Calling science a "central pillar of colonialism," Philip (U. of California at Irvine) examines the everyday practices of ethnographers, foresters, botanists, plantation managers, and Christian missionaries in colonial British India in an effort to examine how science constructed meanings of labor, progress, productivity, and religious salvation. She argues that the interlinked discourses of science, colonialism, and religious missions helped build a racist understanding of nature and "natives." Annotation ©2004 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)