DISCUSS steam as a "social force" in Britain's empire.  Same question: what "impact" did steam have on Britain's capacity to govern India?
 
 

Discuss the influence of opium in China, British India, and the British empire. 
 
 

Rudyard Kipling, "The White Man's Burden," McClure's Magazine (Feb. 1899): "Take up the White Man's burden / Send forth the best ye breed / Go, bind your sons to exile / To serve your captives' need; / To wait, in heavy harness, / On fluttered folk and wild / Your new-caught sullen peoples, / Half devil and half child."
COMPARE "White Man's Burden" (1899) with "Black Man's Burden" + "Brown Man's Burden"
 
 

Assess the impact of "empire" on British and Indian industry; and on British-American and Indian culture.
 
 

EXPLAIN, in detail, how telegraphs in India as well as to London expressed the imperatives of empire. Where were the lines built--when--why?
 
 

How were large-scale public works projects designed to keep India "agricultural rather than manufacturing"?
 
 

How did Indian technical education before 1900 reflect the goals of British empire (rather than industrial development)? Where were the technical schools, what did they teach?
 
 

EXPLAIN how RAILROADS in India embodied empire. Where were railroads built, when, why? 
 
 

CONTRAST a "classic" British-Indian railroad (rail gauge, locomotive design, bridge design) with one from North America. 
 
 

DISCUSS the consequences of "railway imperialism" in Canada and in Mexico. See Misa's Nation of Steel chap. 1.5.
 
 

Railway imperialists did not get what they wanted in South Africa.  What happened?  What were the consequences of railway conflicts on southern Africa?
 
 

BROWSE Misa's "From Steelton to Mandalay" -- on American railroad hardware in imperial India-Burma.  Read ONE of the "essays" CAREFULLY; EXAMINE the pictures. What attitudes about Western technology, native society, and imperialism can you find?