| Toxic Histories: Poison and Pollution in Modern India Contributor(s): Arnold, David (Author) |
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ISBN: 1107126975 ISBN-13: 9781107126978 Publisher: Cambridge University Press OUR PRICE: $42.74 Product Type: Hardcover - Other Formats Published: February 2016 |
| Additional Information |
| BISAC Categories: - Science | History - Science | Chemistry - Toxicology - History | Asia - India & South Asia |
| Dewey: 615.950 |
| LCCN: 2015039031 |
| Series: Science in History |
| Physical Information: 0.81" H x 6.25" W x 9.33" (1.09 lbs) 250 pages |
| Themes: - Chronological Period - 19th Century - Cultural Region - Indian - Chronological Period - 20th Century |
| Descriptions, Reviews, Etc. |
| Publisher Description: Toxic Histories combines social, scientific, medical and environmental history to demonstrate the critical importance of poison and pollution to colonial governance, scientific authority and public anxiety in India between the 1830s and 1950s. Against the background of India's 'poison culture' and periodic 'poison panics', David Arnold considers why many familiar substances came to be regarded under colonialism as dangerous poisons. As well as the criminal uses of poison, Toxic Histories shows how European and Indian scientists were instrumental in creating a distinctive system of forensic toxicology and medical jurisprudence designed for Indian needs and conditions, and how local, as well as universal, poison knowledge could serve constructive scientific and medical purposes. Arnold reflects on how the 'fear of a poisoned world' spilt over into concerns about contamination and pollution, giving ideas of toxicity a wider social and political significance that has continued into India's postcolonial era. |
Contributor Bio(s): Arnold, David: - David Arnold is Emeritus Professor of History at the University of Warwick, and previously taught at the University of Dar es Salaam, the University of Lancaster, and the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London. A founder member of the Subaltern Studies group, he has been a visiting professor in Chicago and Zurich, and is a Fellow of the British Academy. His published work includes Colonizing the Body: State Medicine and Epidemic Disease in Nineteenth-Century India; Science, Technology and Medicine in Colonial India; Gandhi; The Tropics and the Traveling Gaze: India, Landscape, and Science, 1800-1856, and Everyday Technology: Machines and the Making of India's Modernity. |
