Tropenliebe

Over the past 20 or 30 years, historians of colonial science have written a great number of path-breaking and thought-provoking studies that have changed our perspective on the development of modern science as well as on the role of science and medicine in governing colonial territories. Today, it is no longer possible to write about the origins and development of modern science without taking the decisive influence of exploration, colonialism and imperialism into account. In the research on colonial science, German contributions—let alone those of German-speaking scholars outside Germany—have not received much attention, probably because Germany ceased to be a colonial power after 1918. By analysing the unique contributions of two German-speaking Swiss scholars to various branches of colonial science, Bernhard Schär’s book therefore breaks new ground. He convincingly demonstrates that scholars did not have to be citizens of a colonial power to contribute to colonial science or, in other words, that colonial science transcended the national boundaries of countries with colonies. In addition to providing the entwined biographies of cousins Paul and Fritz Sarasin, Schär describes two fascinating explorative journeys they made on the island of Celebes (today’s Sulawesi) in the Dutch East Indies; the first one from 1893 to 1896, and the second one from 1902 to 1904. In addition, he analyses how their research aided the expansion of Dutch colonial rule.

Archaeology · Colonialism · German · Political science · Power (physics) · Asian Studies and History · Global Maritime and Colonial Histories · History · Law