The Colonial Machine
French Science and Overseas Expansion in the Old Regime
By (author) J McClellan III By (author) F Regourd
The rise of modern science and European colonial and imperial expansion are indisputably two defining elements of modern world history. James E. McClellan III and Francois Regourd explore these two world-historical forces and their interactions in this comprehensive and in-depth history of the French case in the Old Regime presented here for the first time. The case is key because no other state matched Old-Regime France as a center for organized science and because contemporary France closely rivaled Britain as a colonial power, as well as leading all other nations in commodity production and participating in the slave trade. Based on extensive archival research and vast primary and secondary literatures and sharply reframing the historiography of the field, this landmark volume traces the development and significance for early-modern history of the Colonial Machine of Old-Regime France, an unparalleled agglomeration of institutions geared to the success of the French colonial enterprise, including the Royal Navy, the Academie Royale des Sciences, the Jardin du Roi, and a host of related specialist institutions working together at home and overseas. Mainly supported by the French state, the Colonial Machine reveals itself through its actions from the time of Colbert and Louis XIV as it grappled with fundamental problems facing contemporary European colonialism: cartography and navigation; medical care of sailors, colonists, and slaves; and applied botany and commodity production. Historians of globalization and European overseas expansion, of Old-Regime France, and of science in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries will henceforth take this stimulating volume as a necessary starting point for further reflection and research. Nominated for the Mary Alice and Philip Boucher Book Prize.
- By (author) J McClellan III
- By (author) F Regourd
Other Titles in this Series
Walcher of Malvern, De lunationibus and De Dracone
Study, Edition, Translation, and Commentary
Volume 101
Correspondence of Luigi Cremona (1830-1903)
Conserved in the Department of Mathematics, Sapienza, University of Rome
Correspondance de Johannes Hevelius
Tome II: Correspondance avec la cour de France et ses agents avec un dossier sur la querelle de la comete de 1664-1665
Volume 62
De Mundi Recentioribus Phaenomenis
Cosmologie et science dans l'Europe des Temps modernes, XVe-XVIIe siecles. Essais en l'honneur de Miguel Angel Granada
Correspondance de Johannes Hevelius
Tome III. Correspondance avec Pierre des Noyers, secretaire de la Reine de Pologne, 1646-1686
Astrometeorologia en al-Andalus y el Magrib entre los siglos VIII y XV
El Kitab al-amtar wa'l as'ar (Libro de las lluvias y de los precios) de Abu 'Abd Allah al-Baqqar (fl. 1411-1418)
A l’aube de la theorie des quanta
Notes inedites d'Emile Borel sur un cours de Paul Langevin au College de France (1912-1913)
Similar Books
Diagnostic Techniques in Public Health
Analytical and Chemometric Approaches in Disease Detection and Management
Dis/United States of Vulnerability
Literary and Cultural Transgressions in U.S. Poetry Since the 1960s
Volume 330
European Drama and Performance Studies
Dramatisations politiques. Théâtre, politique et idéologie au XIXe siècle (1806-1914)
Volume 27
