"An important contribution to the history of the African Diaspora and to the history of U.S. foreign aid and public health projects."-Joseph L. Graves, Jr., author of The Emperor's New Clothes: Biological Theories of Race at the Millenium

"A broad and probing look at race, disease, and labor in the black Atlantic, from Haiti and Liberia to the former slave states of the American republic."-Robert N. Proctor, author of Racial Hygiene: Medicine Under the Nazis

Missions for Science traces the development and transfer of technology throughout key Atlantic regions with populations of predominantly African ancestry. Focusing on the southern United States, the Panama Canal Zone, Haiti, and Liberia, David McBride explores how the pursuit of the scientific ideal of progress, and the technical and medical outgrowths of this pursuit, have shaped the African Diaspora in the trans-Atlantic world. He addresses the questions:

Missions for Science is the first book to explain how modern industrial and scientific advances shaped black Atlantic population centers. McBride's original analysis shows how shifting environmental factors and disease-control aid from the United States affected the collective development of these populations. He also discusses how black Atlantic republics with close historical links to the United States independently envisioned and attempted to use science and technology to build their nations.

David McBride is a professor of African American History at Pennsylvania State University and the author of Integrating the City of Medicine: Blacks in Philadelphia Health Care, 1910-1965 and From TB to AIDS: Epidemics Among Urban Blacks Since 1900.