Dædalus coming up in Dædalus: Dædalus on professions Howard Gardner, Lee Shulman, William Sullivan, Geoffrey Galt & professionals Harpham, Jeanne Nakamura & Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, William Journal of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences Damon, Anne Colby, Kendall Bronk & Thomas Ehrlich, and Harvey Goldman Spring 2005 on body in mind Antonio & Hanna Damasio, A. S. Byatt, Carol Gilligan, Gerald Edelman, Jorie Graham, Richard Davidson, Raymond Dolan & Spring 2005: on imperialism comment Jonathan R. Cole Academic freedom under ½re 5 Arne Öhman, and Mark Johnson

on aging Henry J. Aaron, Paul Baltes, Frank Kermode, Linda Partridge, on imperialism Niall Ferguson America, unconscious colossus 18 Dennis J. Selkoe, Caleb E. Finch, Sarah Harper, Chris Wilson, Kenneth Pomeranz ‘Civilizing’ missions, past & present 34 Jagadeesh Gokhale & Kent Smetters, Hillard Kaplan, and Lisa Anthony Pagden Empire, liberalism & the quest for perpetual peace 46 Berkman Jack Snyder A paradoxical tool for democratization 58 on identity Akeel Bilgrami, Wendy Doniger, Amartya Sen, Stephen Greenblatt, Robin Blackburn Emancipation & empire, from Cromwell Kwame Anthony Appiah, Sidney Shoemaker, Susan Green½eld, to Karl Rove 72 David A. Hollinger, Claudio Lomnitz, Carol Rovane, Todd E. Molly Greene The Ottoman experience 88 Feinberg, and Courtney Jung Henk Wesseling Imperial roots of the Great War 100

on nonviolence William H. McNeill, Adam Michnik, Jonathan Schell, James Akira Iriye Beyond empire: the new internationalism 108 & violence Carroll, Breyten Breytenbach, Mark Juergensmeyer, Steven LeBlanc, James Blight, Cindy Ness, and others poetry Franz Wright Lesson & The Choice 117

plus poetry by W. S. Merwin, Charles Wright, Peg Boyers, Jorie ½ction Margaret Atwood Four short pieces 119 Graham &c.; ½ction by Robert Coover, Ree Davis &c.; and notes by Donald Green, Robert F. Nagel, Jeri Laber, Dipesh Chakrabarty, dialogue Barry Mazur Alvin Goldman, Edward D. Lazowska, Norbert Schwarz, Rodolfo & Peter Pesic on mathematics & imagination 124 Dirzo, Joel Handler, Joan Bresnan, Lyman A. Page, Robert J. Sharer, Gustavo Perez Firmat, Lisa Randall &c. notes Michael Hechter on the 2004 presidential election 131 Morris E. Fine & Peter W. Voorhees on the education of engineers 134

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1 1 2'°�i Inside front cover: ‘Freedom on the march’: Iraqi villagers queue up to vote in the national elections in a precinct in Al Anbar province west of Baghdad, January 30, 2005. See Niall Ferguson on The unconscious colossus: limits of (& alternatives to) American empire, pages 18–33: “The United States is what it would rather not be: a colossus to some, a Goliath to others–an empire that dare not speak its name. Yet what is the alternative to American empire? If, as so many people seem to wish, the United States were to scale back its mili- tary commitments overseas, then what?” Image © Erik de Castro/Reuters/Corbis. James Miller, Editor of Dædalus

Phyllis S. Bendell, Managing Editor and Director of Publications

Janet Foxman, Assistant Editor

Contributing Editors: Robert S. Boynton, D. Graham Burnett, Peter Pesic

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Steven Marcus, Editor of the Academy

Russell Banks, Fiction Adviser

Rosanna Warren, Poetry Adviser

Joyce Appleby (u.s. history, ucla), Stanley Hoffmann (government, Harvard), Donald Kennedy (environmental science, Stanford), Martha C. Nussbaum (law and philosophy, Chicago), Neil J. Smelser (sociology, Berkeley), Steven Weinberg (physics, University of Texas at Austin); ex of½cio: Patricia Meyer Spacks (President of the Academy), Leslie Cohen Berlowitz (Executive Of½cer)

Editorial advisers

Daniel Bell (sociology, Harvard), Michael Boudin (law, u.s. Court of Appeals), Wendy Doniger (religion, Chicago), Howard Gardner (education, Harvard), Clifford Geertz (anthropology, Institute for Advanced Study), Carol Gluck (Asian history, Columbia), Stephen Greenblatt (English, Harvard), Thomas Laqueur (European history, Berkeley), Alan Lightman (English and physics, mit), Steven Pinker (psychology, Harvard), Diane Ravitch (education, nyu), Richard Shweder (human development, Chicago), Frank Wilczek (physics, mit)

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Dædalus was founded in 1955 and established as a quarterly in 1958. The journal’s namesake was renowned in ancient Greece as an inventor, scientist, and unriddler of riddles. Its emblem, a maze seen from above, symbolizes the aspiration of its founders to “lift each of us above his cell in the labyrinth of learning in order that he may see the entire structure as if from above, where each separate part loses its comfortable separateness.” The American Academy of Arts & Sciences, like its journal, brings together distinguished individuals from every ½eld of human endeavor. It was chartered in 1780 as a forum “to cultivate every art and science which may tend to advance the interest, honour, dignity, and happiness of a free, independent, and virtuous people.” Now in its third century, the Academy, with its more than four thousand elected members, continues to provide intellectual leadership to meet the critical challenges facing our world. Dædalus Spring 2005 Subscription rates: Electronic only for non- Issued as Volume 134, Number 2 member individuals–$38; institutions–$81. Canadians add 7% gst. Print and electronic © 2005 by the American Academy for nonmember individuals–$42; institu- of Arts & Sciences tions–$90. Canadians add 7% gst. Outside Academic freedom under ½re the United States and Canada add $20 for © 2005 by Jonathan R. Cole postage and handling. Prices subject to change The unconscious colossus: limits of without notice. (& alternatives to) American empire © 2005 by Niall Ferguson Institutional subscriptions are on a volume- Lesson and The Choice year basis. All other subscriptions begin with © 2005 by Franz Wright the next available issue. King Log in exile, Post-colonial, Salome was a Single issues: current issues–$13; back issues dancer, and Take charge for individuals–$13; back issues for institu- © 2005 by Margaret Atwood tions–$26. Outside the United States and Editorial of½ces: Dædalus, Norton’s Woods, Canada add $5 per issue for postage and han- 136 Irving Street, Cambridge ma 02138. dling. Prices subject to change without notice. Phone: 617 491 2600. Fax: 617 576 5088. Claims for missing issues will be honored free Email: [email protected]. of charge if made within three months of the Library of Congress Catalog No. 12-30299 publication date of the issue. Claims may be submitted to [email protected]. Mem- isbn 0-87724-048-5 bers of the American Academy please direct all Dædalus publishes by invitation only and as- questions and claims to [email protected]. sumes no responsibility for unsolicited manu- Newsstand distribution by Ingram Periodicals scripts. The views expressed are those of the Inc., 18 Ingram Blvd., La Vergne tn 37086. author of each article, and not necessarily of Phone: 800 627 6247. the American Academy of Arts & Sciences. Advertising and mailing-list inquiries may be Dædalus (issn 0011-5266; e-issn 1548-6192) is addressed to Marketing Department, mit published quarterly (winter, spring, summer, Press Journals, 238 Main Street, Suite 500, fall) by The mit Press, Cambridge ma 02142, Cambridge ma 02142. Phone: 617 253 2866. for the American Academy of Arts & Sciences. Fax: 617 258 5028. Email: journals-info@ An electronic full-text version of Dædalus is mit.edu. available from The mit Press. Subscription and address changes should be addressed to Permission to photocopy articles for internal mit Press Journals, 238 Main Street, Suite 500, or personal use is granted by the copyright Cambridge ma 02142. Phone: 617 253 2889. owner for users registered with the Copyright Fax: 617 577 1545. Email: journals-orders@ Clearance Center (ccc) Transactional Report- mit.edu. ing Service, provided that the per copy fee of $10 per article is paid directly to the ccc, Printed in the United States of America by 222 Rosewood Drive, Danvers ma 01923. The Cadmus Professional Communications, fee code for users of the Transactional Report- Science Press Division, 300 West Chestnut ing Service is 0011-5266/05. Address all other Street, Ephrata pa 17522. inquiries to the Subsidiary Rights Manager, Postmaster: Send address changes to mit Press Journals, 238 Main Street, Suite 500, Dædalus, 238 Main Street, Suite 500, Cambridge Cambridge ma 02142. Phone: 617 253 2864. ma 02142. Periodicals postage paid at Boston Fax: 617 258 5028. Email: journals-rights@ ma and at additional mailing of½ces. mit.edu.

The typeface is Cycles, designed by Sumner Stone at the Stone Type Foundry of Guinda ca. Each size of Cycles has been separately designed in the tradition of metal types. Comment by Jonathan R. Cole

Academic freedom under ½re

Today, a half century after the 1954 expert Owen Lattimore. But a wave of House Un-American Activities Commit- repression in American universities tee held congressional hearings on com- today is apt to have even more dramatic munists in American universities, facul- consequences for the nation than the ty members are witnessing once again a repression of the Cold War. rising tide of anti-intellectualism and Compared to today, universities dur- threats to academic freedom.1 They are ing the McCarthy period were relatively increasingly apprehensive about the small institutions that were not much influence of external politics on univer- dependent on government contracts and sity decision making. The attacks on grants. In the early 1950s, Columbia Uni- professors like Joseph Massad, Thomas versity’s annual budget was substantially Butler, Rashid Khalidi, Ward Churchill, less than $50 million. Its annual budget and Edward Said, coupled with other is now roughly $2.4 billion, and more actions taken by the federal government than a quarter of this comes from the in the name of national security, suggest federal government, leaving research that we may well be headed for another universities like it ever more vulnerable era of intolerance and repression. to political manipulation and control. The United States paid a heavy price Universities today are also more when the leaders of its research universi- deeply embedded in the broader socie- ties failed in the 1950s to defend the lead- ty than ever before. They are linked to er of the Manhattan Project J. Robert industry, business, and government in Oppenheimer; the double Nobel Prize multiple ways. Their links to the larger chemist Linus Pauling; and the China society inevitably lead to public criticism of the university when faculty members or students express ideas or behave in Jonathan R. Cole, a Fellow of the American ways that some in the public ½nd repug- Academy since 1992, is the John Mitchell Mason nant. Professor of the University at Columbia Universi- Can the leaders and the tenured facul- ty, where he was provost and dean of faculties ty of our great research universities rise from 1989–2003. He has published extensively to the challenge of rebutting such criti- on social aspects of science, on women in science, cism? Can we do better at defending ac- on the peer review system, on the social organiza- ademic freedom than our predecessors tion and reward systems of science, on scienti½c did in the 1950s? and technological literacy, and, more recently, on topics in higher education. He is currently writing a book on the critical importance of the American 1 Many colleagues have provided useful com- research university for the welfare of American ments on earlier drafts of this essay. I received particularly helpful comments from Akeel Bil- society. grami, David Cohen, Joanna L. Cole, Susanna Cole, Tom Goldstein, Eric Foner, James Miller, © 2005 by Jonathan R. Cole Richard Shweder, and Geoffrey Stone.

