Academic literature on the topic 'Elite (Social sciences) – Egypt – History'
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Journal articles on the topic "Elite (Social sciences) – Egypt – History"
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MURPHY, JANE H. "Locating the sciences in eighteenth-century Egypt." British Journal for the History of Science 43, no. 4 (October 11, 2010): 557–71. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s0007087410001251.
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AbstractIn the last years of the eighteenth century, Egypt famously witnessed the practice of European sciences as embodied in the members of Bonaparte's Commission des sciences et des arts and the newly founded Institut d'Egypte. Less well known are the activities of local eighteenth-century Cairene religious scholars and military elites who were both patrons and practitioners of scientific expertise and producers of hundreds upon hundreds of manuscripts. Through the writings of the French naturalist Etienne Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire (1772–1844) and those of the Cairene scholar and chronicler ʿAbd al-Raḥmān al-Jabartī (1753–1825), I explore Egypt as a site for the practice of the sciences in the late eighteenth century, the palatial urban houses which the French made home to the Institut d'Egypte and their role before the French invasion, and the conception of the relationship between the sciences and social politics that each man sought. Ultimately, I argue that Geoffroy's struggle to create scientific neutrality in the midst of intensely tumultuous political realities came to a surprising head with his fixation on Paris as the site for the practice of natural history, while al-Jabartī’s embrace of this entanglement of knowledge and power led to a vision of scientific expertise that was specifically located in his Cairene society, but which – as Geoffroy himself demonstrated – could be readily adapted almost anywhere.
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Akhavi, Shahrough. "The Dialectic in Contemporary Egyptian Social Thought: The Scripturalist and Modernist Discourses of Sayyid Qutb and Hasan Hanafi." International Journal of Middle East Studies 29, no. 3 (August 1997): 377–401. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s0020743800064825.
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One of the most important arenas of the ferment in contemporary Arab social thought is Egypt. Egyptian writers have been contributing to a rapidly growing body of literature on state and society. Its themes include methodological issues, the nature of the ideal Islamic society; the elite–mass gap; the state's role in public life; the appropriate model for socioeconomic development; and the social bases of Islamist movements.
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Sherkova, T., and N. Kuzina. "Formation of the Personality - Self-consciousness of the Individual in Pre-dynastic Egypt." Bulletin of Science and Practice 6, no. 3 (March 15, 2020): 505–26. http://dx.doi.org/10.33619/2414-2948/52/61.
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The question of the appropriateness of the use of the term and category of Personality in relation to studies of the model of the world and the model of I in predynastic Egypt is considered. Points of view are given on the scope and application of the concept, both from the point of view of various schools of psychological science, and researchers belonging to a number of humanitarian areas of science who consider the concept of identity in the context of historical development and historical memory. At the same time, it is taken into account that a personality is traditionally defined in psychology as a self-regulating dynamic functional system of continuously interacting properties, relationships and actions that take shape in the process of ontogenesis of a person. A person is considered as a phenomenon of social development, a specific living person with consciousness and self-awareness (capable of self-reflection). It is taken into account that in social sciences a person is considered as a special quality of a person acquired by him in a sociocultural environment in the process of joint activity and communication. The article considers the social role and hierarchy in predynastic Egypt, as well as funeral rituals in the context of individualizing practices or in the context of attributing it to a collective personality. Two of these arguments allow us to talk about the applicability of the concept of Personality to this historical period. The study suggests that in relation to the period under study, the level of formation of self-awareness Personality can be talked about in relation to social leaders (chief / regional kings). The study is based on the study of archaeological sites such as elite necropolis, a ritual center in Hierakonpolis, as well as artifacts originating from the tombs of an elite necropolis in Hierakonpolis, determining the development of a socially hierarchical society with an aristocratic clan to which the social leader (chief) — regional king) belonged. The study of the formation of the category Personality notes the special role of finds of funerary masks, which most likely represent the first ancestors in the developing form of the cult of the ancestors. The leader in the period under study in the history of Egypt is a collective person and he also leaves for the ancestors, who are also the incarnations of a collective person. Thus, for the preliterate period, there is no way to talk about specific personalities (including named personalities). But already at the initial stages of the development of the Early kingdom, when writing occurs, we can talk about the naming of each of the kings, since the name reflects the personality (its qualities that contain the names themselves). Nevertheless, the name of each king was also accompanied by the name of the ancestor — the deified legendary king Horus in Hierokonpolis, and later — in the royal title, his name as a name of the god was added to the names of the ruling pharaohs until the end of the era of ancient Egypt. The work, therefore, is debatable, since in psychological science the emergence of self-consciousness and personality as an entity is usually referred to the New Time. The question of the possibility of using modern psychological concepts (Personality), to a person of antiquity, in particular to representatives of preliterate culture, is investigated. The image of a person for an individual of a given era was reconstructed through the prism of the reflection of a person of a given period over the limitations of social stratification, ritual and death. Specific personality traits are described as an individual who performs various social roles and is buried according to his merit, both in terms of personal ethics and in the hierarchy of society.
