Nature and the Godly Empire: Science and Evangelical Mission in the Pacific, 1795-1850Nineteenth-century historians have described how science became secular and how scientific theories such as evolution justified colonialism. This book changes this narrative by offering the first account of the relationship between nineteenth-century science and Christianity outside the Western world. At focus are the intrepid missionaries of the London Missionary Society who reverently surveyed the oceans and islands of the Pacific and instructed converts to observe nature in order to interpret God's designs. Sujit Sivasundaram argues that the knowledge that these missionaries practiced functioned as a popular science that was inextricably linked with religious expansion. |
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Nature and the Godly Empire: Science and Evangelical Mission in the Pacific ... Sujit Sivasundaram No preview available - 2011 |
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Page 3 - They have got a fine library of Natural History : they have all sorts of machines for catching and preserving insects ; all kinds of nets, trawls, drags, and hooks for coral fishing ; they have even a curious contrivance of a telescope, by which, put into the water, you can see the bottom at a great depth, where it is clear.