Pasteur's Empire - Bacteriology and Politics in France, Its Colonies, and the World (Hardcover)

In the 1890s, the Pasteur Institute established a network of laboratories that stretched across France's empire, from Indochina to West Africa. Quickly, researchers at these laboratories became central to France's colonial project, helping officials monopolize industries, develop public health codes, establish disease containment measures, and arbitrate political conflicts around questions of labor rights, public works, and free association. Pasteur's Empire shows how the scientific prestige of the Pasteur Institute came to depend on its colonial laboratories, and how, conversely, the institutes themselves became central to colonial politics. This book argues that decisions as small as the isolation of a particular yeast or the choice of a laboratory animal could have tremendous consequences on the lives of Vietnamese and African subjects, who became the consumers of new vaccines or industrially fermented intoxicants. Simultaneously, global forces, such as the rise of international standards and American competitors pushed Pastorians to their imperial laboratories, where they could conduct studies that researchers in France considered too difficult or controversial. Chapters follow not just Alexandre Yersin's studies of the plague, Charles Nicolle's public health work in Tunisia, and Jean Laigret's work on yellow fever in Dakar, but also the activities of Vietnamese doctors, African students and politicians, Syrian traders, and Chinese warlords. It argues that a specifically Pastorian understanding of microbiology shaped French colonial politics across the world, allowing French officials to promise hygienic modernity while actually committing to little development. In bringing together global history, imperial history, and science and technology studies, Pasteur's Empire deftly integrates micro and macro analyses into one connected narrative that sheds critical light on a key era in the history of medicine.

General

Imprint:	Oxford UniversityPress
Country of origin:	United States
Release date:	February 2020
Authors:	Aro Velmet (Assistant Professor of History)
Dimensions:	244 x 164 x 27mm (L x W x T)
Format:	Hardcover
Pages:	324
ISBN-13:	978-0-19-007282-7
Categories:	Books > Medicine > General issues > History of medicine Books > Science & Mathematics > Science: general issues > History of science Books > Humanities > History > World history > 1750 to 1900 Books > Social sciences > Politics & government > Political ideologies > Imperialism Books > History > World history > 1750 to 1900 Promotions
LSN:	0-19-007282-2
Barcode:	9780190072827

Is the information for this product incomplete, wrong or inappropriate? Let us know about it.

Does this product have an incorrect or missing image? Send us a new image.

Is this product missing categories? Add more categories.

Review This Product

No reviews yet - be the first to create one!