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Izosimov, Denis. "On the "ethno-classe dominante" in the First Persian Period Egypt." Vostok. Afro-aziatskie obshchestva: istoriia i sovremennost, no. 4 (2022): 43. http://dx.doi.org/10.31857/s086919080018634-4.
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The following article analyzes P. Briant’s concept of the “dominant ethno-class” in Egypt during the First Persian Domination (526 – 404 BC.). According to P. Briant, the main administrative positions were held by Persian officials, who constituted a closed and culturally isolated from the Egyptians group, while the Egyptian officials were only allowed into religious and financial spheres of administration. Though some ideas of P. Briant were developed by subsequent scholars, the basis of his concept was criticized, especially the thesis of cultural isolation of Persians in Egypt. The article presents a critical evaluation of the concept forwarded by P. Briant as applied to Acaemenid Egypt. Major difficulties with applying P. Briant’s to the Egyptian evidence are due to the insufficiency of historical sources and data on some aspects of social-administrative life in Egypt during the First Persian Domination. The author draws attention to the fact that some cases of Persian acculturation during this period in fact do not reflect the situation in the first decades of the Achaemenid rule in Egypt. Moreover, the definition of the “dominant ethno-class” does not allow including all Persians present in Egypt at the time into this specific strata. While analyzing the issue of the participation of Egyptian elite in Persian administration of Egypt, author points out that the conclusions of P. Briant and D. Agut-Labordère were made on the basis of data acquired from Demotic and Aramaic sources. However, the information from the hieroglyphic inscriptions of this period provides us with data that allows to speak about the inclusion of some of the Egyptian officials into the Persian «dominant ethno-class».
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Mestyan, Adam. "ARABIC THEATER IN EARLY KHEDIVIAL CULTURE, 1868–72: JAMES SANUA REVISITED." International Journal of Middle East Studies 46, no. 1 (February 2014): 117–37. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s0020743813001311.
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AbstractThis article revisits the official culture of the early khedivate through a microhistory of the first modern Egyptian theater in Arabic. Based on archival research, it aims at a recalibration of recent scholarship by showing khedivial culture as a complex framework of competing patriotisms. It analyzes the discourse about theater in the Arabic press, including the journalist Muhammad Unsi's call for performances in Arabic in 1870. It shows that the realization of this idea was the theater group led by James Sanua between 1871 and 1872, which also performed ʿAbd al-Fattah al-Misri's tragedy. But the troupe was not an expression of subversive nationalism, as has been claimed by scholars. My historical reconstruction and my analysis of the content of Sanua's comedies show loyalism toward the Khedive Ismail. Yet his form of contemporary satire was incompatible with elite cultural patriotism, which employed historicization as its dominant technique. This revision throws new light on a crucial moment of social change in the history of modern Egypt, when the ruler was expected to preside over the plural cultural bodies of the nation.
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Richard and Robert D. Alston. "Urbanism and the Urban Community in Roman Egypt." Journal of Egyptian Archaeology 83, no. 1 (December 1997): 199–216. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/030751339708300112.
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Urbanism in the ancient world has been of abiding interest to ancient social and economic historians, but very little is known about the populations of cities. The nature of the papyrological material is such that certain features of communities can be assessed and quantified. We concentrate on the issue of population, considering both the number of people living in the various types of settlements and occupational structures. The results demonstrate essential differences between urban and rural settlements. The final section considers segmentation of the urban community itself. Through analysis of the residence patterns of members of particular social groups, we show that the city displayed a certain amount of social zoning and suggest that the fundamental social division in the city was between the elite and the rest of the population.
