The history and theory of empires

History and Theory

Volumn 44, Issue 4, 2005, Pages 1-27

  Pomper, Philip ^a  

^a WESLEYAN UNIVERSITY   (United States)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

EID: 43249172426     PISSN: 00182656     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1111/j.1468-2303.2005.00340.x     Document Type: Review

References (52)

1. A vast number of works are relevant to the changing notions of empire, among them: Anthony Pagden, Lords of All the World: Ideologies of Empire in Spain, Britain and France c. 1500-1800 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1995);
2. Le Concept d'empire, ed. M. Duverger (Palis: Presses Universitaires de France, 1980);
3. A. Brewer, Marxist Theories of Imperialism: A Critical Survey (London: Routledge, 1980).
4. Among theoreticians and current commentators who represent the narrower position one finds David Abernethy, whose formal definition (applied mainly to overseas empires) distinguishes in a sophisticated study imperial power from other forms of power. See David B. Abernethy, The Dynamics of Global Dominance: European Overseas Empires, 1415-1980 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2000), 20.
5. Niall Ferguson, Colossus: The Price of America's Empire (New York: Penguin Press, 2004), 11 ;
6. Niall Ferguson, "The Unconscious Colossus: Limits of (& Alternatives to) American Empire," Daedalus 134 (2005), 19.
7. Dominick Lieven, Empire: The Russian Empire and Its Rivals (New Haven: Yale Nota Bene, 2000), xi.
8. Kenneth Pomeranz, The Great Divergence: China, Europe, and the Making of the Modern World Economy (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2000);
9. Pomeranz, "Empires & 'Civilizing' Missions, Past & Present," Daedalus 134 (2005), 34-45.
10. Another tendency is to place Europe against the broader background of Asian power: see André Gunder Frank, ReOrient: Global Economy in the Asian Age (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1998).
11. See James N. Rosenau's article in this issue.
12. The reference is to two works by Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri, Empire (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2000);
13. Multitude: War and Democracy in the Age of Empire (New York: Penguin Press, 2004).
14. Joseph S. Nye, Jr. , The Paradox of American Power (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002).
15. Abernethy, The Dynamics of Global Dominance, 12-13.
16. Michael Mann, Incoherent Empire (London: Verso, 2003).
17. Niall Ferguson has taken the position that the United States has an imperial project but doesn't know it, but he, like others, adapts his views to the ongoing and often disappointing behavior of the United States in international affairs. See his two major works, showing that the baton had passed from the United Kingdom to the United States: Empire: The Rise and Demise of the British World Order and the Lessons for Power (New York: Basic Books, 2003);
18. and Colossus: The Price of America's Empire (New York: Penguin Press, 2004).
19. Aside from the aforementioned works by Ferguson, see Philip Bobbitt, The Shield of Achilles (New York: Knopf, 2001).
20. Francis Fukuyama, The End of History and the Last Man (New York: The Free Press, 1992).
21. Fukuyama's use of Plato and Hegel for his psychological analysis underlines its limited character. To his credit, he entertains feminist arguments that suggest the heuristic intention of the title of his book. See ibid. , 137-138.
22. An interesting but unconvincing attempt to model mathematically the rise and fall of states is found in Peter Turchin, Historical Dynamics: Why States Rise and Fall (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2003).
23. Among evolutionary approaches one finds a number of theories based on the notion of cultural and social evolution: Robert Wright, Nonzero: The Logic of Human Destiny (New York: Vintage Books, 2000);
24. Stephen K. Sanderson, Social Transformations: A General Theory of Historical Development (Cambridge, MA: Blackwell Publishers, Inc. , 1995).
25. For a recent and thorough discussion of debates around such theories, see "Forum: Does Culture Evolve?," in History and Theory 44 (2005), 1-41.
26. The forum features W. G. Runciman's "Culture Does Evolve," a critique by Joseph Fracchia and Richard C. Lewontin, "The Price of Metaphor," and Runciman's rejoinder.
27. For the British aristocracy, see David Cannadine, Aspects of Aristocracy: Grandeur and Decline in Modern Britain (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1994);
28. The Rise and Fall of Class in Britain (New York: Columbia University Press, 1999).
