History of Imperialism

Andare oltre Giano: la terza fronte della diplomazia romana in Grecia e Oriente (II a.C.),

by Claudio Vacanti

in Guerra e diplomazia nel mondo antico. Tra istanze politiche e strategie culturali, Atti del Convegno di Studi (Palermo 21- 22 novembre 2008), Hormos
(n.s. 1) 2008/2009, pp. 212-219

Guerra preventiva, equilibrio di potenza e imperialismo romano

by Claudio Vacanti

Thalassa (2), 2005, pp. 161-174

Suasione latente e uso della forza nell’espansione romana (II a.C.)

by Claudio Vacanti

in Violenza e consenso nel mondo antico, Atti della Giornata di Studi (Palermo 10 marzo 2006), in Hormos (8) 2006, pp. 115-122

Conquests of the Imagination: The Manipulation of Myth in Iberian Conquest Literatures

by Michael Arnold

This article I co-authored with Daniel Arbino was published by the University of Kentucky's Journal Nomenclatura: aproximaciones a los estudios hispánicos in April 2012.

This essay’s objectives are to explore the possibilities of the legends of Prester John, Quetzalcóatl and Viracocha... more This essay’s objectives are to explore the possibilities of the legends of Prester John, Quetzalcóatl and Viracocha being ideologically connected, ostensibly serving the same imperial purpose in the conquest of non-European countries, and the failed experiment by the Spanish and Portuguese to extend this legend into Asia.  Furthermore, this essay will examine the consequences of these possibilities in terms of language and writing post-conquest history.  In that sense, the purpose of Prester John, much like the legends of Quetzalcóatl and Viracocha was to justify the occupation of these lands by Spanish and Portuguese for the benefit of the Christian world. 

Our theoretical sources are primarily drawn from the works of Walter Mignolo, Cornel West, and Guy Rozat Dupeyron.  Our historical sources include: Robert Silverberg, Bernardino Sahagún, Christopher Columbus, and Hernán Cortés.
Our methodology is to question the historical validity of indigenous myths written ex-post facto by the colonizer, in the language of the colonizer, and in the explicit interests of the colonizer.

Our main results have shown that whereas the Asian/African quest to aid Prester John could be seen as a way to rationalize entry into, and (sometimes) conquest of foreign lands (a pre-conquest justification), the New World challenge would require a new strategy, manifesting itself as a post-conquest justification of European domination and indigenous subjugation, through a manipulation of their histories, religions, and (possible) prophecies.  The experience common for both Aztec and Incas societies was an invasion of their world by the unknown, causing each society to actively seek out an explanation for this seemingly implausible experience.  This, we posit, was all too readily offered (or at least manipulated) by conquistadors, colonizers, and missionaries.

Peer polity interaction in the Hellenistic world

by John Ma

Empires

by József Böröcz

co-authored with Mahua Sarkar. Published in the Sage Encyclopedia of Global Studies, 2012.

Poison: Nature's Argument for the Roman Empire in Pliny the Elder's Naturalis Historia

by Molly Jones-Lewis

Forthcoming in CW.  The contract is signed and I'm just waiting for the release date.

Abstract: In Pliny the Elder's Naturalis Historia poisonous plants and animals are intimately associated with their... more Abstract: In Pliny the Elder's Naturalis Historia poisonous plants and animals are intimately associated with their countries of origin.  Moreover, Pliny often focuses on those poisonous substances found in lands where Rome had carried out major campaigns, particularly Egypt and Pontus.  The power and influence of poisons in these locations is deliberately emphasized in order to justify Italy (and by implication Rome) as a natural physician of the world ideally suited to subdue untamed poisons and make them over as powerful and life-saving medicines.  In this way Pliny structures his view of natura to justify the existence and rule of the Roman Empire.

The role of Opium in the Expansion of the British Empire from 1764 to 1825 - Guillermo Pineda

by Guillermo Pineda

"Spelling Synarchy: Some Thoughts on the Manchu Origins of the Wade-Giles System." (work in progress)

by Pär Cassel

Paper presented at the Research colloquium: Religion and Manchu society, 1600-2009, School of Oriental and African Studies, London, 15 February 2010.