Dædalus Spring 2005 5 Comment by To do so, we must convince the public the world’s great industrial laboratories, Jonathan R. that a failure to defend dissenting voices its high-tech incubator companies, and Cole on the campus places at risk the greatest its leading professions. Many of the engine for the creation of new ideas and emerging industries on which the nation scienti½c innovation the world has ever depends to create new jobs and maintain known. We must explain that one can its leading role in the world economy never know the true worth of an idea grow out of discoveries made at the unless one is free to examine it. We must American research university.2 The explain that such freedom of inquiry is a laser, the mri, the algorithm for Google key to innovation and progress over the searches, the Global Positioning System, long term in the sciences as well as the the fundamental discoveries leading to humanities. Above all, we must show biotechnology, the emerging uses of that a threat to academic freedom poses nanoscience, the methods of surveying a threat as well to the welfare and pros- public opinion, even Viagra–all these perity of the nation. discoveries and thousands of other in- ventions and medical miracles were cre- The preeminence of American univer- ated by scholars working in the Ameri- sities is an established fact. It was recent- can research university. ly reaf½rmed in a 2004 study conducted Unfortunately, most leaders of higher in China at Shanghai Jiao Tong Universi- education have done a poor job of edu- ty that evaluated ½ve hundred of the cating the public about the essential val- world’s universities. The United States ues of the American research university. has 80 percent of the world’s twenty They have also failed to make the case most distinguished research universities for the research university as the incuba- and about 70 percent of the top ½fty. tor of new ideas and discoveries. As a We lead the world in the production of consequence, when a professor comes new knowledge and its transmission to under attack for the content of his or her undergraduate, doctoral, and postdoc- ideas, the public has little understanding toral students. Since the 1930s, the Unit- of why the leader of a research universi- ed States has dominated the receipt of ty, if he or she is to uphold the core prin- Nobel Prizes, capturing roughly 60 per- ciple of academic freedom, must come to cent of these awards. the professor’s defense. Our universities are the envy of the world, in part because the systems of Attacks on academics follow a clear higher education in many other coun- pattern: A professor is singled out for tries–China is a good example–do not criticism. This is followed by media cov- allow their faculty and students the ex- erage that carries the allegations to larg- tensive freedom of inquiry that is the er audiences. The coverage is often cur- hallmark of the American system. As a sory and sometimes distorted. Some cit- consequence, our universities attract izens conclude that the university har- students from all over the world who either remain in this country as highly 2 The role of industry is, of course, critical as skilled members of our society or return well, but most of the great industrial laborato- home to become leaders in their own ries are highly dependent on these same re- search universities for PhDs who join these countries and ambassadors for the Unit- companies. So universities have both a direct ed States. The advanced graduates of the and an indirect influence on the production of American research university populate innovation.

6 Dædalus Spring 2005 bors extremists who subvert our nation- ported. “It wasn’t fun to be the only Academic al ideals. Pressed by irate constituents, Israeli in class, but I never felt intimidat- freedom under ½re political leaders and alumni demand ed. Passionate, emotional, but not intim- that the university sanction or ½re the idated.” professor. This is an all-too-familiar Unfortunately, these nuanced accounts story in our nation’s history. could not compete with strident head- The recent attack on Professor Joseph lines about hate. At one point, Congress- Massad of Columbia University offers man Anthony D. Weiner, a New York a perfect example of how this process Democrat, asked Columbia President unfolds. The drama began with a group Lee Bollinger to ½re the untenured Pro- called the David Project, which was fessor Massad as a way of demonstrating launched in 2002 “in response to the Columbia’s commitment to tolerance. growing ideological assault on Israel.” The irony was seemingly lost on Mr. The Project subsequently produced a Weiner, who had the audacity to write, one-sided twenty-½ve-minute ½lm, “By publicly rebuking anti-Semitic “Columbia Unbecoming,” in which events on campus and terminating Pro- former students accused Professor Mas- fessor Massad, Columbia would make a sad of inappropriate behavior in his elec- brave statement in support of tolerance tive course, “Palestinian and Israeli Poli- and academic freedom.” tics and Societies.” One former student alleged on camera that Massad used Weiner’s Orwellian ploy–of calling “racial stereotypes” and “intimidation intolerance “tolerance”–must be seen tactics . . . in order to push a distinct ideo- in a broader context. There is a growing logical line on the curriculum”; another effort to pressure universities to monitor asserted that Massad had crossed the classroom discussion, create speech line “between vigorous debate and dis- codes, and, more generally, enable dis- cussion, and hate.”3 gruntled students to savage professors The David Project distributed this ½lm who express ideas they ½nd disagree- to the media, and one-sided stories soon able. There is an effort to transmogrify began to appear in conservative publica- speech that some people ½nd offensive tions such as The New York Sun. This trig- into a type of action that is punishable. gered follow-up stories in The New York There is of course no place in the Times, The Chronicle of Higher Education, American research university classroom and other local, national, and interna- for physical intimidation, physical as- tional news outlets. One, appearing in sault, or violations of the personal space the November 21, 2004, Sunday edition of students. There is no place for faculty of The New York Daily News, bore the members to use their positions of au- headline “HATE 101.” thority to coerce and cow students into Not every story about Massad was conforming to their own point of view. this crude. A correspondent for The Jew- No university will protect a professor’s ish Week, for example, interviewed an use of a string of epithets directed to- Israeli student at Columbia who strongly ward a particular student in a gratuitous defended Massad. “The class was an in- manner that is unrelated to the sub- credible experience,” this student re- stance of the course. There are work- place rules in place at universities that 3 The ½lm has been shown in at least four or ½ve different versions; its content is continual- govern and control such forms of behav- ly changing. ior. And there must be, by law, mecha-

