This chapter contains sections titled: “Indian Agriculture” Practical Astronomy, Surveying and Time‐keeping Gunpowder and Firearms Philosophy of Technology References and Further Reading.

During the mid 1920s, the Spanish Government, prompted by the Rockefeller Foundation, began for the first time to support fundamental research in physics. The negotiations leading to this outcome are instructive, in reflecting key differences between the Foundation’s vision and the practices of scientists accustomed to a ‘culture of scarcity’. This paper shows how the Foundation and the Dictator of Spain, Miguel Primo de Rivera, tested the limits of ‘civil discourse’, and reached a resolution.

In April 1933, Albert Einstein was offered an ‘Extraordinary’ Chair of Physics at the University of Madrid. Einstein first accepted, then sought to withdraw without causing damage to the anti-Fascist Republican government. However, this proved an opportunity for the Spanish press to harness Einstein’s notoriety to their own programmes. This article discusses the genesis and resolution of this episode, which says much about Einstein and science and politics in modern Spain.