Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource BIbliografia Colonizzazioni interne Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource The Colonial Machine: French Science and Colonization in the Ancien Regime Type The nature or genre of the resource Journal Article Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource James E. McClellan François Regourd Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2000 Zotero Title The Colonial Machine: French Science and Colonization in the Ancien Regime Item Type Journal Article Author James E. McClellan François Regourd URL http://www.jstor.org/stable/301939 Volume 15 Pages 31-50 Publication Title Osiris ISSN 0369-7827 Date 2000 Extra 00000 Journal Abbreviation Osiris Access Date 2016-11-30 23:01:15 Library Catalog JSTOR Abstract Note Although France's colonies were small in number and in size in the eighteenth century, their economic importance made France a major colonial power in the period. The central government, notably the Ministère de la Marine et des Colonies, systematically engaged the elaborate scientific infrastructure of Ancien-Régime France in its colonizing efforts, and French savants provided an essential expertise. This paper examines this bureaucratized scientific arm of France's contemporary "colonial machine" that included the Académie Royale des Sciences, the Académie Royale de Marine, the Observatoire Royal, the Jardin du Roí, the Société Royale de Médecine, the Société Royale d'Agriculture, and the Compagnie des Indes. These institutions and the individuals associated with them undertook coordinated efforts to support and extend contemporary French colonization. Their activities deal with tropical medicine, taxonomic and economic botany, cartography, and a host of related matters. With Paris and Versailles as the hub, by the end of the century an intricate web of institutions and expertise spanned the French colonial world from the Americas to the East Indies. Informal and unofficial colonial networks complemented the official administrative apparatus. The Revolutionary and Napoleonic periods witnessed the destruction of Ancien-Régime colonial structures--scientific and otherwise--yet, the lesson of the utility of science for the creation and maintenance of colonies was not lost on imperial planners who followed. Short Title The Colonial Machine