Dædalus Spring 2005 7 Comment by nisms for students or others at the uni- these students are trying to limit discus- Jonathan R. versity to lodge complaints against pro- sion of ideas with which they disagree. Cole fessors who violate these rules. This They want students to become judges, if basic commitment to civility and pro- not ½nal arbiters, of faculty competence. fessional responsibility is part of the They have supported the campaign code of conduct at Columbia and at against Massad at Columbia, and have every other major American research urged students to report “unfair grading, university.4 one-sided lectures, and stacked reading But the codes that place limits on con- lists” as an abuse of student rights. duct must never be directed at the con- While I was provost at Columbia there tent of ideas–however offensive they were many efforts by outside groups to may be to students, faculty, alumni, influence university policy and to silence benefactors, or politicians. speci½c members of the faculty. Repeat- Critics of the university, such as those ed efforts were made to defame and dis- af½liated with the David Project, tend to credit the renowned literary critic and blur the distinction between speech and Palestinian advocate Edward Said. Ex- action. They accuse professors of inap- ternal groups tried, but failed, to have propriate action and intimidation when Columbia deny an appointment to an they are actually trying to attack the con- eminent Middle East historian, Rashid tent of their ideas. They also tend to ex- Khalidi. Sixty-two members of Congress propriate key terms in the liberal lexi- wrote to Columbia calling on us to ½re con, as if they were the only true cham- Nicholas de Genova, a professor of an- pions of freedom and diversity on col- thropology, after he made inflammatory lege campuses. remarks at an antiwar teach-in prior to Consider Students for Academic Free- the most recent Iraq War–even though dom (saf), an organization launched his remarks were immediately criticized by veteran conservative activists. The at the same teach-in by other Columbia group’s very name implies a commit- faculty members. ment to a core liberal value, just as the Even when nobody loses his or her job, group’s tactics promise to empower these assaults take a toll. As Professor aggrieved students. Currently, the saf Massad explains on his website, “With is encouraging students nationwide to this campaign against me going into its organize and lobby university leaders, fourth year, I chose under the duress of alumni, and members of state legisla- coercion and intimidation not to teach tures to adopt a “student bill of rights.” my course [‘Palestinian and Israeli Poli- But saf’s language and tactics are mis- tics and Societies’] this year.” leading. Under the banner of seeking balance and diversity in the classroom, Most of the recent attacks on univer- sity professors have been leveled against 4 “Academic freedom implies that all of½cers of instruction are entitled to freedom in the social scientists and humanists. Many classroom in discussing their subjects: that they critics of the university seem to believe are entitled to freedom in research and in the that sanctioning one group of professors publication of its results; and that they may not will have no effect on those in other dis- be penalized by the University for expression of ciplines. This is dangerously naive, both opinion or associations in their private civic ca- in principle and in practice. pacity; but they should bear in mind the special obligations arising from their position in the aca- The stakes are high. The destruction of demic community [italics added].” From The Fac- university systems has historically been ulty Handbook, Columbia University, 2000, 184. caused by the imposition of external 8 Dædalus Spring 2005 political ideology on the conduct of been altered. Even though the National Academic freedom scholarly and scienti½c research. De- Institutes of Health supported the re- under ½re fense of faculty members in the humani- search, some members of Congress al- ties and social sciences from external most succeeded in rescinding funding political pressure protects all members for projects on hiv/aids. Another re- of the university community. cent bill, House Resolution 3077, almost History suggests that the natural sci- succeeded in mandating direct govern- ences, too, can be infected by political ment oversight of university ‘area stud- pressures to conform to ideological be- ies’ programs (the bill passed the House liefs. German universities still have not but died in the Senate). recovered from the catastrophe of 1933 These attacks should be related to still when Hitler began to dismantle German other threats to scienti½c inquiry. The science and technology by purging those usa patriot Act and the Bioterrorism researchers who did ‘Jewish science.’ Defense Act have, for example, led to the Japanese universities were damaged criminal prosecution of Dr. Thomas But- immeasurably in the 1930s by the purg- ler, one of the nation’s leading experts ing of dissident intellectuals. Soviet biol- on plague bacteria. Butler faced a ½fteen- ogy never fully recovered from the im- count indictment for violating the Patri- position of Lysenkoism into the biologi- ot Act’s provision requiring reporting on cal sciences. the use and transport of speci½c biologi- Today, political pressure to include cal agents and toxins that in principle ‘creationism’ and theories of ‘intelligent could be used by bioterrorists. Butler design’ as alternatives to Darwinian evo- was acquitted of all charges related to lution in the secondary school science the Patriot Act, except for a minor one– curriculum has already led to a purging his failure to obtain a transport permit of Darwin’s theory from the science cur- for moving the bacteria from Tanzania riculum in at least thirteen states. The to his Texas laboratory, as he had done National Academies of Sciences and the for the past twenty years. However, Union of Concerned Scientists have cat- while investigating Butler’s work with aloged many examples of Bush adminis- plague bacteria, the fbi combed over tration interference with research and everything in his lab at Texas Tech Uni- education. Consider just a few examples: versity, reviewed all of his accounts, and Foreign students and scholars from ‘sus- added on ½fty-four counts of tax eva- pect’ nations are harassed and even de- sion, theft, and fraud unrelated to the nied entry into the United States with- Patriot Act. His conviction was based on out a scintilla of evidence that they are the add-on counts. The upshot of all of security risks. American professors are this was that he lost his medical license, prevented from working with gifted for- was ½red from his job, and now, if he eign scientists and students. Open schol- loses his appeal, faces up to nine years arly communication is impeded by poli- in jail. cies designed to isolate nations support- In another case, Attorney General ing terrorism; library and computer rec- John Ashcroft publicly targeted Dr. ords are searched; political litmus tests Steven J. Hat½ll of Louisiana State Uni- are used by the Bush administration to versity as “a person of interest” in the decide who will serve on scienti½c advi- anthrax scare that followed 9/11. Al- sory committees; and scienti½c reports though Hat½ll has never been charged whose content is inconsistent with the with any crime, lsu ½red him because of Bush administration’s ideology have the accusation and intervention of the Dædalus Spring 2005 9 Comment by Justice Department. Other faculty mem- to external political pressure at key Jonathan R. bers at other institutions have suffered moments–as they did during the Red Cole through unannounced and intimidating Scares that followed the two world visits from the fbi to their homes or wars.6 campus of½ces. Periodically, often during times of na- These crude efforts to enforce the tional fear, political leaders and ideo- Patriot Act have already had some seri- logues on the Right and the Left have ous consequences. Robert C. Richard- silenced dissent and pressured universi- son, whose work on liquid helium ties to abandon their most fundamental earned him a Nobel Prize in Physics, values of free and open inquiry. Most has described the atrophy of bioterror- university leaders and faculty members ism research at Cornell: fell easily into line during the First Red Scare of 1919–1921 and during the reign The Patriot Act, which was passed after of Joseph McCarthy. As historians Ellen 9/11, has a section in it to control who can Schrecker and Sigmund Diamond have work on “select agents,” pathogens that shown, presidents and trustees of re- might be developed as bioweapons. At search universities often publicly es- Cornell [before 9/11], we had something poused civil liberties, academic free- like 76 faculty members who had projects dom, and free inquiry while privately on lethal pathogens and something like collaborating with the fbi to purge fac- 38 working speci½cally on select agents. ulty members accused of holding sedi- There were stringent regulations for con- tious political views.7 trol of the pathogens–certain categories Some university leaders underestimat- of foreign nationals who were not allowed ed the gravity of the threat and bowed to handle them, be in a room with them or to wealthy benefactors who threatened even be aware of research results. So what to withdraw their support. Others dis- is the situation now? We went from 38 missed professors out of fear of bad pub- people who could work on select agents to licity. Still others supported these purges 2. We’ve got a lot less people working on because they believed in them. For ex- interventions to vaccinate against small- ample, Cornell President E. E. Day main- pox, West Nile virus, anthrax and any of tained that “a man who belongs to the 30 other scourges.5 Communist Party and who follows the Is our national security enhanced party line is thereby disquali½ed from when the government turns our best participating in a free, honest inquiry immunology and biodefense laborato- after truth, and from belonging on a uni- ries into ghost towns? versity faculty devoted to the search for

n an atmosphere of growing fear and 6 For an exceptionally ½ne discussion of these I failures, see Geoffrey Stone, Perilous Times: Free intimidation, we would be wise not to Speech in Wartime From the Sedition Act of 1798 to dismiss these attacks on the American the War on Terrorism (New York: W. W. Norton, research university as mere aberrations. 2004). Indeed, universities are fragile institu- tions, and they have historically caved in 7 Reviewing the now available archival mate- rial at Harvard University, Robert N. Bellah 5 Quoted in Claudia Dreifus, “The Chilling of has con½rmed the accounts of Diamond and American Science: A Conversation with Robert Schrecker. Bellah reports his ½ndings in “Mc- C. Richardson,” The New York Times, July 6, Carthyism at Harvard,” letter to The New York 2004, D2. Review of Books, February 10, 2005, 42–43.

10 Dædalus Spring 2005 truth.” Yale President Charles Seymour premium on openness, rigor, fairness, Academic freedom proclaimed, “There will be no witch originality, and skepticism. We are part under ½re hunts at Yale because there will be no of an international community of schol- witches. We do not intend to hire Com- ars and scientists whose ideas transcend munists.” international borders. We collaborate Robert Maynard Hutchins, chancellor and exchange ideas with Iraqis, Rus- of the University of Chicago, was one of sians, Iranians, Chinese, and Israelis the few great heroes during those per- without considering politics or national- ilous times. In 1949, testifying before a ity. We hold that members of our com- state commission investigating commu- munity must always be free to dissent– nists on campus, he boldly argued for to pursue and express new and even rad- tolerance: ical ideas in an environment of unfet- tered freedom. The danger to our institutions is not from By the same token, proponents of new the tiny minority who do not believe in ideas and their critics must be free to them. It is from those who would mistak- disagree. And this is especially true in enly repress the free spirit upon which the classroom, in which faculty and stu- those institutions are built. . . . The policy dents must be free to explore and devel- of repression of ideas cannot work and op their ideas in robust and uninhibited has never worked. The alternative is the debate. By encouraging independent long, dif½cult road of education. thinking, no matter how preposterous or On another occasion, Hutchins ob- outrageous, the university promotes served that the problem with witch- trust, creativity, collaboration, and inno- hunts was “not how many professors vation. would be ½red for their beliefs, but how The goal is to establish an environ- many think they might be. The entire ment in which it is possible for the in- teaching profession is intimidated.” quisitive mind to flourish. In contrast to Hutchins’s boss, Laird Bell, chairman private enterprise, the university places of the University of Chicago’s Board of the welfare of the community above Trustees, was equally outspoken: “To be individual gain. The coin of the academ- great,” he declared, ic realm is the recognition that profes- sors and students receive based on the a university must adhere to principle. It quality of their contributions to the cre- cannot shift with the winds of passing ation, transmission, and understanding public opinion. . . . It must rely for its sup- of knowledge. The university is a meri- port upon a relatively small number of tocracy. Ideally, quality of mind ex- people who understand the important pressed through teaching, research, and contributions it makes to the welfare of learning is rewarded without regard to the community and the improvement of race, religion, nationality, or gender. mankind: upon those who understand This does not mean, of course, that that academic freedom is important not real merit is always rewarded: like any because of its bene½ts to professors but complex institution, the modern univer- because of its bene½ts to all of us. sity does not always function as it is meant to. But it is simply ridiculous to What, then, are the de½ning princi- perpetuate the myth that research uni- ples that guide the work of the universi- versities are rogue institutions that oper- ty? As scholars and scientists, we place a ate in an uncontrolled environment.