Human Rights & Empire

by Petrea Alexis Nes Iadicola

It is commonly considered now that the whole of human society has broken free from the tethers of Super-Power rivalry;... more It is commonly considered now that the whole of human society has broken free from the tethers of Super-Power rivalry; and the iniquitous and antiquated systems which it consequently produced and sustained have subsequently withered.  In lieu of this deemed ‘archaic model,’ it is said that the world system of states and its peoples have entered a new era of enlightenment captured by a wide-spread embrace of a ‘cosmopolitan’ ethos; pronounced particularly by eager academicians. Simultaneously, this contemporary era is depicted as fertile breeding ground for new forms of conflict: from genocide, to ethnic cleansing, to civil wars.  The resurrection of this global cosmopolitan ethos has partly occurred in response to this modern illustration of the world.  In turn, through the germination of the cosmopolitan seeds sown in this hostile environment, the cosmopolitan resolve which tended toward non-intervention in its nascent Kantian stage, has shifted to one of military interventions on behalf of humanity.

Increasingly and mechanically, humanitarian military interventions have been absorbed into academic and political discourse and interpreted as the ultimate panacea to remedy the pandemic of human suffering, now spanning the globe.  The unhesitant acceptance of this humanitarian antidote and its advocates’ readiness to its indiscriminate disbursement however elicits several problems. Principally, this allegiance toward humanitarian interventions on behalf of its champions presents a problem in that there has been a paucity of critical inquiry within the dominant human rights discourse on the role of disparate power relations and the subsequent considerations, justifications, and executions of humanitarian military interventions.

This negligence presents a problem as it assumes that such interventions are suggested and conducted impartially and in the interests of the greater human society; far removed from the interests of great powers.  Thus, the paradigmatic discourse on humanitarian intervention tends to avert analytical inquiry into the prospective influence of imperialism and western hegemony in determining where and when a humanitarian intervention is necessitated and in determining its execution as consequence.

The purpose of the proceeding work is to scrutinise whether humanitarian interventions can be interpreted through imperialism theory; in other words whether humanitarian interventions could be interpreted as a project or instrument of Empire.  Firstly, this thesis examines the concept of humanitarian intervention and the cosmopolitan discourse, Just War theory, and ‘The Responsibility to Protect’ doctrine which have shaped and moulded its deliverance and reception. Proceeding from this, this thesis engages theories of imperialism, their evolution through the Marxist school of thought, and the varying forms of imperial control, penetration and integration through military, economic, and political channels. Finally a definition of imperialism is constructed to guide the subsequent analysis.

Three cases of humanitarian interventions are selected and examined: two interventions in the Republic of Haiti in 1994 and 2004, and one in the former Yugoslavia in 1999. The analysis imparted takes into consideration a range of factors both internal and external which contributed to the conditions which ostensibly ‘called for’ intervention, the conduct of the intervention, and the resulting ‘humanitarian’ climate the intervention later produced.  Finally, the interventions selected are contrasted against the definition of imperialism employed and the forms of imperial control, penetration and integration to evaluate whether or not a parabiotic relationship between humanitarian intervention and imperialism can be substantiated.  The conclusion of this thesis suggests that such a relationship is not only arguable in the three cases analysed, but that more generally the notion of humanitarian intervention fits comfortably within imperialism theory.

Language and Culture in the Growth of Imperialism

by Sharron Gu

This book is going to be published by McFarland on March 2012.

It studies the history of global aggression and expansion in the Greek, Roman, Islamic, British, Russian, and American... more It studies the history of global aggression and expansion in the Greek, Roman, Islamic, British, Russian, and American empires. It presents imperialism as a cultural phenomenon rather than merely a military and economic expansion. Imperialism is the natural result for a young and vibrant culture, which emerged from a hybrid of languages. It could be a culture that grew in a multi-lingual environment (Greek, Roman, and English), an established culture revitalized by injection of a new ideology (Islamic and Russian), or a language uprooted from its sub-verbal soil and transplanted into a new cultural mosaic (America). These hybrid giants developed a brand new identity and vision of the world, as well as an inflated sense of self, and a desperate need for gratification and glorification. On the other side of this fragile ego is an exaggerated fear, which became the engine of war.

Französische Interessen im Osmanischen Reich in dern 1760ern - Eine alte Freundschaft unter neuen Vorzeichen

