Images and Contexts: The Historiography of Science and Modernity in India

This volume situates the historiography of science in India within a social theory of science. Focussing on several strands from the corpus of writing over the last 150 years, it examines the paradigm shift within science studies, the move away from a West-centric theory of science, and future trends and possibilities.

The book explores ideas about the interplay between scientism and romanticism, internal and external accounts of science, creative tension between scientism and romanticism, model of colonial science and its relationship with the emergence of national science, and distortions of nationalist historiography. These ideas are analysed in the light of contemporary researches in the sociology of sciences, human sciences as well as from a global perspective.