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Takenouchi, Keita. "Mortuary Consumption and the Social Function of Stone Vessels in Early Dynastic Egypt." Journal of Egyptian Archaeology 107, no. 1-2 (June 2021): 177–90. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/03075133211050650.
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This study examines the social functions of stone vessels in Early Dynastic society through a comparison between tomb architecture and the assemblage of stone vessels. The results demonstrated that the more valuable vessels, consisting of special wares and greenish stone vessels, were mostly restricted to high-status tombs in the Memphite and Abydos regions. This hierarchical structure places the king’s and highest officials’ tombs at the top of the hierarchy. Rulers probably distributed stone vessels to elites as part of their political strategy under the administrative institution and system developed since IIIC2. Furthermore, there are formal sets of stone vessels in elite tombs at provincial sites that are close to the vessel assemblage of the ritual list inscribed on funerary slabs during IIID. This suggests that stone vessels were likely brought to provincial areas to promote the offering ritual to local elites in this period. Thus, stone vessels functioned as a political medium for vertical and horizontal integration.
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Földesi, Gyöngyi Szabó. "Social Status and Mobility of Hungarian Elite Athletes." International Journal of the History of Sport 21, no. 5 (November 2004): 710–26. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/0952336042000262015.
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Leonards, Chris, and Nico Randeraad. "Transnational Experts in Social Reform, 1840–1880." International Review of Social History 55, no. 2 (August 2010): 215–39. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s0020859010000179.
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SummaryWho were the people at the cutting edge of social reform in Europe between 1840 and 1880, and how were they connected? This article proposes a method to locate a transnational community of experts involved in social reform and focuses on the ways in which these experts shared and spread their knowledge across borders. After a discussion of the concepts of social reform, transnationalization, and transfer, we show how we built a database of visitors to social reform congresses in the period 1840–1880, and explain how we extracted a core group of experts from this database. This “congress elite” is the focus of the second part of this article, in which we discuss their travels, congress visits, publications, correspondence, and membership of learned and professional organizations. We argue that individual members of our elite, leaning on the prestige of their international contacts, shaped reform debates in their home countries. We conclude by calling for further research into the influence that the transnational elite were able to exert on concrete social reforms in different national frameworks in order to assess to what extent they can be regarded as an “epistemic community in the making”.
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Rock-Singer, Aaron. "Leading with a Fist: A History of the Salafi Beard in the 20th-Century Middle East." Islamic Law and Society 27, no. 1-2 (February 20, 2020): 83–110. http://dx.doi.org/10.1163/15685195-00260a06.
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Abstract Salafism is a global religious movement whose male participants often distinguish themselves from their co-religionists by a particular style of facial hair. Historians have focused largely on this movement’s engagement with questions of theology and politics, while anthropologists have assumed that Salafi practice reflects a longer Islamic tradition. In this article, I move beyond both approaches by tracing the gradual formation of a distinctly Salafi beard in the 20th century Middle East. Drawing on Salafi scholarly compendia, leading journals, popular pamphlets, and daily newspapers produced primarily in Egypt and Saudi Arabia, I argue that Salafi elites revived a longer Islamic legal tradition in order to distinguish their flock from secular nationalist projects of communal identity and Islamic activists alike. In doing so, I cast light on Salafism’s interpretative approach, the dynamics that define its development as a social movement, and the broader significance of visual markers in modern projects of Islamic piety.
Dissertations / Theses on the topic "Elite (Social sciences) – Egypt – History"
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Frood, Elizabeth. "Self-presentation in Ramessid Egypt." Thesis, University of Oxford, 2004. http://ora.ox.ac.uk/objects/uuid:2a5f2c4c-ac92-45f9-b7d7-e17df6eb6dfa.
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Elite self-presentation through the biographical genre is a defining element of ancient Egyptian high culture from the Old Kingdom until the Roman period. My thesis centres on the biographical texts produced during the Ramessid period (c. 1280-1070 BCE), a time of significant change in elite domains of representation. Since biography has not been seen as a significant genre of this period, these texts, which are inscribed on statues, stelae, temple walls, and in tombs, have not been gathered together or studied as a corpus. Yet they are a key to exploring the diverse and highly individual ways in which a self could be fashioned and presented. I take a holistic approach to the interpretation of these texts, in order to examine the ways in which they were incorporated into their spatial and visual settings and could extend beyond them. My introduction sets out my aims and the broader anthropological framework which I apply to the Egyptian sources. The following four chapters are case-studies. Chapters two to four are organised according to site (Thebes and el-Mashayikh, Karnak, and Abydos), comparing strategies of self-presentation in tomb and temple contexts. The fourth is thematically oriented, and looks at the image and role of the king in non-royal biographies. In the final chapter, I draw together the results of my individual case-studies, discussing their common textual themes, the interplays of traditional and innovative motifs within them, as well as the implications of their diverse monumental contexts. I hope to demonstrate that the holistic approach I apply is relevant for the study of monumental discourse in other periods in Egyptian history and has the potential to locate the Egyptian material within broader frameworks for the study of premodern societies.
