Despite its twenty-plus years of influence, the “new imperial history” literature continues to challenge scholars of nineteenth- and twentieth-century British history, as well as colonial history throughout the former British imperial world, to think about the connections between colony and metropole. In British Engineers and Africa, Casper Andersen seeks to further extend this analysis to a new category within British society. Andersen argues that engineers were uniquely positioned between empire and metropole during the first stage of imperial expansion on the African continent. Due in part to the important role that infrastructure played in the empire of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, engineers were connected to both the centers of political power in London and the sites of imperial conquest in the new African colonies. The movement of engineers between London and various African colonies, Andersen argues, created an intricate international network of ideas, knowledge, connections, and influence.
Based primarily on engineering periodicals, diaries, directories, and archival documents from the Institution of Civil Engineers (ICE), the first four chapters explore the internal dynamics of the British engineering profession. Chapter 1 details the major debates among important engineering periodicals during the period. Chapters 2 and 3 discuss the location of major centers of engineering, as well as the networks and practices employed by members of the profession. These chapters helpfully distinguish between different classes of engineers. Chapter 4 investigates various attempts by the ICE and its members to develop adequate structures of representation and participation throughout the imperial world.
While these early chapters provide some helpful detail regarding the structures, practices, and debates among engineers during this period, the book is at its best in chapters 5 and 6. Exploring the practices of engineers in relation to their experiences in the colonies, these chapters suggest that it was in the newly acquired African territories that British engineers established themselves as explorer-engineers and came to terms with the inherent tensions and contradictions of the imperial mission in Africa. The civilizing mission, Andersen argues, compelled imperial agents to simultaneously modernize and preserve. As the representatives of British industry and the architects of the infrastructure and technology of imperial rule, engineers found themselves situated between these two competing claims. Undoubtedly viewing themselves as modernizers, engineers who waded into the public arena in high-profile projects like the Aswan Dam found their authority and methods questioned by an elite class of “gentlemen” and scholars. As professionals whose skills were central to the imperial project, engineers found that their attempts to influence broader imperial policy were less successful.
These last two chapters, however, raise important questions about the larger arguments of the book, as well as its conceptual framing. Throughout the book, it remains unclear how and why the African continent was chosen as the imperial foil to what is otherwise a history firmly rooted in the ideologies and practices of Westminster. Andersen does demonstrate that the empire becomes important to the practices and networks of engineers headquartered in London. However, that influence seems just as rooted in India or the Caribbean as Africa. Some of the explanation for this focus on the African continent may lay in chapters 5 and 6; however, the importance of the African imperial territories during this period remains unexplored in the larger arguments or frameworks of the book.
When the empire does appear, it does so in rather abstract form. Until the more specific case studies at the end of the book, “empire” and “imperial identities” are mentioned frequently but vaguely. What is an “imperial identity” in the engineering world? In what ways do their experiences in imperial territories shape engineering practice and ideology? Andersen frequently claims that his analysis demonstrates the degree to which the empire “struck back.” However, by focusing exclusively on the movements and motivations of British engineers, Andersen neglects the very real and important ways that the actions of Africans in the colonies influenced engineering work. Africanist literature has highlighted the important ways in which preexisting African ideologies and practices complicated British plans for “development” and “modernization,” exemplified in engineering plans and infrastructural design. Part of this difficulty lies in Andersen’s attempt to bridge the “history of science” and “imperial history.” By the concluding chapters, he seems to have reconciled these tensions to some degree. However, his efforts would be aided by a broader reading in the secondary literature on African colonialism, as well as the archival records of imperial planning and projects. It is in the case studies that we can best see these processes, networks, and ideologies at work.
In laying out the networks and practices among engineers during this period of intense infrastructural development in Africa, this book will provide helpful information to any scholar interested in imperial policy and the politics of infrastructure and technology. Furthermore, Andersen’s work provides insights into the lives of several important engineers, which help to parse and humanize the ministerial debates and reports that dominate archival files on infrastructure projects.
