Nature's Government 1st edition  Science, Imperial Britain and
the 'Improvement' of the World  Nature's Government 0
9780300059762 0300059760       Details about this item Nature's
Government: 'Nature's Government' is a daring attempt to
juxtapose the histories of Britain, western science, and
imperialism. It shows how colonial expansion, from the age of
Alexander the Great to the twentieth century, led to complex
kinds of knowledge. Science, and botany in particular, was fed
by information culled from the exploration of the globe. At the
same time science was useful to imperialism: it guided the
exploitation of exotic environments and made conquest seem
necessary, legitimate, and beneficial. Drayton traces the
history of this idea of 'improvement' from its Christian
agrarian origins in the sixteenth century to its inclusion in
theories of enlightened despotism. It was as providers of
legitimacy, as much as of universal knowledge, aesthetic
perfection, and agricultural plenty, he argues, that botanic
gardens