Race and Science in Global Histories

This book review examines how historians of science have defined knowledge production, as well as its protagonists and settings, in ways that both reject and reproduce the racialization of bodies and cultures in the early modern Caribbean. Recent scholarship in the history of science has furthered our understanding of the history of scientific racism, including the role of theories of biological difference in processes of slavery and colonization, the influence of Christian theological thought in race science, and the importance of eugenics projects in nation building.¹ These interventions emphasize how the content of science can be influenced by and further reinforce racial thinking and racism. An equally important area of research focuses on the ways in which non-Western ways of knowing are themselves racialized and othered and thereby denied the status of “science.” In reflecting on the connections between race and science, it is paramount that we rethink what...