The Tentacles of Progress Technology Transfer in the Age of Imperialism, 1850-1940

This penetrating examination of a paradox of colonial rule shows how themassive transfers of technology--including equipment, techniques, andexperts--from the European imperial powers to their colonies in Asia and Africaresulted not in industrialization but in underdevelopment. Examining the mostimportant technologies--shipping and railways, telegraphs and wireless, urbanwater supply and sewage disposal, economic botany and plantation agriculture,irrigation, and mining and metallurgy--Headrick provides a new perspective oncolonial economic history and reopens the debate on the roots of Asian andAfrican underdevelopment.