Dædalus Spring 2005 11 Comment by Most of them are probably more ac- for personal conduct: students and col- Jonathan R. countable for their products and for leagues can ½le grievances of discrimina- Cole their ½nancial transactions than most tion with deans, department chairs, large American corporations.8 ombuds of½cers, the university senate, Universities are evaluating themselves and the eeoc, among other outlets for from dawn to dusk. State and regional claims of inappropriate behavior. accrediting agencies are continually re- The governing role played by peers viewing the academic quality of univer- makes universities different from most sity programs and faculties. Federal other American institutions. The re- funding agencies conduct extensive peer search university was founded on the reviews of grant applications that evalu- idea that professors should regulate ate the quality of applicants’ prior work, their own affairs. This aspiration has the quality of the proposals submitted, never been fully realized. But it is plainly and the potential value of the work when evident in the tradition that those who completed; they use site visits to review oversee the core academic work of the elaborate proposals before funding large university–the president, the provost, centers or university institutes. Ob- the deans, and the department chairs– sessed with knowledge about their repu- are themselves distinguished scholars tation and quality, research universities and teachers who are respected mem- use ad hoc or standing committees of bers of the faculty. Moreover, university experts to evaluate the quality of the cur- leaders govern by persuasive and dele- riculum, the quality of the faculty, and gated authority, not by the exercise of the quality of departments and schools. power. The scienti½c and scholarly papers and Another essential feature of the Amer- monographs of faculty members are ican research university is that no one peer reviewed before they are accepted speaks ‘for’ the university–not even its for publication and are assessed in terms of½cial leaders. While the president and of the potential impact of this work on the provost and the board of trustees the ½eld. The results of course evalua- have the responsibility and the authority tions by undergraduate and graduate to formulate and carry out university students are part of the ‘teaching portfo- policies, the essence of a university lies lios’ that are used in deciding on the pro- in its multiplicity of voices: those of its motion and tenure of junior faculty faculty, its students, its researchers, its members. Finally, there is accountability staff. Presidents and provosts are often asked questions of the following kind: 8 I’m not focusing here on ½nancial accounta- bility. In fact, universities have many ways of “What is the university’s position on the reviewing and accounting for their ½nancial writings, or remarks, or actions of Pro- transactions. Fund accounting at universities fessor X?” allows auditors to review every research grant In fact, there is no ‘university position’ or contract in minute detail. Full-time federal on such matters. The university does not auditors are ½xtures at universities. Major ac- counting ½rms audit the books of the universi- decide which ideas are good and bad, ties on an annual basis. Bonds floated by uni- which are right and wrong. That is up for versities to ½nance construction projects are constant debate, deliberation, and dis- brought to market only after bond-rating agen- course among the faculty and students. cies evaluate the credit worthiness of the uni- For the university to take such positions versity and rate the bonds. The ratings depend almost as much on qualitative factors of the would stifle academic freedom and quality of university schools and departments alienate those whose views differ from as on ½nancial ratios and other indicators. those of the institution’s leaders. The 12 Dædalus Spring 2005 responsibility of these leaders is not to will enable them to think well. Great Academic freedom decide whose ideas are best, but to cre- teachers challenge their students’ and under ½re ate an environment in which all ideas colleagues’ biases and presuppositions. may be explored and tested. They present unsettling ideas and dare others to rebut them and to defend their First and foremost, the American re- own beliefs in a coherent and principled search university is designed to be unset- manner. The American research univer- tling. Was this not Socrates’ purpose as sity pushes and pulls at the walls of or- well? Because it is committed to the cre- thodoxy and rejects politically correct ation of new knowledge and the intellec- thinking. In this process, students and tual growth of its students, the universi- professors may sometimes feel intimi- ty must nurture the expression of novel dated, overwhelmed, and confused. But and sometimes startling ideas and opin- it is by working through this process ions. Lionel Trilling, the preeminent lit- that they learn to think better and more erary critic, wrote in Beyond Culture clearly for themselves. about the contentious nature of the lit- Unsettling by nature, the university erature sometimes taught at the univer- culture is also highly conservative. It sity: demands evidence before accepting novel challenges to existing theories Any historian of literature of the modern and methods. The university ought to be age will take virtually for granted the ad- viewed in terms of a fundamental inter- versary intention, the actual subversive dependence between the liberality of its intention, that characterizes modern writ- intellectual life and the conservatism of ing–he will perceive its clear purpose its methodological demands. Because of detaching the reader from habits of the university encourages discussion of thought and feeling that the larger culture even the most radical ideas, it must set imposes, of giving him a ground and a its standards at a high level. We permit vantage point from which to judge and almost any idea to be put forward–but condemn, and perhaps revise, the culture only because we demand arguments and that has produced him. evidence to back up the ideas we debate Whether in 1965, when this was pub- and because we set the bar of proof at lished and Trilling taught at Columbia, such a high level. or today, the mission of the American These two components–tolerance for research university is to encourage facul- unsettling ideas and insistence on rigor- ty and students to challenge prevailing ous skepticism about all ideas–create values, policies, beliefs, and institutions. an essential tension at the heart of the That is why the university will always American research university. It will not have–and must welcome–dissenting thrive without both components operat- voices and radical critics. ing effectively and simultaneously. Researchers at America’s universities do not generally investigate questions Here we must acknowledge an area for which there are ‘right’ or ready an- where the university today faces a real swers–answers at the back of a book. and dif½cult problem with the mecha- The goal of academic discourse is not nisms it uses to evaluate the work of its merely to convey information, but to scholars. For the threats to free inquiry provoke, to stimulate ideas, and to teach do not come only from government poli- students to think and provide them with cies, from local or national politicians, the intellectual and analytical tools that from external lobbying groups, or from Dædalus Spring 2005 13 Comment by lazy journalism. Some of the most subtle that rigorous standards exist to evaluate Jonathan R. threats come from within the academy ideas and the results of research. Cole itself. Biologists may broadly agree that ad- For example, an unspoken but wide- vocates of creationism are simply in spread aversion to airing topics that are error and that the theory they defend is politically sensitive in various ½elds unworthy of serious scienti½c debate, sometimes limits debates that ought to while social scientists are more likely, for take place. The growth of knowledge is example, to disagree about the scholarly greatly inhibited when methodological merits of theories that stress the influ- thresholds for evidence are relaxed, and ence of socialization rather than innate claims to truth are advanced on the basis abilities on individual achievement. As of shoddy evidence, or on the basis of new areas of research and inquiry appear supposedly possessing privileged insight in the modern university and begin to simply as a result of one’s race, gender, dominate their disciplines, the de½nition religion, or ethnicity. of acceptable research questions may Most scholars and scientists at leading well change, as may de½nitions of what universities would more than likely exer- is acceptable methodology, acceptable cise their right to remain silent before evidence, acceptable standards of proof, placing on the table for debate any num- and also acceptable peer reviewers (who ber of controversial ideas: for example, in turn will judge whether a given schol- the idea that differences in educational ar’s methodology and use of evidence is performance between different racial acceptable). As a statistician might put groups are not a result of discrimina- it, whoever owns the ‘null hypothesis’ tion; that occupational differentiation often determines what is taken for fact. by gender may be a good thing; that di- When skepticism falters or fails, does etary cholesterol above and beyond ge- the academic community, even in the netic predispositions has only a minimal longer run for which it is built, have the effect on coronary heart deaths; that the mechanisms to correct its errors? children of crack cocaine mothers will This has to be an open question. Cur- nevertheless experience normal cogni- rently, there is broader agreement about tive development; or, until recently, that the appropriate corrective mechanisms prions, as well as bacteria or viruses, can in the natural sciences than in the hu- cause disease. manities and social sciences, although I have suggested that we entertain rad- in periods of what Thomas Kuhn called ical and even offensive ideas at universi- revolutionary rather than normal sci- ties because we simultaneously embrace ence, we often also ½nd sharp disagree- rigorous standards in determining the ments within natural science over stan- adequacy of truth claims. But if scholar- dards of proof and truth claims. It is the ly skepticism is sometimes compro- very possibility of ongoing disagree- mised by a lack of courage or an intoler- ment, however, that is a primary justi- ance for competing points of view, then ½cation for protecting and promoting the primary mechanisms by which uni- freedom of thought. John Stuart Mill versities ensure the quality of research put it this way: will not always reliably function. To Truth, in the great practical concerns of complicate matters, different disciplines life, is so much a question of the reconcil- have evolved somewhat differently in ing and combining of opposites, that very institutionalizing mechanisms to ensure few have minds suf½ciently capacious and

14 Dædalus Spring 2005 impartial to make adjustment with an ap- professor of Jewish history is under no Academic proach to correctness, and it has to be freedom obligation to take seriously the argu- under ½re made by the rough process of a struggle ments of a student who denies the Holo- between combatants ½ghting under hos- caust. tile banners.9 What, then, about a student who says he or she is being discriminated against Moreover, as Mill well knew, it is more by Professor Massad of Columbia, be- important to tolerate an occasional error cause Massad declares the student’s po- in the current appraisal of conflicting sition on the 1982 Shatila massacres in ideas than to risk compromising free ex- Lebanon to be factually erroneous. Is pression. For in the long run, it is unfet- that student therefore entitled to level tered freedom of inquiry that ensures formal charges against Massad? innovation, intellectual progress, and If we are going to allow the biology the continued growth of knowledge. professor and the Jewish historian a right to offer their best judgment on have defended the right of academic I competing truth claims, and because of freedom within the community of schol- those judgments to take some students ars. But what, if any, right to freedom more seriously than others, then don’t of expression does a student have as we also have to grant this right to Joseph against his or her professor? The rise of Massad? groups like Students for Academic Free- In any case, we should remember that dom raises this important question. the proper goal of higher education is Students clearly have the right–in- enlightenment–not some abstract ideal deed, the obligation–to enter the gener- of ‘balance.’ Indeed, those who demand al debate within the university commu- balance on some issues never demand it nity. They have the right to express their on others. The University of Chicago’s ideas forcefully in the classroom, and to school of economics is admired widely argue against their professor’s views. for its accomplishments. Must Chicago I’ve made the point that professors in seek balance by forcing its economics the classroom must never discriminate department to hire scholars with con- against students on the basis of their trasting points of view? ascribed characteristics–simply on the Occasionally, students have to do the basis of who they are in terms of their hard work of seeking alternative points race, ethnicity, religion, or gender. of view across institutional boundaries. At the same time, there is a clear dif- They cannot always expect ‘balance’ to ferentiation of roles between professors be delivered in neat packages. It is the and students. We expect professors, not professor’s pedagogical role that grants students, to offer their own best judg- him or her the authority and the right to ment on competing truth claims. A stu- judge which scienti½c theories or histor- dent may argue for creationism or intel- ical facts are presented in the classroom. ligent design; but that does not oblige We cannot deny the asymmetry in these his or her biology professor to take his or roles. If we do, we fail to understand a her views seriously as a rival to the evo- legitimate goal of higher education: to lutionary accounts favored by virtually impart knowledge to those who lack it. all contemporary biologists. Similarly, a Of course, one can question the compe- 9 John Stuart Mill, On Liberty (Cambridge: tence of a professor–that happens rou- Cambridge University Press, 1989), 49. tinely in a good university. But the evalu-

