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Floracrats: State-Sponsored Science and the Failure of the Enlightenment in Indonesia

Name: Floracrats: State-Sponsored Science and the Failure of the Enlightenment in Indonesia
Brand: University of Wisconsin Press
SKU: 9780299248642
Price: 19.99 USD
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Contributors:

Andrew Goss, Jack H. Medalie (Editor), Dov Steinmetz (Editor)

Publisher:

University of Wisconsin Press

Binding:

Paperback

Book Category:

History, Political Science, Science

Book Subcategory:

Asia, History

Book Topic:

Southeast Asia

Series:

New Perspectives in Southeast Asian Studies

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The product is eligible for a complimentary return within 30 days from the date of purchase. Furthermore, individual items are shipped within 24 hours of receiving the order.

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Specifications +

Release Date:

1999-07-01

ISBN 13:

9780299248642

Weight:

0.83 lbs

Size:

9.00 x 6.00 x 0.70 inches

Pages:

264

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product description

Description

Situated along the line that divides the rich ecologies of Asia and Australia, the Indonesian archipelago is a hotbed for scientific exploration, and scientists from around the world have made key discoveries there. But why do the names of Indonesia's own scientists rarely appear in the annals of scientific history? In The Floracrats Andrew Goss examines the professional lives of Indonesian naturalists and biologists, to show what happens to science when a powerful state becomes its greatest, and indeed only, patron.
With only one purse to pay for research, Indonesia's scientists followed a state agenda focused mainly on exploiting the country's most valuable natural resources--above all its major export crops: quinine, sugar, coffee, tea, rubber, and indigo. The result was a class of botanic bureaucrats that Goss dubs the "floracrats." Drawing on archives and oral histories, he shows how these scientists strove for the Enlightenment ideal of objective, universal, and useful knowledge, even as they betrayed that ideal by failing to share scientific knowledge with the general public. With each chapter, Goss details the phases of power and the personalities in Indonesia that have struggled with this dilemma, from the early colonial era, through independence, to the modern Indonesian state. Goss shows just how limiting dependence on an all-powerful state can be for a scientific community, no matter how idealistic its individual scientists may be.

About the Author

Andrew Goss is assistant professor of history at the University of New Orleans.