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Comparing British and American empires

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Among empires: American ascendancy and its predecessors By MaierCharles S., Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2006. Pp. 384. ISBN 10: 0-674-02189-4. £18.95.
Empire and superempire: Britain, America, and the world By PorterBernard, HavenNew, CT: Yale University Press, 2006. Pp. 224. ISBN-10: 0300110103. £18.99.

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 November 2007

A. G. Hopkins
A. G. Hopkins
Affiliation:
University of Texas at Austin, USA E-mail: [email protected]
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Review Article
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Journal of Global History , Volume 2 , Issue 3 , November 2007 , pp. 395 - 404
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Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2007

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References

1 ‘Empire?’, a special issue of The National Interest, 71, Spring 2003, contains a representative sample of differing definitions, as does Calhoon, Craig, Cooper, Frederick, and Moore, Kevin W., eds., Lessons of empire: imperial histories and American power New York: New Press, 2005Google Scholar.

2 It has also had the incidental effect of placing a handful of classical scholars in the public eye. Victor Davis Hanson, for example, received wide publicity for his account of the Peloponnesian war: A war like no other: how the Athenians and Spartans fought the Peloponnesian War, New York: Random House, 2005. The title of the review in the New York Times captures the heroic analogy with the present day: Grimes, William, ‘The brutal war that broke a Democratic superpower’, New York Times, 11 October 2005Google Scholar.

3 In this regard, the literature on the American empire has yet to catch up with trends in the study of imperial history, which have tried to correct an exclusively eurocentric view of the subject. For a recent statement, see Darwin, John, After Tamerlane: the global history of empire, London: Penguin Books, 2007Google Scholar. A non-Western perspective on globalization is presented in Hopkins, A. G., ed., Globalization in world history, New York: Norton, 2002Google Scholar; and Hopkins, , Global history: interactions between the universal and the local, New York: Palgrave, 2006CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

4 The term ‘benign empire’ was put into circulation by a number of neoconservative spokesmen. The notion of ‘cooperative empire’ was formulated by Robert Cooper (Tony Blair’s advisor on foreign affairs) well before the invasion of Iraq, and is elaborated in his book , The breaking of nations: order and chaos in the twenty-first century, London: Atlantic Books, 2003Google Scholar.

5 Prestowitz, Clyde, Rogue nation: American unilateralism and the failure of good intentions, New York: Basic Books, 2003Google Scholar.

6 Mandelbaum, Michael, The case for Goliath: how America acts as the world’s government in the twenty-first century, New York: Public Affairs, 2005Google Scholar.

7 Bloch, Marc, ‘Toward a comparative history of European societies’, in Lane, Frederick C. and Riemersma, Jelle C., eds., Enterprise and secular change: Readings in Economic History, Homewood, IL: Irwin, 1953, pp. 494–521.Google Scholar The original essay was first published in French in 1928. See also Bloch’s, exceptionally lucid The historian’s craft, Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1954Google Scholar. The best analysis remains Sewell, William H., ‘Marc Bloch and the logic of comparative history’, History & Theory, 6, 1967, pp. 208–18.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

8 The well-known exception is Niall Ferguson, whose books achieved huge publicity partly because they were seen to support what, at the time, was widespread enthusiasm in the USA for assertive action abroad. See Empire: the rise and demise of the British world order and the lessons for global power, New York: Basic Books, 2003Google Scholar; and Colossus: the price of America’s empire, New York: Penguin, 2004Google Scholar. My own interpretation follows at a suitable distance: Hopkins, A. G., ‘Capitalism, nationalism and the new American empire’, Journal of Imperial & Commonwealth History, 35, 2006, pp. 95–117.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

9 Maier has responded to critics by discussing the concept of empire further, but not by clarifying his own definition. See Maier, Charles S., ‘Analog of empire: reflections on US ascendancy’, Historically Speaking, 8, 2007, pp. 20–22.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

10 Hancock, W. K., Survey of British Commonwealth Affairs, 1918-1939. Vol. 2, Pt. 2: problems of economic policy, London: Oxford University Press, 1940Google Scholar; Galbraith, John S., ‘The “turbulent frontier” as a factor in British expansion’, Comparative Studies in Society and History, 2, 1959/60, pp. 150–68Google Scholar; Darwin, John, ‘Imperialism and the Victorians: the dynamics of territorial expansion’, English Historical Review, 112, 1992, pp. 614–42Google Scholar; Newbury, Colin W., ‘The semantics of international influence: informal empires reconsidered’, in Twaddle, Michael, ed., Independence, the state and the Third World, London: Academic Press, 1992, pp. 23–66.Google Scholar