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Maitland, Margaret St Claire. "Representations of social identity and hierarchy in the elite culture of Middle Kingdom Egypt." Thesis, University of Oxford, 2015. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.714060.
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Olivier, Anette. "Social status of elite women of the New Kingdom of ancient Egypt a comparison of artistic features /." Thesis, Pretoria : UNISA, 2008. http://etd.unisa.ac.za/ETD-db/theses/available/etd-09262008-134009/unrestricted/dissertation.pdf.
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Roche, Helen Barbara Elizabeth. "Personal and political appropriations of Sparta in German elite education during the 19th and 20th centuries : with a particular focus on the Royal Prussian Cadet-Corps (1818-1920) and the Nationalpolitische Erziehungsanstalten (1933-1945)." Thesis, University of Cambridge, 2012. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.610857.
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Pethen, Hannah. "Cairns in context : GIS analysis of visibility at Stelae Ridge, Egypt." Thesis, University of Liverpool, 2015. http://livrepository.liverpool.ac.uk/2013379/.
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This thesis describes a new approach tor investigating cairns, stone enclosures, stone alignments and other small archaeological features found in the deserts around the Egyptian Nile valley. Investigation of these features has previously been restricted by their ephemeral nature, damage from modern development and the limited artefactual, epigraphic or archaeological evidence associated with them. This research focuses on a case study of eight cairns and adjacent courts at the Middle Kingdom carnelian mine of Stelae Ridge in the Gebel el-Asr quarries in southern Egypt. While accepting previous interpretations of the cairn-courts as ritual structures created for the worship of local divinities, this research sought a fuller interpretation of the site in its landscape context and a more nuanced understanding of the structures, their chronological development and the decisions which governed their location and layout. This was achieved through systematic visibility analysis of the eight cairn-courts with geographic information system (GIS) software, which provided new data concerning the patterns of visibility associated with the structures. Interpretation of these patterns in the context of the archaeological and textual evidence from the cairn-courts, practical experience of visibility at the site and evidence from the wider cultural context provided a new and more detailed understanding of the site. Stelae Ridge was chosen because cairns upon it made highly visible landmarks, particularly for people travelling south towards the other sites in the Gebel el-Asr gneiss quarrying region. Initially practical, the Stelae Ridge cairns also developed a ritual function, creating tension between the highly visible cairns and the secluded ritual courts, and suggesting that the cairn-building process became ritualised. By the end of the cairn-building period, in the reign of Amenemhat III, new cairns were constructed in less visible positions, suggesting that the ritual aspects of the cairn-courts had largely subsumed their earlier practical function as landmarks. This type of GIS research has never been undertaken on Egyptian archaeological sites and previous interpretations of visibility in Egyptian contexts have been limited. The detailed interpretation of the Stelae Ridge cairn-courts achieved here, shows that the technology and approach applied to this research can make a meaningful contribution to the investigation of other similar non-formal structures, and at Egyptian sites in general. It also reveals that GIS visibility analysis can answer relevant archaeological questions, when employed as a tool for data generation and properly contextualised with other evidence from the site.
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Kalebe-Nyamongo, Chipiliro Florence. "Elite attitudes towards the poor and pro-poor policy in Malawi." Thesis, University of Birmingham, 2012. http://etheses.bham.ac.uk//id/eprint/3398/.
