When, how, and why did the Himalaya become the highest mountains in the world? In 1800, Chimborazo in South America was believed to be the world's highest mountain, only succeeded by Mount Everest in 1856. Science on the Roof of the World tells the story of this shift, and the scientific, imaginative, and political remaking needed to fit the Himalaya into a new global scientific and environmental order. Lachlan Fleetwood traces untold stories of scientific measurement and collecting, indigenous labour and expertise, and frontier-making to provide the first comprehensive account of the East India Company's imperial entanglements with the Himalaya. To make the Himalaya knowable and globally comparable, he demonstrates that it was necessary to erase both dependence on indigenous networks and scientific uncertainties, offering an innovative way of understanding science's global history, and showing how geographical features like mountains can serve as scales for new histories of empire.
Author(s): Lachlan Fleetwood
Series: Science in History
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Year: 2022
Language: English
Pages: 305
City: Cambridge
Cover
Half-title page
Series page
Title page
Copyright page
Dedication
Contents
List of Figures
Acknowledgements
Introduction
1 Measuring Mountains
2 Unstable Instruments
3 Suffering Bodies
4 Frozen Relics
5 Higher Gardens
6 Vertical Limits
Conclusion: A Vertical Globe
Bibliography
Index