Dædalus Spring 2005 15 Comment by ation of that competence must be, and professor for raising this subject in a Jonathan R. is, left to the professor’s peers–not to seminar? And if we did, who would be Cole students, and surely not to trustees, re- cast in the role of the ‘Grand Inquisi- gents, congressmen, advocacy groups, tor’? or members of the press. The broadest possible protection of freedom of expression is of a piece with Over the past seventy-½ve years, the another important aspect of the acade- Supreme Court has expanded greatly the my. We have understood for some time protection of free speech. Today, prevail- now that the university is not a place ing First Amendment doctrine holds where we exclusively house or train the that the government cannot restrict kind of scientist or scholar who advises speech because of its content, and that the prince–those who currently control only forms of “low value” speech, such the government. There are members of as “½ghting words,” libel, commercial the faculty who sometimes voluntarily advertising, or obscenity, can be regulat- give advice to the prince–and there may ed. Universities cannot act outside the even be academic programs (such as law,10 but they can–and should–try to Russian studies during the Cold War) expand still further the limits placed on that exist in part to inform government free expression, when those constraints policy–but it is not the point or the hamper inquiry and debate. rationale of universities to furnish such Expression in the classroom requires advice, nor to have the thematic pursuits virtually absolute protection. Absent of inquiry in the university shaped by such protection, professors will hesitate the interests of the prince. That is why to discuss sensitive topics out of fear of universities will often ½nd in their midst retribution, suspension, dismissal, or lit- those who air the most radical critiques igation. of the prince and his interests. Were we The university cannot and should not to silence or even to inhibit such people, attempt to decide what ideas or perspec- we would not only be undermining free tives are appropriate for the classroom. inquiry, we would also gradually rein- For one student, a professor’s ideas may force the countervailing power of con- represent repugnant stereotypes or ef- formism. forts at intimidation; for another, the Despite the commitment of the Amer- same ideas may represent profound chal- ican research university to freedom of lenges to ostensibly settled issues. For thought, the natural tendency of profes- example, a professor’s discussion of our sors and students, as we have seen, is to culture’s bias against female circumci- avoid expressing views that may offend sion may seem to one student an affront others. But the responsibility of the uni- to what is self-evidently a basic human versity is to combat this tendency and to right; but to another student, it may encourage, rather than squelch, free- seem a provocative illustration of cultur- wheeling inquiry. The university must al imperialism, raising serious moral do everything it can to combat the coer- questions that ought to be put on the cive demand for political litmus tests table for debate. Are we to take seriously from the Right and the Left, and the those who would have us sanction the pressure to conform with established academic paradigms. 10 Here I’m putting aside the distinction be- By affording virtually absolute protec- tween public and private universities. tion to classroom debate, the university

16 Dædalus Spring 2005 encourages the sort of open inquiry for Academic freedom which universities exist. Those members under ½re of the university community who are willing to take on prevailing beliefs and ideologies–be they the pieties of the academic Left or the marching orders of the politicians currently in power–need to know that the university will defend them unconditionally if they are at- tacked for the content of their ideas.

The defense of academic freedom is never easy. It is understandable that university leaders will react to outside attacks with caution. There is always a risk that tak- ing a public position on a controversial matter may alienate potential donors or offend one of the modern university’s many and varied constituencies. In re- sponse to negative publicity, it is entirely natural for presidents and provosts–and for trustees and regents–to work fever- ishly ‘to get this incident behind us’ and to reach for an accommodation that calms the critics and makes the problem go away. However, to act on such understand- able impulses would be a grievous mis- take. There are few matters on which universities must stand on absolute prin- ciple. Academic freedom is one of them. If we fail to defend this core value, then we jeopardize the global preeminence of our universities in the production and transmission of new knowledge in the sciences, in the arts, indeed in every ½eld of inquiry. Whenever academic freedom is under ½re, we must rise to its defense with courage–and without compro- mise. For freedom of inquiry is our reason for being. –March 16, 2005

Dædalus Spring 2005 17 Niall Ferguson

The unconscious colossus: limits of (& alternatives to) American empire

What is an empire? In the words of ample, an empire could be an oligarchy one of the few modern historians to at- at home, aiming to acquire raw materials tempt a genuinely comparative study of from abroad, thereby increasing interna- empires, it is tional trade, using mainly military meth- ods, imposing a market economy, serv- First and foremost, a very great power ing the interests of its ruling elite, and that has left its mark on the internation- fostering a hierarchical social character. al relations of an era . . . a polity that rules Another empire might be a democracy at over wide territories and many peoples, home, aiming to ensure security, provid- since the management of space and multi- ing peace as a public good, ruling mainly ethnicity is one of the great perennial di- through ½rms and ngos, promoting a lemmas of empire . . . . An empire is by def- mixed economy, serving the interests of inition . . . not a polity ruled with the ex- all inhabitants, and fostering an assim- plicit consent of its peoples . . . . [But] by ilative social character. a process of assimilation of peoples and The ½rst column reminds us that im- democratization of institutions empires perial power can be acquired by more can transform themselves into multina- than one type of political system. The tional federations or even nation states.1 self-interested objectives of imperial It is possible to be still more precise expansion (second column) range from than this. In the table below, I have at- the fundamental need to ensure the se- tempted a simple typology intended to curity of the metropolis by imposing capture the diversity of forms that can order on enemies at its (initial) borders, be subsumed under the heading em- to the collection of rents and taxation pire. Note that the table should be read from subject peoples, to say nothing of as a menu rather than as a grid. For ex- the perhaps more obvious prizes of new land for settlement, raw materials, trea- sure, and manpower–all of which, it Niall Ferguson is professor of history at Harvard should be emphasized, would need to University, senior fellow of the Hoover Institution, be available at prices lower than those and senior research fellow of Jesus College, Ox- established in free exchange with inde- ford. His latest book is “Colossus: The Price of pendent peoples if the cost of conquest America’s Empire” (2004). 1 Dominic Lieven, Empire: The Russian Empire © 2005 by Niall Ferguson and Its Rivals (London: John Murray, 2000), xiv.

18 Dædalus Spring 2005 Table 1 Limits of An imperial typology (& alter- natives to) American Metropolitan Self-interested Public goods Methods of Economic Cui bono? Social empire system objectives rule system character

Tyranny Security Peace Military Plantation Ruling elite Genocidal

Aristocracy Communi- Trade Bureaucracy Feudal Metro- Hierarchical cations politan Oligarchy Investment Settlement Mercantilist populace Converting Land Democracy Law ngos Market Settlers Assimilative Raw materials Governance Firms Mixed Local elites

Treasure Education Delegation Planned All to local inhabitants Manpower Conversion elites

Rents Health

Taxation and colonization were to be justi½ed.2 ranging from slavery to laissez-faire, At the same time, an empire may provide from one form of serfdom (feudalism) public goods–that is, intended or unin- to another (the planned economy). tended bene½ts of imperial rule flowing Nor is it by any means a given that the not to the rulers but to the ruled and be- bene½ts of empire should flow simply yond to third parties: less conflict, more to the metropolitan society. It may only trade or investment, improved justice be the elites of that society–or colonists or governance, better education (which drawn from lower income groups in the may or may not be associated with reli- metropole, or subject peoples, or the gious conversion, something we would elites within subject societies–that reap not nowadays regard as a public good), the bene½ts of empire. or improved material conditions. Finally, the social character of an em- The fourth column tells us that impe- pire–to be precise, the attitudes of the rial rule can be implemented by more rulers toward the ruled–may vary. At than one kind of functionary: soldiers, one extreme lies the genocidal empire civil servants, settlers, voluntary associa- of National Socialist Germany, intent on tions, ½rms, and local elites can in differ- the annihilation of speci½c ethnic groups ent ways impose the will of the center on and the deliberate degradation of others. the periphery. There are almost as many At the other extreme lies the Roman Em- varieties of imperial economic systems, pire, in which citizenship was obtainable under certain conditions regardless of 2 For an attempt at a formal economic theory ethnicity. In the middle lies the Victori- of empire, see Herschel I. Grossman and Juan an Empire, in which inequalities of Mendoza, “Annexation or Conquest? The Eco- nomics of Empire Building,” nber Working wealth and status were mitigated by a Paper No. 8109 (February 2001). general (though certainly not unquali-

Dædalus Spring 2005 19 Niall ½ed) principle of equality before the law. tional wisdom on the Left is that the Ferguson on The precise combination of all these var- United States uses its power, wittingly or imperialism iables determines, among other things, unwittingly, to shore up the position of the geographical extent–and of course American corporations and the regimes the duration–of an empire. (usually corrupt and authoritarian) that All told, there have been no more than are willing to do the same.4 The losers seventy empires in history, if The Times are the impoverished majorities in the Atlas of World History is to be believed. developing world. Others would claim The question is whether the United that many millions of people around the States should be numbered among them. world have bene½ted in some way from Applying the typology set out in the ta- the existence of America’s empire (not ble, it is certainly not dif½cult to charac- least the Western Europeans, Japanese, terize the United States as an empire. It and South Koreans who were able to goes without saying that it is a liberal de- prosper during the Cold War under the mocracy and market economy (though protection of the American empire by its polity has some illiberal characteris- invitation); and that the economic los- tics, and its economy a surprisingly high ers of the post–Cold War era, particular- level of state intervention). It is primari- ly in sub-Saharan Africa, are victims not ly concerned with its own security and of American power, but of its absence. maintaining international communica- For the American empire is limited in its tions and, secondarily, with ensuring extent: It conspicuously lacks the vora- access to raw materials. It is also in the cious appetite for territorial expansion business of providing a limited number overseas that characterized the empires of public goods: peace, by intervening of the Western European seaboard. Even against some bellicose regimes and in when it conquers, it resists annexation– some civil wars; freedom of the seas and one reason why the durations of its off- skies for trade; and a distinctive form of shore imperial undertakings have tended conversion usually called Americaniza- to be, and will in all probability continue tion, which is carried out less by old- to be, relatively short. style Christian missionaries than by the How different is the American empire exporters of American consumer goods from previous empires? Like the ancient and entertainment. Its methods of for- Egyptian Empire, it erects towering edi- mal rule are primarily military in charac- ½ces in its heartland, though these house ter; its methods of informal rule rely the living rather than the dead. Like the heavily on corporations and nongovern- Athenian Empire, it has proved adept at mental organizations and, in some cases, leading alliances against rival powers. local elites. Like the empire of Alexander, it has stag- gering geographical range. Like the Chi- Who bene½ts from this empire? Some nese Empire that arose in the Chi’in era would argue, with the economist Paul and reached its zenith under the Ming Krugman, that only its wealthy elite dynasty, it has united the lands and peo- does–speci½cally, that part of its weal- ples of a vast territory and has forged thy elite associated with the Republican Party and the oil industry.3 The conven- 4 For two recent diatribes, see Michael Mann, Incoherent Empire (London: Verso, 2003), and 3 Paul Krugman, The Great Unraveling: Losing Chalmers A. Johnson, The Sorrows of Empire: Our Way in the New Century (New York: W. W. Militarism, Secrecy, and the End of the Republic Norton, 2003). (New York: Metropolitan Books, 2004).