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This thesis uses the theory of ‘social consciousness’ to analyse elite perceptions of poverty in Malawi,and identify the circumstances under which elites are willing to mobilize resources for poverty reduction. ‘Social Consciousness theory’ stipulates that pro-poor policies in European welfare states developed as a result of ideological and pragmatic concern about the negative impact of poverty on elite welfare. This study shows however that although elites in Malawi have a deep understanding and appreciation of the extent and severity of poverty and are linked with the poor through strong social networks and the extended family structure, they do not perceive the poor as a threat to their welfare. Therefore collective action to address the problem of poverty has not occurred. In circumstances where elites acknowledge some negative externalities of poverty requiring action, individual solutions are sought. However, elite perceptions still illuminate the following: first, there is a causal explanation between elites’ perceptions of the causes of poverty and their support for particular policies. Second, elites’ perceived causes of poverty include structural, behavioural and the perceived future actions of the poor, such as laziness, following implementation of redistributive policies. Third, elites’ seem to support policies with wider benefits for society.
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Bethune, Kate. "British politeness and elite culture in revolutionary and early national Philadelphia, c.1775-1800." Thesis, University of Cambridge, 2010. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.609079.
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Roberts, George William. "Industrialists and county society : Glamorgan 1780-1832." Thesis, University of Cambridge, 2011. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.609910.
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Myles, John Eric. "The Muscovite ruling oligarchy of 1547-1564 : its composition, political behaviour and attitudes towards reform." Thesis, University of Oxford, 1988. http://ora.ox.ac.uk/objects/uuid:fa3000e9-f181-45de-9600-4352f58a02a6.
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In recent decades considerable progress has been made in elucidating the assumptions and the dynamics of Muscovite court politics, and further scrutiny is attempted in this enquiry into the ruling oligarchy of 1547-1564. Chapters 1 to 3 are devoted to groundwork. In Chapter 1 an introduction to the ruling oligarchy is provided against the background of Muscovy's contemporary government and population. The goal of territorial aggrandisement pursued by Muscovite rulers from Ivan HI favoured "rationalisation" of the central government and reforms of the army's discipline and technology; moreover, the wars of conquest left untouched no element of the population. Tsar Ivan and his exercise of authority were especially strongly affected: the precedents established by earlier rulers encouraged him to consider Muscovy his private votchina. but such an attitude became increasingly anachronistic as the realms expanded and the tasks of governing it grew too complex for any one man. During the Oprichnina he attempted to resolve this contradiction by ruling autocratically; autocratic rule and those circumstances favouring it by 1564 are the dissertation's main theme. Even before 1564 Ivan IV was the central actor in Muscovite politics, and criteria are advanced whereby advisers close enough to qualify for the ruling oligarchy are identified. The mid-sixteenth century, as a prelude to autocracy, was a critical moment in Muscovite politics; the rich and varied historiography is surveyed in Chapter 2. The sources - their authors, dates, and value as historical evidence - are critically assessed in Chapter 3. Chapter 4 to 7 comprise the heart of the dissertation. In Chapters 4 to 6 an attempt is made to identify members of the ruling oligarchy of 1546-1564; their political behaviour and where feasible, their political attitudes are explored. In Chapter 7 the attitudes individual members maintained towards particular reforms envisaged at mid-century are explored. The dissertation's main conclusions are systematically expounded in Chapter 8, and as appropriate, their broader implications for Russian and European history are brought out.
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Huneidi, Laila. "The Values, Beliefs, and Attitudes of Elites in Jordan towards Political, Social, and Economic Development." PDXScholar, 2014. https://pdxscholar.library.pdx.edu/open_access_etds/2017.
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This mixed-method study is focused on the values, beliefs, and attitudes of Jordanian elites towards liberalization, democratization and development. The study aims to describe elites' political culture and centers of influence, as well as Jordan's viability of achieving higher developmental levels. Survey results are presented. The study argues that the Jordanian regime remains congruent with elites' political culture and other patterns of authority within the elite strata. However, until this "cautious liberal" political culture of Jordanian elites changes, a transitional movement cannot arise that would lead Jordan towards greater liberalism, constitutionalism and development. The study concludes with implications for transitional movements in other developing countries, particularly in the Arab region.
Books on the topic "Elite (Social sciences) – Egypt – History"
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Tacoma, Laurens Ernst. Fragile hierarchies: The urban elites of third century Roman Egypt. Netherlands: L.E. Tacoma, 2003.
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Fragile hierarchies: The urban elites of third century Roman Egypt. Leiden: Brill Academic Publishers, 2006.
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Hathaway, Jane. The politics of households in Ottoman Egypt: The rise of the Qazdaglis. Cambridge [England]: Cambridge University Press, 1997.
