Steamboats on the Indus: The Limits of Western Technological Superiority in South Asia

Two forms of water-transport competed for supremacy on the Indus and its tributaries in the middle of the nineteenth century: the local country boats and the steamboats imported by the British. Though the steamers were the most advanced technology in South Asia, yet the country boats kept the river trade while the steam flotillas went bankrupt. Steamboats on the Indus shows that the received wisdom-the 'Technology and Imperialism' school-is wrong to assumethat Westerm machines destroyed indigenous techniques wherever they came into competition.