by Christoph Hornig

class paper

Das Osmanische Reich ist in der Frühen Neuzeit vielen Anschuldigungen seitens Auropas ausgesetzt. Ungeachtet dessen... more Das Osmanische Reich ist in der Frühen Neuzeit vielen Anschuldigungen seitens Auropas ausgesetzt. Ungeachtet dessen gab es eine langanhaltende Kooperation westlicher Staaten mit den Sultanen der Pforte. Allen voran steht
Frankreich, das in Abwehr gegen Habsburg mit den Sultanen gemeinsame Sache machte.
Trotz aller Legitimierungsschwierigkeiten zieht sich die Kooperation wie ein roter Faden durch die gesamte Frühe
Neuzeit.
Nach einer Darstellung der diplomatischen Beziehungen in der Frühen Neuzeit und besonders der Entwicklung der permanenten Gesandtschaften, wird auf die französisch-osmanischen Beziehungen eingegangen. Hier werden chronologisch Charakteristika der Kooperation und Konkurrenz erarbeitet. Der geopolitische Kontext ist das Thema des vierten Abschnitts und zeigt, in welcher Lage sich Frankreich nach dem Siebenjährigen Krieg und dem Verlust vieler seiner überseeischen Besitzungen
wiederfindet. Diese Darstellungen sollen den Rahmen für die Analyse der zwei Quellen bieten.
Die beiden Quellen sind Memoranden (Instructions) des französischen Hofes an seine permanenten Botschafter in Konstantinopel einerseits und Petersburg andererseits. Beide stammen aus dem Ende der 1760er Jahre und legen anschaulich die Interessenlage am französischen Hof dar.
Anhand der Quellen wird untersucht wie sich das Verhältnis Frankreichs zum Osmanischen Reich hinsichtlich seiner eigenen Interessen gewandelt hat, nachdem der Nukleus der Kooperation, die gemeinsame Konkurrenz mit den Habsburgern
erloschen ist. Die Betrachtung wird die Handels- und Machtinteressen bevorzugen und die religiösen Aspekte Seitens Frankreichs außen vor lassen.

Guerra primitivista o modernista: El debate de la Grand Strategy romana

by Pau Valdés Matías

Ex Novo: Revista d'història i humanitats, nº7, pp. 89-104

El estudio sobre el limes, y por extensión toda la frontera romana, es uno de los campos de estudios de mayor... more El estudio sobre el limes, y por extensión toda la frontera romana, es uno de los campos de estudios de mayor tradición dentro de la historia de Roma. A partir de la publicación del libro de Luttwak The Grand Strategy of the Roman Empire (1976) se ha desarrollado un largo y complejo debate en torno a qué tipo de frontera existía en el Imperio Romano y qué tipo de concepción sobre ésta y sobre la guerra existía en Roma. Esta discusión, con fuertes vínculos con el debate entre los primitivista y modernista sobre la economía romana y con el imperialismo romano, ha servido para introducir numerosos conceptos estratégicos para la comprensión tanto de la política imperial como de la propia frontera.

The Myth of the Hundred Years' Peace: War in the Nineteenth Century

by Eric Royal Lybeck

Published in At War for Peace - http://www.inter-disciplinary.net/publishing/id-press/ebooks/at-war-for-peace/#hide

In The Great Transformation, Karl Polanyi described the period between 1815 and 1914 as the “Hundred Years’ Peace.”... more In The Great Transformation, Karl Polanyi described the period between 1815 and 1914 as the “Hundred Years’ Peace.” Indeed, relative to previous and subsequent centuries, battlefield deaths were considerably lower between the Napoleonic and Great Wars. The European Great Powers’ reluctance to go war, Polanyi suggested, was due to the growing interdependence generated by the new capitalist system – what he termed market society”. However, applying a different sociological theory of war - one that does not reduce the significance of war to battle death tolls, but rather considers wars’ qualitative geopolitical and social significances - establishes a new framework through which we can better understand this ‘peaceful’ 19th century. Furthermore, we should expand the frame of reference beyond the European stage as the globalizing trajectory of capital in this period brought non-European regions into a unifying economic world system. Wars in the periphery of the system at this time would therefore have greater significance and would further qualify Polanyi’s thesis. The assumption that the 19th century was a uniquely pacified society undermines our ability to understand the crucial links between war, society, and economics in the present era, and needs to be reassessed using new theoretical tools and insights.

The Philippine-American War

by Marco Cuevas-Hewitt

Entry published in 'The encyclopedia of the Spanish-American and Philippine-American Wars', 2009.

First paragraph: A war between US occupation forces in the Philippines and Filipino nationalist insurgents (Filipino... more First paragraph: A war between US occupation forces in the Philippines and Filipino nationalist insurgents (Filipino Nationalist Army) led by General Emilio Aguinaldo y Famy. The conflict began on February 4, 1899, and military actions ended on April 13, 1902, upon the surrender of the last Filipino general. The war was officially declared over on July 4, 1902. Armed conflict did not come to a complete halt until 1913, however, with Moro (Muslim) and other armed guerrilla groups continuing to wage sporadic resistance against American forces throughout the archipelago. Many of these conflicts occurred independently from one another. Some historians consider these conflicts to be a continuation of the war beyond 1902...