29. Adam B. Ulam, The Bolsheviks: The Intellectual and Political History of the Triumph of Communism in Russia (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1998), 141.
30. Among these, William H. McNeill is the most distinguished. See J. R. McNeill and William H. McNeill, The Human Web: A Bird's-Eye View of World History (New York: W. W. Norton & Co. , 2003).
31. The best example of "Big History" is David Christian's Maps of Time: An Introduction to Big History ((Berkeley: University of California Press, 2004).
32. For another variation see James N. Rosenau's article in this issue of History and Theory.
33. David Christian, "Bridging the Two Cultures: History, Big History, and Science," Historically Speaking 6 (May/June 2005), 25.
34. See the article by Thomas David Dubois in this issue of History and Theory.
35. See, for example, Ashis Nandy, The Intimate Enemy: Loss and Recovery of Self under Colonialism (Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1983).
36. Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari, L'Anti-Oedipe (Paris: Les Editions de Minuit, 1972);
37. the English translation is Anti-Oedipus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia, transl. Robert Hurley, Mark Seem, and Helen R. Lane (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1983).
38. See Hardt and Negri, Multitude, 196-202.
39. Hardt and Negri, Empire, xi.
40. On swarm intelligence, see Hardt and Negri, Multitude, 91.
41. The rhizome image is taken from the work of Deleuze and Guattari, A Thousand Plateaus, transl. Bian Massumi (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1987), 3-25.
42. See Michael Roth's ironic review of Keith Jenkins's Refiguring History: New Thoughts on an Old Discipline (London: Routledge), 2003;
43. Roth, "Classic Postmodernism," History and Theory 43 (2004), 372-378.
44. Although one need not endorse his entire line of thought, Andrew Bard Schmookler's posing of the problem of power remains compelling in The Parable of the Tribes: The Problem of Power in Social Evolution (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1984).
45. Johan Huizinga, Homo Ludens: A Study of the Play Element in Culture (Boston: Beacon Press, 1955).
46. The perspective of the section that follows is in the spirit of inquiry discussed in John Lewis Gaddis, The Landscape of History: How Historians Map the Past (New York: Oxford University Press, 2002).
47. William H. McNeill, The Pursuit of Power: Technology, Armed Force, and Society since A. D. 1000 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1982);
48. and The Shape of European History (New York: Oxford University Press, 1974);
49. Paul M. Kennedy, The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers: Economic Change and Military Conflict, from 1500-2000 (New York: Random House, 1987).
50. In his review of Richard N. Haass's The Opportunity: America's Moment to Alter History's Course (New York: PublicAffairs, 2005), Brian Urquhart takes pains to review reasons why a certain degree of trust for the U. S. role in international affairs had developed: the creation of the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration, the reconstruction and democratizing of Germany and Japan, the establishment of the World Bank and IMF, the inspiration and support for the United Nations, the passage of a Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the Marshall plan, and other interventions that prevented the spread of Communism. Although not all of these actions would be applauded by everyone, or vehemently criticized by those who feel that the global financial institutions mentioned have done more good than harm, the overall achievements did indeed create among liberal governments a certain respect for the benign aspects of U. S. leadership. Even the catastrophe of the Vietnamese War did not destroy U. S. leadership. From the perspective of the last two decades of the twentieth century it seemed to be only an ugly episode. The governments of the United States and its citizens as well generally see themselves as having accumulated enormous credit for a historic balance of good deeds and benign power projects over harmful ones. However, in the current global context the U. S. government seems to be spending some of the accrued credit by its invasion of Iraq and by rejecting restraints accepted by other developed nations in certain key areas, where current U. S. economic policies favor its corporate giants.
51. Brian Urquhart, "The New American Century?" The New York Review of Books 52, number 13 (August 11, 2005), 39-42.
52. Mann, Incoherent Empire.