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Hathaway, Jane. The politics of households in Ottoman Egypt: The rise of the Qazdağlis. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press, 1997.
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The elite late period Egyptian tombs of Memphis. Oxford: Archaeopress, 2009.
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Sayyid-Marsot, Afaf Lutfi. Women and men in late eighteenth-century Egypt. Austin: University of Texas Press, 1995.
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al-ʻArab, ʻAbd al-ʻAzīz ʻIzz. European control and Egypt's traditional elites: A case study in elite economic nationalism. Lewiston, N.Y: Edwin Mellen Press, 2002.
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van, Walsem René, ed. Iconography of Old Kingdom elite tombs: Analysis & interpretation, theoretical and methodological aspects. Dudley, MA: Peeters, 2005.
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Kalz, Wolf. Die politische Elite und der Staat. Künzell: Lindenblatt Media Verlag, 2004.
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Ifie, Egbe. The elite of Roman Africa. [Ibadan, Nigeria]: End-Time Pub. House, 1998.
Find full textBook chapters on the topic "Elite (Social sciences) – Egypt – History"
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Ramadan, Yasmine. "Introduction: Space and the Sixties." In Space in Modern Egyptian Fiction, 1–30. Edinburgh University Press, 2019. http://dx.doi.org/10.3366/edinburgh/9781474427647.003.0001.
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The first part of the chapter presents the members of the sixties generation, telling the story of their emergence onto the cultural scene in Egypt. It outlines the socio-economic and political context of which they were both a part and an expression. Who are these writers? When and how did they emerge? What is significant about their work? Why did they appear at such a critical moment in Egyptian history? What are the sources of literary and aesthetic inspiration? This chapter draws on an array of primary material from the journals of the time whose pages were filled with discussions about this emerging generation. This presentation of the sixties generation is undertaken with an attention to the broader context of the literary sphere in Egypt, what Bourdieu calls “the field of cultural production.” The second part of the chapter focuses on the theoretical arguments for the examination of space in literature, examining the broader “spatial turn” in the humanities and social sciences, engaging this approach within the context of modern and contemporary Egyptian literature. A focus upon spatial representations expands our analysis of the work of the sixties writers, bringing together the thematic, the aesthetic, and the political.
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Beinart, William, and Lotte Hughes. "Imperial Scientists, Ecology, and Conservation." In Environment and Empire. Oxford University Press, 2007. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780199260317.003.0017.
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Imperial scientists have appeared in a number of our chapters: Cleghorn, protagonist of forest conservation in India; Willcocks, the self-critical dambuilder extraordinary in Egypt and India; Simpson, the plague doctor, and Bruce, who researched trypanosomiasis in southern Africa. The early centuries of empire preceded professionalization, but scientific interests were even then at its heart. Species transfers were, as we have suggested, a long-term preoccupation and closely related to scientific enterprise. The maritime empires that characterized the last half-millennium depended upon nautical technology and navigation science, and this distinguished them from preceding, more geographically restricted, land empires. Naval power and the expansion of shipping permitted a different social geography of empire, linking Europe to the Americas, the tropics, and the southern temperate zones, and partly bypassing the torrid task of conquest in Europe and the Muslim world. Shipping carried the freight of trading empires, literally and metaphorically. Especially from the mid-nineteenth century, scientists were central actors in imperial development. They helped to pioneer new technologies that facilitated discovery, and vastly more effective exploitation, of hidden natural resources, such as gold, oil, and rubber. A growing arms gap underpinned the European power bloc and conquest was so rapid and so widespread in the later decades of the nineteenth century not least because it was relatively easy and inexpensive. Constraints imposed by environment and disease were gradually driven back, by dams, boreholes, and the partial prophylaxis against malaria. Communications, based around steam and iron, telegraphs, railways, and roads were the ‘tentacles of progress’ in the new empire, opening up new routes for exploitation. They bound together increasingly modern, planned cities, zones of hydraulic imperialism, mining, and similar enterprises. Scientists and science in empire have received intense critical attention over the last couple of decades. This is especially so in African history and social sciences which, from their inception as self-conscious areas of academic enquiry, in the dying days of colonialism, tried to write from the vantage point of Africans and to decolonize European minds. From the late 1970s, when it was clear that African nationalist narratives and ambitions had been corrupted, Africanists tended to evince an unease with modernization and development, so closely linked to both the late colonial and nationalist projects.