Strategies for Future Success: Remembering the Hittites during the Iron Age

by Lynn Dodd

Published in Anatolian Studies

The Maraş and Sakçagözü valley surveys on the east side of the Amanus mountains provide new data regarding patterns of... more The Maraş and Sakçagözü valley surveys on the east side of the Amanus mountains provide new data regarding patterns of Hittite territorial management and administration. Sites dating to the Late Bronze Age II period were identified by the presence of burnished pottery, drab ware and, occasionally, by animal-shaped ceramic vessel fragments. The standardised drab ware pottery is emblematic of mass production and rigid control of labour sources and raw materials through systems designed to support the economic and political strategies of the Hittite court and to serve its interests. The settlement pattern is linked to Hittite regional needs for agricultural production, raw materials and territorial security. The distinct site location pattern indicates a strategic, restrained use of space by the Hittites. This left room for beneficial integrative features that local élites might emphasise for their own purposes, which comprise a foundation for the prestige later accorded to the Hittite legacy.

Amanos dağlarinin doğusunda uzanan Maraş ve Sakçagözü vadisinde yapilan yüzey araştirmalari, Hitit topraklarinin organizasyonu ve yönetim yapisina ilişkin yeni veriler edinmemize olanak sağlamiştir. Geç Bronz II dönemine tarihlenen yerleşmeler, perdahli kaplarin, bezemesiz mallarin ve arada bir bulunan hayvan biçimli kaplara ait parçalarin varliği ile belirlenmiştir. Standartlaşmiş bezemesiz mallar, Hitit sarayinin ekonomik ve politik stratejilerini desteklemek ve onun çikarlarina hizmet etmek üzere tasarlanmiş bir seri üretimin, siki bir iş gücü kaynaklari ve hammadde denetiminin göstergesidir. Yerleşim dokusu Hititlerin tarimsal üretim, hammade kaynaklari ve toprak güvenliği bakimindan bölgesel gereksinimleri ile bağlantilidir. Farkli bir yerleşim konumu Hititlerin statejik ve amaca yönelik bir seçim yaptiğini gösterir. Bu, yerli seçkin zümrenin kendi amaçlari için ön planda tutabilecekleri yararli, tamamlayici özelliklerin seçimine de olanak vermiştir. Bu Hititlerin daha sonraki ünlerine bir temel oluşturmuştur

Rabindranath Tagore at 150: Representations and Misrepresentations

by Michael Collins

The Bengali poet, writer and philosopher Rabindranath Tagore (1861-1941) remains a unique, though still... more The Bengali poet, writer and philosopher Rabindranath Tagore (1861-1941) remains a unique, though still under-recognised genius. Tagore’s cultural production was vast, covering poetry, prose and plays; an astonishing volume of music which is played and sung throughout Bengal to this day (and includes the national anthems of two countries, India and Bangladesh); internationally acclaimed and exhibited paintings; social, political and philosophical essays; agrarian reform; pioneering environmentalism; the creation of a school and a university. His philosophy of education may yet come to be seen as one of his most significant contributions.

Despite all this, and compared to his contemporaries Gandhi and Nehru, relatively few people have heard of Rabindranath Tagore. A Titan of the Bengal Renaissance, Tagore was cast in Romantic mould by a briefly admiring modernist intelligentsia in England. In India he was feted but also castigated for supposedly betraying the nationalist Left. Much maligned and often misunderstood, recovering Tagore’s thought and life in all its complexity is important today – as the twenty-first century eclipse of the West by the East unfolds – for the fact that he tried to imagine and articulate an alternative modernity: not a Eurocentric one but a parallel Indian or ‘Eastern’ modernity that would necessarily involve inter-cultural dialogue and convergence. Tagore would have passionately opposed the post-9/11 ‘clash of civilisations’ argument.

