Book cover of Africa as a Living Laboratory: Empire, Development, and the Problem of Scientific Knowledge, 1870-1950

Book description

Tropical Africa was one of the last regions of the world to experience formal European colonialism, a process that coincided with the advent of a range of new scientific specialties and research methods. "Africa as a Living Laboratory" is an ambitious study of the thorny relationship between imperialism and the…

When you buy books, we may earn a commission that helps keep our lights on (or join the rebellion as a member).

Why read it?

1 author picked Africa as a Living Laboratory as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?

Africa as a Living Laboratory is a far-reaching study of the thorny relationship between imperialism and the role of scientific expertise—environmental, medical, racial, and anthropological—in the colonization of British Africa. A key source for Helen Tilley’s analysis is the African Research Survey, a project undertaken in the 1930s to explore how modern science was being applied to African problems. This project both embraced and recommended an interdisciplinary approach to research on Africa that, Tilley argues, underscored the heterogeneity of African environments and the interrelations among the problems being studied. While the aim of British colonialists was unquestionably to transform and…

If you love Africa as a Living Laboratory...

Book cover of The Rosewood Penny

The Rosewood Penny by J.S. Fields,

2023 Queer Indie Award Nominee!

The dragons of Yuro have been hunted to extinction.

On a small, isolated island, in a reclusive forest, lives bandit leader Marani and her brother Jacks. With their outlaw band they rob from the rich to feed themselves, raiding carriages and dodging the occasional vindictive…

Want books like Africa as a Living Laboratory?

Our community of 12,000+ authors has personally recommended 100 books like Africa as a Living Laboratory.

Browse books like Africa as a Living Laboratory

Book cover of Environmental Infrastructure in African History: Examining the Myth of Natural Resource Management in Namibia
Book cover of The Rise of Conservation in South Africa: Settlers, Livestock, and the Environment 1770-1950
Book cover of Ecology Control and Economic Development in East African History: The Case of Tanganyika, 1850–1950 (Eastern African Studies)

Share your top 3 reads of 2025!

And get a beautiful page showing off your 3 favorite reads.

1,340

readers submitted
so far, will you?

📚 If you like Africa as a Living Laboratory, you might also like...

Book cover of Murder, Lies and Chocolate

Murder, Lies and Chocolate by Sally Berneathy,

Book 2, Death by Chocolate series.

Rodney Bradford comes into Lindsay's restaurant, offers to buy her small house for double its value, eats her brownies, and drops dead on the sidewalk in front. Next, her almost-ex-husband offers to sign the divorce papers, but only if she'll give him her small,…

Book cover of Tangle of Time

Tangle of Time by Maureen Thorpe,

A spellbinding journey through time and cultures.

When Annie Thornton, midwife and apprentice witch, falls through time to a 15th-century Yorkshire village with her telepathic cat, Rosamund, she befriends Will and Jack, two soldiers returning from the French Wars. Mistress Meg, Annie’s ancestral aunt living in the 15th century, is…

5 book lists we think you will like!