20 Dædalus Spring 2005 them into a nation. Like the Roman ½cent–provided that you do not de- Limits of (& alter- Empire, it has a system of citizenship scribe it as imperial. What is not allowed natives to) that is remarkably open: Purple Hearts is to say that the United States is an em- American and U.S. citizenship were conferred pire and that this might not be wholly empire simultaneously on a number of the sol- bad. diers serving in Iraq last year, just as In my book Colossus, I set out to do just service in the legions was once a route that, and thereby succeeded in antago- to becoming a civis romanus. Indeed, nizing both conservative and liberal crit- with the classical architecture of its ics. Conservatives repudiated my con- capital and the republican structure tention that the United States is and, in- of its constitution, the United States is deed, has always been an empire. Liber- perhaps more like Rome than any previ- als were dismayed by my suggestion that ous empire–albeit a Rome in which the the American empire might have posi- Senate has thus far retained some hold tive as well as negative attributes. As in on would-be emperors. In its relation- Gilbert and Sullivan’s Iolanthe, so in the ship with Western Europe, too, the Unit- United States today, it seems to be ex- ed States can sometimes seem like a sec- pected “That every boy and every gal / ond Rome. That’s born into the world alive / Is Yet in its capacity for spreading its either a little Liberal, / Or else a little own language and culture–at once Conservative!” But I am afraid my book monotheistic and mathematical–the is neither. Here, in a simpli½ed form, is United States also shares features of what it says: that the United States has the Abassid caliphate established by the always been, functionally if not self-con- heirs of Mohammed. And though it is sciously, an empire; that a self-conscious sometimes portrayed as the heir as well American imperialism might well be as the rebellious product of the Western preferable to the available alternatives; European empires that arose in the six- but that ½nancial, human, and cultural teenth century and persisted until the constraints make such self-conscious- twentieth–in truth the United States ness highly unlikely; and that therefore has as much, if not more, in common the American empire, insofar as it con- with the great land empires of Central tinues to exist, will remain a somewhat and Eastern Europe. In practice, its polit- dysfunctional entity. ical structures are sometimes more remi- By self-conscious imperialism, please niscent of Vienna or Berlin than they are note, I do not mean that the United of the Hague, capital of the last great im- States should unabashedly proclaim it- perial republic, or London, hub of the self an empire and its president an em- ½rst Anglophone empire. peror. I merely mean that Americans To those who would still insist on need to recognize the imperial charac- American exceptionalism, the historian teristics of their own power today and, of empires can only retort: as exception- if possible, to learn from the achieve- al as all the other sixty-nine empires. ments and failures of past empires. It is no longer sensible to maintain the It is perfectly acceptable to say in some ½ction that there is something wholly circles that the United States is an em- unique about the foreign relations of pire–provided that you deplore the fact. the United States. The dilemmas that It is also acceptable to say in other circles America faces today have more in com- that American power is potentially bene- mon with those of the later Caesars

Dædalus Spring 2005 21 Niall than with those of the Founding Iraq, however, is only the frontline of Ferguson 5 on Fathers. an American imperium that, like all the imperialism At the same time, however, the book great world empires of history, aspires makes clear the grave perils of being an to much more than just military domi- “empire in denial.” Americans are not nance along a vast and variegated strate- wholly oblivious to the imperial role gic frontier.9 On November 6, 2003, in their country plays in the world–but his speech to mark the twentieth anni- they dislike it. “I think we’re trying to versary of the National Endowment for run the business of the world too much,” Democracy, President Bush set out a a Kansas farmer told the British author vision of American foreign policy that, Timothy Garton Ash in 2003, “like the for all its Wilsonian language, strongly Romans used to.”6 To such feelings of implied the kind of universal civilizing unease, American politicians respond mission that has been a feature of all the with a categorical reassurance: “We’re great empires: not an imperial power,” declared Presi- The United States has adopted a new poli- dent George W. Bush last April, “We’re cy, a forward strategy of freedom in the a liberating power.”7 Middle East . . . . The establishment of a Of all the misconceptions that need free Iraq at the heart of the Middle East to be dispelled here, this is perhaps will be a watershed event in the global the most obvious: that simply because democratic revolution . . . . The advance of Americans say they do not do empire, freedom is the calling of our time; it is the there cannot be such a thing as Ameri- calling of our country . . . . We believe that can imperialism. As I write, American liberty is the design of nature; we believe troops are engaged in defending govern- that liberty is the direction of history. We ments forcibly installed by the United believe that human ful½llment and excel- States in two distant countries, Afghan- lence come in the responsible exercise of istan and Iraq. They are likely to be there liberty. And we believe that freedom– for some years to come; even President the freedom we prize–is not for us alone, Bush’s Democratic rival John Kerry it is the right and the capacity of all man- implied last September that if he were kind.10 elected, U.S. forces would be withdrawn from Iraq within four years–not, in He restated this messianic credo in his other words, the day after his inaugura- speech to the Republican National Con- tion.8 vention in September of 2004: 5 It is symptomatic that John Lewis Gaddis interprets the present predicament of the United States with reference to John Quincy “Bush and Kerry Clash Over Iraq and a Time- Adams: Gaddis, Surprise, Security, and the Amer- table,” The New York Times, September 7, 2004. ican Experience (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2004). 9 On the signi½cance of the frontier in imperial history, see Charles S. Maier, Among Empires: 6 Timothy Garton Ash, Free World: Why a Cri- American Ascendancy and Its Predecessors (forth- sis of the West Reveals the Opportunity of Our coming). Time (London: Allen Lane, 2004), 102. 10 Remarks by the president at the twentieth 7 Text of President Bush’s speech, The New anniversary of the National Endowment for York Times, April 13, 2004. Democracy, November 6, 2003, .

22 Dædalus Spring 2005 The story of America is the story of ex- Victorians seemed hypocrites when they Limits of panding liberty: an ever-widening circle, (& alter- spread civilization with the Maxim gun, natives to) constantly growing to reach further and so there is something ½shy about those American include more. Our nation’s founding com- who would democratize Fallujah with empire mitment is still our deepest commitment: the Abrams tank. President Bush’s dis- In our world, and here at home, we will tinction between conquest and libera- extend the frontiers of freedom . . . . We are tion would have been entirely familiar working to advance liberty in the broader to the liberal imperialists of the early Middle East because freedom will bring a 1900s, who likewise saw Britain’s far- future of hope and the peace we all want flung legions as agents of emancipation . . . . Freedom is on the march. I believe in (not least in the Middle East during and the transformational power of liberty: after World War I). Equally familiar to The wisest use of American strength is that earlier generation would have been to advance freedom.11 the impatience of American of½cials to hand over sovereignty to an Iraqi gov- To the majority of Americans, it ernment sooner rather than later. Indi- would appear, there is no contradiction rect rule–which installed nominally between the ends of global democratiza- independent native rulers while leaving tion and the means of American military British civilian administrators and mili- power. As de½ned by their president, the tary forces in practical control of ½nan- democratizing mission of the United cial matters and military security–was States is both altruistic and distinct from the preferred model for British colonial the ambitions of past empires, which (so expansion in many parts of Asia, Africa, it is generally assumed) aimed to impose and the Middle East. Iraq itself was an their own rule on foreign peoples. example of indirect rule after the Hashe- The dif½culty is that President Bush’s mite dynasty was established there in ideal of freedom as a universal desidera- the 1920s. tum rather closely resembles the Vic- The crucial question today is whether torian ideal of civilization. Freedom or not the United States has the capabili- means, on close inspection, the Ameri- ties, both material and moral, to make a can model of democracy and capitalism; success of its version of indirect rule. when Americans speak of nation build- The danger lies in the inclination of ing, they actually mean state replicating, American politicians, eager to live up to in the sense that they want to build po- their own emancipatory rhetoric as well litical and economic institutions that are as to bring the boys back home, to un- fundamentally similar to their own.12 wind their overseas commitments pre- They may not aspire to rule; but they do maturely–in short, to opt for premature aspire to have others rule themselves in decolonization rather than sustained in- the American way. direct rule. Unfortunately, history shows Yet the very act of imposing freedom that the most violent time in the history simultaneously subverts it. Just as the of an empire often comes at the moment 11 President Bush’s speech to the Republican of its dissolution, precisely because–as National Convention, The New York Times, Sep- soon as it has been announced–the tember 2, 2004. withdrawal of imperial troops unleashes 12 See Francis Fukuyama, State-Building: Gover- a struggle between rival local elites for nance and World Order in the 21st Century (Ithaca, control of the indigenous armed forces. N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 2004).

Dædalus Spring 2005 23 Niall ut is the very concept of empire an dition of the Victorian age. Empires, as Ferguson B on anachronism? A number of critics have we have seen, can be traced as far back as imperialism argued that imperialism was a discreet recorded history goes; indeed, most his- historical phenomenon that reached its tory is the history of empires precisely apogee in the late nineteenth century because empires are so good at record- and has been defunct since the 1950s. ing, replicating, and transmitting their “The Age of Empire is passed,” declared own words and deeds. It is the nation- The New York Times as L. Paul Bremer III state–an essentially nineteenth-century left Baghdad: ideal–that is the historical novelty and that may yet prove to be the more The experience of Iraq has demonstrated ephemeral entity. Given the ethnic het- . . . that when America does not disguise erogeneity and restless mobility of man- its imperial force, when a proconsul leads kind, this should not surprise us. On an “occupying power,” it is liable to ½nd close inspection, many of the most suc- itself in an untenable position quickly cessful nation-states started life as em- enough. There are three reasons: the peo- pires: what is the modern United King- ple being governed do not accept such a dom of Great Britain and Northern Ire- form of rule, the rest of the world does not land if not the legatee of an earlier Eng- accept it and Americans themselves do lish imperialism? not accept it.13 Secondly, it is a fantasy that the age In supporting the claim that empire is of empire came to an end in a global defunct, one reviewer of Colossus cited springtime of the peoples after 1945. On nationalism as “a much more powerful the contrary, World War II merely saw force now than it was during the heyday the defeat of three would-be empires of the Victorian era.”14 Another cited (the German, Japanese, and Italian) by “the tectonic changes wrought by inde- an alliance between the old Western pendence movements and ethnic and European empires (principally the Brit- religious politics in the years since the ish, since the others were so swiftly beat- end of World War II.”15 Meanwhile, a en) and the newer empires of the Soviet favorite argument of journalists is–per- Union and the United States. Though haps not surprisingly–that the power the United States subsequently ran, for of the modern media makes it impossi- the most part, an empire by invitation, ble for empires to operate as they did in to the extent that it was more a hegemon the past, because their misdeeds are so than an empire, the Soviet Union was quickly broadcast to an indignant world. and remained until its precipitous de- Such arguments betray a touching cline and fall a true empire. Moreover, naivety about both the past and the pres- the other great Communist power to ent. First, empire was no temporary con- emerge from the 1940s, the People’s Republic of China, remains in many re- 13 Roger Cohen, “‘Imperial America’ Retreats spects an empire to this day. Its three from Iraq,” The New York Times, July 4, 2004. most extensive provinces–Inner Mon- golia, Xinjiang, and Tibet–were all ac- 14 Daniel Drezner, “Bestriding the World, Sort quired as a result of imperial expansion, of,” The Wall Street Journal, June 17, 2004. and China continues to lay claim to Tai- 15 Michiko Kakutani, “Attention De½cit Disor- wan as well as numerous smaller islands, der in a Most Peculiar Empire,” The New York to say nothing of some territories in Times, May 21, 2004. Russian Siberia and Kazakhstan.