Tagore, Gandhi and the National Question

by Michael Collins

Tagore’s anti-nationalism was born out of the violence that engulfed the anti-partition movement in Bengal between... more Tagore’s anti-nationalism was born out of the violence that engulfed the anti-partition movement in Bengal between 1905 and 1908. Lord Curzon sought to divide the Hindu and Muslim communities of the large and politically active Bengal Presidency, and in response the swadeshi (self-sufficiency) movement in Bengal anticipated Gandhi with its boycott of British goods. Tagore had initially supported the movement but soon turned away in disgust after it spiralled into violence. This was a seminal moment in Tagore’s life. He was less interested in the conditions under which it becomes conceivable for people to act violently than any socialist might have been. Tagore’s belief was rather that freedom cannot solely be attained through the instrumental rationality of politics, of which violence is a subset. The desire to shape or seize control of structures of power – state, army, police, even the economy – is insufficient unless we are willing to also look within at values, beliefs and culture. ‘The way of bloody revolution’, Tagore added, ‘is not the true way’: ‘a political revolution is like taking a short cut to nothing’. This could be seen as Tagore’s answer to the ‘two vital questions about the search for liberation in our times’ that Ashis Nandy has pointed to: ‘namely, why dictatorships of the proletariat never end and why revolutions always devour their children’.

Both Tagore and Gandhi agreed that there was to be nothing passive about resistance, but Tagore could not tolerate the negativity of book burning or education boycotts, which he saw as an offence against a higher ideal of cooperation. The differences between Tagore and Gandhi have been over-stated at times, but differences there were and their debates through the 1920s and 1930s about the nature of freedom deserve much more scholarly attention. Amartya Sen has written that Tagore ‘never criticized Gandhi personally’. This isn’t quite true. In a letter sent to his English missionary friend C. F. Andrews in July 1915, Tagore made the following and striking claim: ‘only a moral tyrant like Gandhi can think that he has the dreadful power to make his ideas prevail through the means of slavery’. When Andrews came to publish Tagore’s letter in his 1928 book Letters to a Friend he deleted Gandhi’s name and left only the generic ‘tyrant’. It suggests to us that in spite of Tagore’s obvious admiration for Gandhi; in spite of the fact that it was Tagore himself who first gave Gandhi the name mahatma – the ‘great soul’ – he held deep reservations about Gandhi’s methods. ‘It is absurd’, Tagore wrote ‘to think that you must create slaves to make your ideas free’. Tagore sometimes saw Gandhi’s willingness to enforce his beliefs as a form of violence. Tagore’s advocacy of the ‘worlding’ or opening out of a creative, expressive Indian self often clashed with Gandhi’s effort to negate external influence.

Tagore, England and the Nobel Prize

by Michael Collins

As perhaps the most famous of Tagore’s Western interlocutors, Yeats often features in commentaries on Tagore and the... more As perhaps the most famous of Tagore’s Western interlocutors, Yeats often features in commentaries on Tagore and the West, most specifically regarding Tagore’s visit to Britain in 1912 and Yeats’ role as midwife to Tagore’s Western reputation. Yeats’ role in securing the Nobel Prize for Rabindranath has been exaggerated: actually, a member of the Nobel Committee read Tagore in Bengali and they awarded the prize on the basis of many more texts than Gitanjali alone. Even so, it is almost universally assumed that Tagore recognised in Yeats a common poetic genius, and that Yeats, in turn, recognised Tagore as a ‘great poet’. But this is quite misleading. Tagore saw Yeats as a junior and less-accomplished man. Yeats’ knowledge of Tagore was embarrassingly vague and he himself had suggested that honouring Tagore in those early years was a piece of ‘wise imperialism’.

Rather than genuine dialogue and mutual learning, Yeats was more interested in instrumentalising Tagore – and the East more generally – as part of a project of European cultural recovery. Tagore functioned not as an independent thinker or agent of historical change in his own right, but as something of an aesthetic object. And when that object of fascination developed a voice beyond the pretty emotions of Gitanjali; when Tagore sought to lecture, educate and sometimes denounce the West in English, or to deepen the West’s understanding of Indian philosophy, his audience of admirers soon changed their mind. ‘Damn Tagore’, Yeats wrote in 1935, ‘he thought it more important to see and know English than to be a great poet, he brought out sentimental rubbish and wrecked his reputation. Tagore does not know English, no Indian knows English’. The early green shoots of cross-cultural growth did not last even into the summer of 1913 when Pound decided that Tagore’s philosophy had little to offer anyone who had ‘felt the pangs’ and been ‘pestered with Western civilisation’. Yeats soon distanced himself from Tagore, and whilst his encounters with Indian philosophy and religious thought outlasted the Tagore moment, he found it difficult to move beyond the gauche problematic posed by Pound: ‘Why should India’, Yeats asked in the 1930s, ‘be always thinking of peace – shanti? Life is a conflict’.

Globalisation of Violence: The Death Game of New Imperialism

by barış çoban

“Globalisation of Violence: The Death Game of New Imperialism”. Critique, The Journal of Socialist Theory, Routledge. Vol. 38, 309-320 (2010).