Contents -- 1 Imperialism, Technology, and Tropical Economies -- Technologies and Western-Tropical Relations -- The Transfer Process -- The Setting and the Argument -- Notes -- 2 Ships and Shipping -- Characteristics of World Shipping -- Steamships before 1869 -- The Suez Canal -- Shipbuilding after 1869 -- Tropical Harbors -- The New Organization of Shipping -- The Major Shipping Companies -- The Causes of British Supremacy -- Notes -- 3 The Railways of India -- Origins of the Indian Railways -- Building the Trunk Lines (1853-71) -- The Era of State Construction (1870-79) -- The New Guarantee Period (1880-1914) -- World War I and After (1914-47) -- The Locomotive Industry -- Consequences and Comparisons -- Notes -- 4 The Imperial Telecommunications Networks -- Submarine Telegraph Cables, 1850-70 -- Cable Technology to 1914 -- Submarine Cables and the British Empire, 1870-1914 -- The French Cable Network, 1856-95 -- British Abuses and French Reactions, 1884-1914 -- The Indian Telegraphs -- French Colonial Posts and Telegraphs -- Colonial Wireless Networks to 1918 -- British Wireless after 1918 -- French Wireless after 1918 -- Notes -- 5 Cities, Sanitation, and Segregation -- Hong Kong Water -- Calcutta Sewage and Sanitation -- Dakar and the Plague -- Notes -- 6 Hydraulic Imperialism in India and Egypt -- Precolonial Irrigation and British Restorations to 1837 -- The Classic Era of Indian Irrigation, 1838-54 -- The Era of Private Irrigation, 1854-69 -- Productive and Protective Works, 1866-98 -- The Indian Irrigation Commission and After, 1897-1940 -- Egypt, the Nile, and the British -- Conclusion -- Notes -- 7 Economic Botany and Tropical Plantations -- Tropical Crops from Plunder to Science -- Plant Transfers and the British Botanic Empire -- Agricultural Research in the British Tropics -- Science and Agriculture in the Dutch East Indies.

Tropical Botany in France -- Botany and Plantations in the French Empire -- Cinchona -- Sugar Cane -- Rubber -- Conclusion -- Notes -- 8 Mining and Metallurgy -- Malayan Tin and Chinese Technology in the Nineteenth Century -- The Western Takeover of Malayan Tin -- Opening the African Copperbelt -- Katanga Copper, 1911-40 -- Iron and Steel in India: the Demand Side -- Indian Iron before 1914 -- Background of the Indian Steel Industry -- The Tata Iron and Steel Company -- Conclusion -- Notes -- 9 Technical Education -- Technical Education in Egypt -- Vocational Education in West Africa -- Technical Education in India: Demand and Supply -- The Politics of Technical Education in India -- Foreign Study and Independent Schools -- Technical Education after World War I -- Conclusion -- Notes -- 10 Experts and Enterprises -- The Smallholders -- The Experts -- The Cotton Mills -- Indian Shipping and Shipbuilding -- Indianizing the Steel Industry -- Conclusion -- Notes -- 11 Technology Transfer and Colonial Politics -- Bibliographical Essay -- Index -- A -- B -- C -- D -- E -- F -- G -- H -- I -- J -- K -- L -- M -- N -- O -- P -- Q -- R -- S -- T -- U -- V -- W -- Y -- Z.