Steamboats on the Indus: The Limits of Western Technological Superiority in South Asia - Hardcover

Dewey, Clive

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0198092199 ISBN 13: 9780198092193

Publisher: Oxford University Press, 2014

Synopsis

Two forms of water-transport competed for supremacy on the Indus and its tributaries in the middle of the nineteenth century: the local country boats and the steamboats imported by the British.

The steamers were the most advanced technology in South Asia. British investors poured capital into them, colonial officails subsidised them, and European travellers patronized them. The country boats-blown by the winds, rowed by the oars, dragged by ropes-had hardly changed in a thousand years. Yet the country boats kept the river trade while the steam flotillas went bankrupt. They were far better adapted to the shallow, shifting rivers; they were much cheaper to build and operate; and they drew on an extraordinary pool of skills-the skills of boatsmen and boat-builders.

Steamboats on the Indus shows that the received wisdom-the 'Technology and Imperialism' school-is wrong to assume that Westerm machines destroyed indigenous techniques wherever they came into competition. Traditional technology could exploit the economic opportunities created by imperialism at lower cost than the most advanced machinery from the West.

About this title

About the Author

Clive Dewey is Emeritus Reader at University of Leicester. He has also been Visiting Fellow/Professor at the University of Cambridge, University of Heidelberg, and Leiden University.

Review

lavish illustrations and Dewey's witty style make it an entirely enjoyable read * Tilman Frasch, International Journal of Maritime History * The book by Clive Dewey is a fresh attempt to look at the layered past of South Asia through the prism of steamboat technology. * Murari Jha, South Asia * Dewey's meticulously researched account of the Indus steamboats is entertaining, ironic and scholarly. he demonstrates convincingly that, while steam technology had an almost magical hold over the Victorian imagination, in the Indus that technology met its match. * David Arnold, The Times Literary Supplement *

About this edition

• Publisher: Oxford University Press
• Publication date: 2014
• ISBN 10: 0198092199
• ISBN 13: 9780198092193
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 360