24 Dædalus Spring 2005 Empires, in short, are always with us. power would not have suf½ced to oust Limits of (& alter- Nor is it immediately obvious why the the sponsors of Al Qaeda from their natives to) modern media should threaten their stronghold in Kabul. In the case of Iraq, American longevity. The growth of the popular it is surely better that Saddam Hussein is empire press did nothing to weaken the British the prisoner of an interim Iraqi govern- Empire in the late nineteenth and early ment rather than still reigning in Bagh- twentieth centuries; on the contrary, the dad. Open-ended ‘containment’–which mass-circulation newspapers tended to was effectively what the French govern- enhance the popular legitimacy of the ment argued for in 2003–would, on bal- empire. Anyone who watched how ance, have been a worse policy. Policing American television networks covered Iraq from the air while periodically ½ring the invasion of Iraq ought to understand missiles at suspect installations was cost- that the mass media are not necessarily ing money without solving the problem solvents of imperial power. As for na- posed by Saddam. Sanctions were doing tionalism, it is something of a myth that nothing but depriving ordinary Iraqis. this was what brought down the old em- As for the United Nations’ Oil-for-Food pires of Western Europe. Far more lethal Programme, we now know that it was to their longevity were the costs of ½ght- simply breeding corruption while bol- ing rival empires–empires that were stering Saddam’s economic position. still more contemptuous of the principle In short, regime change was right; of self-determination.16 arguably, the principal defect of Ameri- Another common misconception is can policy toward Iraq was that the task that the United States can and should was left undone for twelve years. Those achieve its international objectives– who fret about the doctrine of preemp- above all, its own security–as a hege- tion enunciated in the president’s Na- mon rather than an empire, relying on tional Security Strategy should bear in ‘soft’ as much as on ‘hard’ power.17 mind that the overthrow of Saddam was Closely allied to this idea are the as- as much ‘postemption’ as preemption, sumptions that there will always be less since Saddam had done nearly all the violence in the absence of an empire and mischief of which he was capable some that the United States would therefore time before March of 2003. Meanwhile, make the world a safer place if it brought those who persist in imagining that the home its troops from the Middle East. United Nations is a substitute for the One way to test such arguments is to United States when it comes to dealing ask the counterfactual question: Would with murderous rogue regimes should American foreign policy have been more simply contemplate the United Nations’ effective in the past four years–or, if you lamentably sluggish and ineffectual re- prefer, would the world be a safer place sponse to the genocide currently being today–if Afghanistan and Iraq had not perpetrated in the Sudanese region of been invaded? In the case of Afghani- Darfur. Events there furnish an unfortu- stan, there is little question that soft nate reminder of the United Nations’ failures in Rwanda and Bosnia in the 16 See my Empire: The Rise and Demise of the British World Order and the Lessons for Global 1990s. Power (New York: Basic Books, 2003). Yet it would be absurd to deny that much of what has happened in the past 17 See Joseph Nye, The Paradox of American year–to say nothing of what has been Power (New York: Oxford University Press, revealed about earlier events–has tend- 2002).

Dædalus Spring 2005 25 Niall ed to undermine the legitimacy of the from gratuitous abuse–what the inquiry Ferguson on Bush administration’s policy. To put it chaired by James Schlesinger called imperialism bluntly: What went wrong? And has the “freelance activities on the part of the very notion of an American empire been night shift.”19 The photographic evi- discredited? dence of these activities has done more than anything else to discredit the claim The ½rst seed of future troubles was the of the United States and its allies to administration’s decision to treat sus- stand not merely for an abstract liberty pected Al Qaeda personnel captured in but also for the effective rule of law. Afghanistan and elsewhere as “unlawful Second, it was more than mere exag- enemy combatants” beyond both Amer- geration on the part of Vice President ican and international law. Prisoners Cheney, the former cia Chief George were held incommunicado and inde½ni- Tenet, and, ultimately, President Bush tely at Guantánamo Bay. As the rules himself–to say nothing of Prime Minis- governing interrogation were chopped ter Tony Blair–to claim they knew for and changed, many of these prisoners certain that Saddam Hussein possessed were subjected to forms of mental and weapons of mass destruction. It was, we physical intimidation that in some cases now know, a downright lie that went far amounted to torture.18 Indeed, Justice beyond what the available intelligence Department memoranda were written to indicated. What they could legitimately rationalize the use of torture as a matter have said was this: “After all his eva- for presidential discretion in times of sions, we simply can’t be sure whether war. Evidently, some members of the or not Saddam Hussein has got any administration felt that extreme mea- wmd. So, on the precautionary princi- sures were justi½ed by the shadowy na- ple, we just can’t leave him in power ture of the foe they faced, as well as by inde½nitely. Better safe than sorry.” But the public appetite for retribution after that was not enough for Cheney, who the terrorist attacks of September 11, felt compelled to make the bald asser- 2001. tion that “Saddam Hussein possesses All of this the Supreme Court rightly weapons of mass destruction.” Bush denounced in its stinging judgment de- himself had doubts, but was reassured livered in June of 2004. As the justices by Tenet that it was a “slam-dunk put it, not even the imperatives of resist- case.”20 Other doubters soon fell into ing “an assault by the forces of tyranny” line. Still more misleading was the ad- could justify the use by an American ministration’s allegation that Saddam president of “the tools of tyrants.” Yet was ‘teaming up’ with Al Qaeda. power corrupts, and even small amounts Sketchy evidence of contact between the of power can corrupt a very great deal. It two was used to insinuate Iraqi complic- may not have been of½cial policy to flout ity in the 9/11 attacks, for which not a the Geneva Conventions in Iraq, but not shred of proof has yet been found. enough was done by senior of½cers to Third, it was a near disaster that re- protect prisoners held at Abu Ghraib sponsibility for the postwar occupation

18 By the end of August of 2004, there had been around 300 allegations of mistreatment 19 Ibid. of detainees; 155 had so far been investigated, of which 66 had been substantiated. See The 20 Bob Woodward, Plan of Attack (New York: Wall Street Journal, August 26, 2004. Simon & Schuster, 2004), 249.

26 Dædalus Spring 2005 of Iraq was seized by the Defense De- eighteen months. It was left to Colin Limits of (& alter- partment, intoxicated as its principals Powell to point out to the president that natives to) became in the heat of their blitzkrieg. regime change had serious–not to say American The State Department had spent long imperial–implications. The Pottery empire hours preparing a plan for the aftermath Barn rule, he suggested to Bush, was of a successful invasion. That plan was bound to be applicable to Iraq: “You simply junked by Secretary Rumsfeld break it, you own it.”22 and his close advisers, who were con- Fourth, American diplomacy in 2003 vinced that once Saddam had gone, Iraq was like the two-headed Pushmepullyou would magically reconstruct itself after a in Doctor Doolittle: it pointed in opposite period of suitably ecstatic celebration at directions. On one side was Cheney, dis- the advent of freedom. missing the United Nations as a negligi- As one of½cial told the Financial Times ble factor. On the other was Powell, in- last year, Under Secretary Douglas Feith sisting that any action would require led some form of un authorization to be legitimate. a group in the Pentagon who all along felt It is possible that one of these ap- that this was going to be not just a cake- proaches might have worked. It was, walk, it was going to be 60–90 days, a however, hopeless to try to apply both. flip-over and hand-off, a lateral or whatev- Europe was in fact coming around as a er to . . . the inc [Iraqi National Congress]. consequence of some fairly successful The dod [Department of Defense] could diplomatic browbeating. No fewer than then wash its hands of the whole affair eighteen European governments signed and depart quickly, smoothly and swiftly. letters expressing support of the im- And there would be a democratic Iraq that pending war against Saddam. Yet the was amenable to our wishes and desires decision to seek a second un resolu- left in its wake. And that’s all there was to tion–on the ground that the language of it.21 Resolution 1441 was not strong enough When General Eric Shinseki, the army to justify all-out war–was a blunder chief of staff, stated in late February of that allowed the French government to 2003 that “something of the order of regain the initiative by virtue of its per- several hundred thousand soldiers” manent seat on the un Security Council. would be required to stabilize postwar Despite the fact that more than forty Iraq, he was brusquely put down by De- countries declared their support for the puty Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz invasion of Iraq and that three (Britain, as “wildly off the mark.” Wolfowitz pro- Australia, and Poland) sent troops, the fessed himself “reasonably certain” that threat of a French veto, delivered with a the Iraqi people would “greet us as liber- Gallic flourish, created the indelible im- ators.” Such illusions were not, it should pression that the United States was act- be remembered, con½ned to neoconser- ing unilaterally–and even illegally.23 vatives in the Pentagon. Even General Tommy Franks was under the impres- sion that it would be possible to reduce 22 Woodward, Plan of Attack, 150, 270. troop levels to just ½fty thousand after 23 See the remarks of un Secretary General Ko½ Annan in an interview with the bbc in 21 “The Best-laid Plans?” Financial Times, September of 2004, .

