ABSTRACT
This article investigates why the history of science and empire has remained marginal and peripheral to history of science. History of science and the imperial history of science have often remained parallel to each other with distinct intellectual and historical trajectories. Through a critical assessment of the various trajectories of non-Western and European traditions of science, the paper argues that the essential problem lies with the conception of history of science as a discipline. The main narratives of history of science are usually derived from the unfolding of the European secular vision of nature from the seventeenth century. These propositions refer to European intellectual traditions, institutions, and savants. Here the non-Western finds its space only as “ethno,” vernacular, “global” experiences; hybridising, globalising, nuancing, and punctuating those central narratives, without dismantling it. This is despite the fact that several of the European scientific experiences were concurrent with European imperialism. To incorporate the empire as an integral part, the problematic for future histories of science is not just to highlight European science’s hidden colonial past but to examine how even that awareness of the wider experience of science unfolds as a Eurocentric discourse. This necessitates seeing science itself as an imperial episteme.