11 Williams, William Appleman, The tragedy of American diplomacy, New York: Dell, 2nd ed., 1972.Google Scholar Williams has been brought into the current debate by Andrew Bacevich, American empire: the realities and consequences of US diplomacy, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2002.Google Scholar

12 A point recently endorsed by Stephen Howe, ‘What they think of us’, Historically Speaking, 8, 2007, pp. 22–4.Google Scholar

13 See n. 8 above.

14 Porter, Bernard, The absent-minded imperialists: empire, society and culture in Britain, New York: Oxford University Press, 2004.Google Scholar

15 See n. 4 above.

16 Orwell, George, ‘Politics and the English language’, in Orwell, Shooting an elephant and other essays, New York: Harcourt Brace, 1950, pp. 77–92.Google Scholar

17 As well as anxiety over the rise of serious competitors: Japan was the main worry in the 1980s; today it is China. Still, for every problem there is a solution, even if it does not always reassure observers outside the United States. John Mearsheimer, a distinguished specialist of international relations, has advocated a policy of containing China by slowing its economic development, thus limiting its (presumed) aggressive inclinations: The tragedy of great power politics, New York: Norton, 2001, p. 402.Google Scholar

18 And beyond via John L. O’Sullivan’s celebrated concept of manifest destiny to the expansionist schemes of the founding fathers. See Turner, Frederick Jackson, The frontier in American history, New York: Holt, 1920Google Scholar; and the illuminating study by Stephanson, Anders, Manifest destiny: American expansion and the empire of right, New York: Hill & Wang, 1995.Google Scholar

19 On the evolution of these terms and the distinctions, referred to here, that arose in the nineteenth century see Pagden, Anthony, ‘Fellow citizens and imperial subjects: conquest and sovereignty in Europe’s overseas empires’, History & Theory, 44, 2005, pp. 28–46.CrossRefGoogle Scholar This is not to deny that modern empires allowed for the possibility that subjects could become citizens, in the Roman fashion, by assimilation, but in practice few won promotion. Rights of citizenship for all colonial subjects awaited decolonization and the creation of new nation states.

20 The very few exceptions, notably Puerto Rico, prove the rule. The complexity of adding and then managing unincorporated territories was an important incentive for granting the Philippines commonwealth status in 1935 (as a prelude to complete independence in 1946). The preferred model was Panama, where the United States could secure its interests with minimal territorial acquisition and without constitutional entanglement. See the important study by Sparrow, Bartholomew H., The insular cases and the emergence of American empire, Lawrence, KS: University of Kansas Press, 2006.Google Scholar I am grateful to Dr. Sparrow for his further advice on this subject.

21 A valuable introduction to these issues is O’Brien, Patrick Karl and Clesse, Armand, eds., Two hegemonies: Britain, 1846–1914 and the United States, 1941–2001, Aldershot: Ashgate, 2001.Google Scholar

22 See also O’Brien, Patrick K., ‘The myth of anglophone succession’, New Left Review, 24, 2003, pp. 1–16.Google Scholar

23 Ignatieff, Michael, Empire lite: nation-building in Bosnia, Kosovo and Afghanistan, Toronto: Penguin, 2003.Google Scholar

24 Nye, Joseph, Bound to lead: the changing nature of American power, New York: Basic Books, 1990;Google ScholarNye, , Soft power: the means to success in world politics, New York: Public Affairs, 2004.Google Scholar

25 As advocated by Grew, Raymond, among others: ‘The comparative weakness of American history’, Journal of Interdisciplinary History, 16, 1985, pp. 87–101.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

26 Toynbee, Arnold J., A study of history, London: Oxford University Press, 1934–61.CrossRefGoogle Scholar Raymond Grew’s pragmatic advocacy of the merits of comparisons in the study of history goes almost too far in denying that there is a comparative ‘method’. See ‘The case for comparing histories’, American Historical Review, 85, 1980, pp. 763–78.Google Scholar This issue of the Review contains several other articles dealing with Bloch’s views of comparative history. Sewell, ‘Marc Bloch’, shows that comparisons can be methodical, thereby avoiding the errors of Toynbee’s ‘method’.

27 Lieven, Dominic, Empire: the Russian Empire and its rivals, London: Murray, 2000Google Scholar, is a good example of how comparisons can draw on varying degrees of detail to fit different levels of generalization.

28 A sobering list of false predictions (which leaves aside the well-known failure to predict the collapse of the Soviet Union and the ensuing erroneous prediction proclaiming the end of ideology – again), is provided by Pryor, Frederick L., The future of U.S. capitalism, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002, pp. 17–20.Google Scholar