Introduction: looking beyond the state

Greenwood, Anna

Abstract

This chapter auto-critiques the editors early work (Crozier, Practising Colonial Medicine, 2007) for studying the Colonial Medical Service as a distinct entity, founded and run on shared principles, staffed by Europeans and micro-managed from Whitehall. The collection of chapters is introduced, particularly emphasising how each essay originally contributes to revising this flawed interpretation. The Colonial Medical Service is argued as being flexibly responsive to local demands, open to negotiation and cooperation with non-governmental partners, and very much different in reality to the unified image that is often assumed. Theoretically this dramatically pushes forward understandings of the history of government medicine in Africa, not least showing scholars that history is always on the move and can be rarely compartmentalised, despite the active public relations agenda of the British colonial government.

Citation

Greenwood, A. (2015). Introduction: looking beyond the state. In A. Greenwood (Ed.), Beyond the State: The Colonial Medical Service in British Africa. Manchester University Press. https://doi.org/10.7765/9781526137074

• Publication Date: 2015-12
• Deposit Date: May 22, 2017
• Publicly Available Date: May 22, 2017
• Publisher: Manchester University Press
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Series Title: Studies in Imperialism
• Book Title: Beyond the State: The Colonial Medical Service in British Africa
• ISBN: 9780719089671
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.7765/9781526137074
• Keywords: History of medicine, Africa, Colonialism
• Public URL: https://nottingham-repository.worktribe.com/output/768283
• Publisher URL: http://www.manchesteruniversitypress.co.uk/9780719089671/