Engineering India, Engineering America, Engineering the World: International Technical Exchanges and the Indian Institutes of Technology, 1946-2000

印度理工学院因其培养的高素质工程师而在印度、美国和世界许多其他地区闻名，并至少部分地负责使高科技成为当今印度的主导形象之一。印度理工学院是新独立的印度在科学和技术领域实现自给自足的愿望与美国、苏联、联合王国和西德德国的援助的矛盾结合。这项研究，主要集中在美国参与的情况下，但不完全是，将探讨印度人和外国人如何共同努力，建立这些机构，这是概念化的许多印度麻省理工学院。然后，它将研究这些机构如何在印度的经济和技术体系，以及在全球技术体系中发挥作用。它将首先通过研究计算机工程，航空工程和卫生工程作为IIT学科的发展来实现这一目标，然后在更广泛的印度经济中研究这些领域的发展，密切关注IIT教师和校友所发挥的作用。然后，它将着眼于美国的IIT毕业生，研究他们的职业道路和他们在美国的创业活动。然后，它将研究技术信息和人员返回印度的流动。这笔赠款将提供一年的假期和旅费，这将使大部分的研究在美国和英国的档案完成。这项研究的学术价值在于，它将是第一次由受过学术训练的历史学家对印度理工学院进行持续的考虑。它将超越仅仅是一个机构的狭隘历史，并将印度理工学院与美国和印度更广泛的技术发展联系起来。这项研究将增加我们对美国和印度之间的技术关系的理解，提请注意这些关系的互惠性质。它将有助于美国历史国际化的日益增长的趋势和扩大我们对国际关系的定义。它响应了托马斯P.休斯和大卫亨谢尔等学者的呼吁，考虑跨越国界的技术发展，这一呼吁尚未得到充分回应。它还将为技术教育系统如何在全球环境中运作提供一个重要的案例研究。 就更广泛的影响而言，这项研究的成果将被广泛的历史学家、工程师、教育家和公众所接受。它将扩大美国技术史学科的基础，并使技术史学会更全面地包括独立后印度的技术史。它有可能导致美国和印度学者之间的合作。它将为希望就技术史中的全球主题进行写作或教学的学者提供资源。鉴于大量的关注，美国新闻界在过去几年中给予印度在美国经济中的作用，这项研究将作出重要贡献，扩大我们的知识，美国和印度之间的技术关系，并提供了一个重要的和有影响力的少数民族群体在美国技术界的作用更深入的了解。

Project Summary The Indian Institutes of Technology have become famous in India, the United States and many other parts of the world for the high quality engineers they produce, and are at least partially responsible for making high technology one of the dominant images of India today. The Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs) were a paradoxical combination of the newly independent India's desire to achieve self-sufficiency in the areas of science and technology, and assistance from the United States, the Soviet Union, the United Kingdom and West Germany. This study, focusing primarily, but not exclusively on the cases of American involvement, will examine how Indians and foreigners worked together to establish these institutions which were conceptualized by many as Indian MITs. It will then examine how these institutions functioned within the Indian economy and technological system, as well as in a global technological system. It will do so first by looking at the development of computer engineering, aeronautical engineering, and sanitary engineering as disciplines at IIT and then examine developments in these areas within the wider Indian economy, looking closely at the role played by IIT faculty and alumni. It will then look at IIT graduates in the United States, examining their career paths and their entrepreneurial activities in the United States. It will then look at the flows of technical information and people back to India. This grant will provide for one year's leave and travel funding, which together will allow for the completion of the bulk of the research in American and British archives. The intellectual merit of this study is that it will be the first sustained consideration of the Indian Institutes of Technology by an academically trained historian. It will go beyond being merely a narrow history of an institution and link the Indian Institutes of Technology to broader developments in technology in both the United States and India. This study will increase our understanding of technical relations between the United States and India, drawing attention to the reciprocal nature of those relations. It will contribute towards the growing trends towards the internationalization of American history and the broadening of our definition of international relations. It answers the call of scholars such as Thomas P. Hughes and David Hounshell to consider the development of technology across national boundaries, a call that has not been fully answered. It will also provide an important case study of how systems of technological education operate in a global environment. In terms of broader impacts the book that will come out of this research will be written to be accessible to a wide audience of historians, engineers, educators, and the general public. It will broaden the base of the discipline of the history of technology in America and the Society for the History of Technology to more fully include the history of technology in post-independence India. It has the potential to lead to collaboration between American and Indian scholars. It will provide resources for scholars who wish to write or teach on global topics in the history of technology. Given the great amount of attention the American press has given in the last few years to India's role in the American economy, this study will make an important contribution by broadening our knowledge of technological relations between the United States and India, and providing a deeper understanding of the role of an important and influential ethnic minority group within the American technological community.