German Science in the Age of Empire: Enterprise,Opportunity and the Schlagintweit Brothers

von Brescius, Moritz Hans (2019). German Science in the Age of Empire: Enterprise,Opportunity and the Schlagintweit Brothers (In Press). Science in History. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press

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This seminal study explores the national,imperial and indigenous interests atstake in a major survey expeditionundertaken by the German Schlagintweitbrothers, while in the employ of theEast India Company, through Southand Central Asia in the 1850s. It arguesthat German scientists, lacking in thisperiod a formal empire of their own,seized the opportunity presented byother imperial systems to observe,record, collect and loot manuscripts,maps, and museological artefacts thatshaped European understandings of theEast. Drawing on archival research inthree continents, von Brescius vividlyexplores the dynamics and conflicts oftranscultural exploration beyond colonialfrontiers in Asia. Analysing the contestedcareers of these imperial outsiders, hereveals significant changes in the cultureof gentlemanly science, the violentnegotiation of scientific authority in atransnational arena, and the transitionfrom Humboldtian enquiry to a newdisciplinary order. This book offers a newunderstanding of German science, its rolein shaping foreign empires, and providesa revisionist account to the questions ofauthority and authenticity in reportagefrom distant sites.

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