The history of science is a burgeoning field of historical investigation that probes the human past and its relationship with science, technology, environment/nature and medicine (HISTEM). Within the larger  rubric of  HISTEM, this volume presents a collection of essays documenting untapped sources in the context of colonial South Asia cutting across regions, events, institutions, personalities and processes. The varied colonial encounters and experiences though predominantly British, initiated and accelerated changes in the fields of science, agriculture, education and administration providing new contexts for knowledge production. Beginning from the field of natural exploration to introducing the professions of medicine, nursing, engineering, institutions like hospitals, and modern canal systems, science played an important role in creating the ‘colonial milieu’ and bringing  ‘acculturative’ reforms in India. Through a rendering of micro-histories, the chapters in this book explores these acculturative changes brought about by science and its impact paving way for the contours of nationalism to emerge. The volume thematically deals with botanical explorations, public health and the institutionalization of science underscoring its role in nation building and further builds upon the comprehensive connectedness of ideas, discourses and practices. The volume is relevant to students and scholars of history and sociology of science.

Dhrub Kumar Singh is faculty at the Department of History, Faculty of Social Sciences, Banaras Hindu University, Varanasi. He works on science-society relationship and the social history of medicine in modern India. He is the founding Coordinator of the university archive of BHU – the Mahamana Archive and has institutionalized a two-year full time Masters Programme in Archival Studies and Management from the Dept of History, BHU. 

Gautam Chandra is faculty at the Department of History, B.R. Ambedkar Bihar University, Muzaffarpur. His research interests include intellectual history, colonial economy, and the history of education, profession, competition and unemployment. He completed his doctoral research on the Emergence of Intellectual Proletariat in Colonial Madras from Pondicherry University and has published widely.