Learned Journal.

British Engineers and Africa, 1875-1914

British Engineers and Africa, 1875-1914
Author: Casper Andersen
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 242
Release: 2015-10-06
Genre: History
ISBN: 1317323025

Using a wide range of primary sources that include correspondence, diaries, technical reports, institutional minutes and periodicals, Andersen reconstructs the networks and activities of Britain’s engineers while focusing on London as a centre of imperial expansion.

British Military Operations in Egypt and the Sudan

British Military Operations in Egypt and the Sudan
Author: Harold E. Raugh
Publisher: Scarecrow Press
Total Pages: 378
Release: 2008-05-02
Genre: History
ISBN: 1461657008

The British Army's campaigns in Egypt and the Sudan from 1882 to 1899 were among the most dramatic and hard-fought in British military history. In 1882, the British sent an expeditionary force to Egypt to quell the Arabic Revolt and secure British control of the Suez Canal, its lifeline to India. The enigmatic British Major General Charles G. Gordon was sent to the Sudan in 1884 to study the possibility of evacuating Egyptian garrisons threatened by Muslim fanatics, the dervishes, in the Sudan. While the dervishes defeated the British forces on a number of occasions, the British eventually learned to combat the insurrection and ultimately, largely through superior technology and firepower, vanquished the insurgents in 1898. British Operations in Egypt and the Sudan: A Selected Bibliography enumerates and generally describes and annotates hundreds of contemporary, current, and hard-to-find books, journal articles, government documents, and personal papers on all aspects of British military operations in Egypt and the Sudan from 1882 to 1899. Arranged chronologically and topically, chapters cover the various campaigns, focusing on specific battles, leading military personalities, and the contributions of imperial nations as well as supporting services of the British Army. This definitive volume is an indispensable reference for researching imperialism, colonial history, and British military operations, leadership, and tactics.