In The Science of Empire, Zaheer Baber analyzes the social context of the origins and development of science and technology in India from antiquity through colonialism to the modern period. The focus is on the two-way interaction between science and society: how specific social and cultural factors led to the emergence of specific scientific/technological knowledge systems and institutions that transformed the very social conditions that produced them.

A key feature is the author's analysis of the role of precolonial trading circuits and other institutional factors in transmitting scientific and technological knowledge from India to other civilizational complexes. A significant portion represents an analysis of the role of modern science and technology in the consolidation of the British empire in India.