Dædalus Spring 2005 27 Niall ll these mistakes had one thing in ethnic and sectarian divisions. The ½rst Ferguson A on common: they sprang from a failure to anti-British demonstrations were in the imperialism learn from history. For among the most mosques of Baghdad, but the violence obvious lessons of history is that an em- quickly spread to the Shiite holy city of pire cannot rule by coercion alone. It Karbala, where British rule was de- needs legitimacy–in the eyes of the sub- nounced by Ayatollah Muhammad Taqi ject people, in the eyes of the other Great al-Shirazi, the historical counterpart of Powers, and, above all, in the eyes of the today’s Shiite ½rebrand, Moktada al- people back home. Sadr. At its height, the revolt stretched Did those concerned know no histo- as far north as the Kurdish city of Kirkuk ry? We are told that President Bush was and as far south as Samawah. reading Edward Morris’s Theodore Rex Then, as in 2004, much of the violence as the war in Iraq was being planned; was more symbolic than strategically presumably he had not got to the part signi½cant–British bodies were mutilat- where the American occupation sparked ed, much as American bodies were at off a Filipino insurrection. Before the Fallujah. But there was a real threat to invasion of Iraq, Deputy National Secu- the British position. The rebels system- rity Adviser Stephen Hadley was heard atically sought to disrupt the occupiers’ to refer to a purely unilateral American infrastructure, attacking railways and invasion as “the imperial option.” Did telegraph lines. In some places, British no one else grasp that occupying and try- troops and civilians were cut off and be- ing to transform Iraq (with or without sieged. By August of 1920 the situation in allies) was a quintessentially imperial Iraq was so desperate that the general in undertaking–and one that would not charge appealed to London not only for only cost money but would also take reinforcements but also for chemical many years to succeed? weapons (mustard gas bombs or shells), Had policymakers troubled to consid- though, contrary to historical legend, er what befell the last Anglophone occu- these turned out to be unavailable and so pation of Iraq they might have been less were never used.24 surprised by the persistent resistance This brings us to the second lesson the they encountered in certain parts of the United States might have learned from country during 2004. For in May of 1920 the British experience: reestablishing there was a major anti-British revolt order is no easy task. In 1920 the British there. This happened six months after eventually ended the rebellion through a a referendum (in practice, a round of combination of aerial bombardments consultations with tribal leaders) on and punitive village-burning expedi- the country’s future, and just after the tions. Even Winston Churchill, then the announcement that Iraq would become minister responsible for the Royal Air a League of Nations mandate under Force, was shocked by the actions of British trusteeship rather than continue some trigger-happy pilots and vengeful under colonial rule. Strikingly, neither consultation with Iraqis nor the promise 24 Daniel Barnard, “The Great Iraqi Revolt: of internationalization suf½ced to avert The 1919–20 Insurrections Against the British an uprising. in Mesopotamia,” paper presented at the Har- vard Graduate Student Conference in Interna- In 1920, as in 2004, the insurrection tional History, April 23, 2004, .

28 Dædalus Spring 2005 ground troops. And despite their over- both West Germany and Japan sover- Limits of (& alter- whelming technological superiority, eignty was limited for some years after natives to) British forces still suffered more than 1945. Sovereignty is not an absolute but a American two thousand dead and wounded. More- relative concept. Indeed, it is a common empire over, the British had to keep troops in characteristic of empires that they con- Iraq long after the country was granted sist of multiple tiers of sovereignty. Ac- full sovereignty. Although Iraq was de- cording to what Charles Maier has called clared formally independent in 1932, the “fractal geometry of empire,” the ov- British troops remained there until 1955. erarching hierarchy of power contains within it multiple scaled-down versions Is history therefore repeating itself, of itself, none fully sovereign. Again, with one Anglophone empire unwitting- however, there is a need for American ly reenacting its predecessor’s Meso- policymakers and voters to understand potamian experiment in indirect rule? the imperial business they are now in. For all the talk there was in June of re- For this business can have costly over- storing full sovereignty to an interim heads. The problem is that for indirect Iraqi government, President Bush made rule–or limited sovereignty–to be suc- it clear that he intended to “maintain cessful in Iraq, Americans must be will- our troop level . . . as long as necessary,” ing to foot a substantial bill for the occu- and that U.S. troops would continue to pation and reconstruction of the coun- operate “under American command.” try. Unfortunately, in the absence of a This implied something signi½cantly less radical change in the direction of U.S. than full sovereignty. For if the new Iraqi ½scal policy, their ability to do so is set government did not have control over a to diminish, if not to disappear. well-armed foreign army in its own terri- In the ½rst four years of the Bush pres- tory, then it lacked one of the de½ning idency, total federal outlays rose by an characteristics of a sovereign state: a estimated $530 billion, a 30 percent in- monopoly over the legitimate use of vio- crease. This increase can only be partly lence. That was precisely the point made attributed to the wars the administration in April by Marc Grossman, under secre- has fought; higher defense expenditures tary of state for political affairs, during account for just 30 percent of the total congressional hearings on the future of increment, whereas increased spending Iraq. In Grossman’s words, “The ar- on health care accounts for 17 percent, rangement would be, I think as we are that on Social Security and that on in- doing today, that we would do our very come security for 16 percent apiece, best to consult with that interim govern- and that on Medicare for 14 percent.26 ment and take their views into account.” The reality is that the Bush administra- But American commanders would still tion has increased spending on welfare “have the right, and the power, and the by rather more than spending on war- obligation” to decide on the appropriate fare. role for their troops.25 Meanwhile, even as expenditure has There is, in principle, nothing inher- risen, there has been a steep reduction ently wrong with limited sovereignty; in in the federal government’s revenues, 26 These are my own calculations based on 25 “White House Says Iraq Sovereignty Could “Budget of the United States Government,” Be Limited,” The New York Times, April 22, 2005 historical tables, .

Dædalus Spring 2005 29 Niall which have slumped from 21 percent of the very wealthy. Vice President Cheney Ferguson on gross domestic product in 2000 to less belied the macroeconomic argument imperialism than 16 percent in 2004.27 The recession when he justi½ed the third tax cut in the of 2001 played only a minor role in creat- following candid terms: “We won the ing this shortfall of receipts. More im- midterms. This is our due.”30 Another portant were the three successive tax Cheney aphorism that is bound to be cuts enacted by the administration with quoted by future historians was his as- the support of the Republican-led Con- sertion that “Reagan proved de½cits gress, beginning with the initial $1.35 don’t matter.”31 But Reagan did nothing trillion tax cut over ten years and the of the kind. The need to raise taxes to $38 billion tax rebate of the Economic bring the de½cit back under control was Growth and Tax Reform Reconciliation one of the key factors in George H. W. Act in 2001, continuing with the Job Bush’s defeat in 1992; in turn, the sys- Creation and Worker Assistance Act in tematic reduction of the de½cit under 2002, and concluding with the reform of Bill Clinton was one of the reasons long- the double taxation of dividend income term interest rates declined and the in 2003. With a combined value of $188 economy boomed in the late 1990s. billion–equivalent to around 2 percent The only reason that, under Bush jun- of the 2003 national income–these tax ior, de½cits have not seemed to matter is cuts were signi½cantly larger than those the persistence of low interest rates over passed in Ronald Reagan’s Economic the past four years, which has allowed Recovery Tax Act of 1981.28 The effect of Bush–in common with many American this combination of increased spending households–to borrow more while pay- and reduced revenue has been a dramat- ing less in debt service. Net interest pay- ic growth in the federal de½cit. Bush ments on the federal debt amounted to inherited a surplus of around $236 bil- just 1.4 percent of the gdp last year, lion from the ½scal year 2000. At the whereas the ½gure was 2.3 percent in time of writing, the projected de½cit for 2000 and 3.2 percent in 1995.32 2004 was $521 billion, representing a Yet this persistence of low long-term swing from the black into the red of interest rates is not a result of ingenuity three-quarters of a trillion dollars.29 on the part of the U.S. Treasury. It is in Government spokesmen have some- part a consequence of the willingness times defended this borrowing spree as a of the Asian central banks to buy vast stimulus to economic activity. There are quantities of dollar-denominated securi- good reasons to be skeptical about this, ties such as ten-year Treasury bonds, however, not least because the principal with the primary motivation of keeping bene½ciaries of these tax cuts have been their currencies pegged to the dollar, and the secondary consequence of funding 27 “Budget of the United States Government,” 2005, table 1.3, . Bush, the White House, and the Education of Paul O’Neill (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2004), 28 “Kennedy, Reagan, and Bush Tax Cuts 291. in Historical Perspective,” . 31 Ibid.

29 “Economic Report of the President,” table 32 Congressional Budget Of½ce, The Budget and B-81, . Economic Outlook, January 2005.

30 Dædalus Spring 2005 the Bush de½cits.33 It is no coincidence prepared to hold such large volumes of Limits of (& alter- that more than half the publicly held dollar-denominated assets. But reserve- natives to) federal debt is now in foreign hands– currency status is not divinely ordained; American more than double the proportion of ten it could be undermined if international empire years ago.34 Not since the days of tsarist markets took fright at the magnitude of Russia has a great empire relied so heavi- America’s still latent ½scal crisis.36 A de- ly on lending from abroad. The trouble cline in the dollar would certainly hurt is that these flows of foreign capital into foreign holders of U.S. currency more the United States cannot be relied on than it would hurt Americans. But a shift inde½nitely, especially if there is a likeli- in international expectations about U.S. hood of rising de½cits in the future. And ½nances might also bring about a sharp that is why the Bush administration’s increase in long-term interest rates, failure to address the fundamental ques- which would have immediate and nega- tion of ½scal reform is so important. The tive feedback effects on the federal de½- reality is that the of½cial ½gures for both cit by pushing up the cost of debt serv- the de½cit and the accumulated federal ice.37 It would also hurt highly geared debt understate the magnitude of the American households, especially the ris- country’s impending ½scal problems be- ing proportion of them with adjustable- cause they leave out of account the huge rate mortgages.38 and unfunded liabilities of the Medicare Empires need not be a burden on the and Social Security systems.35 taxpayers of the metropolis; indeed, The United States bene½ts signi½cant- many empires have arisen precisely in ly from the status of the dollar as the order to shift tax burdens from the cen- world’s principal reserve currency; it is ter to the periphery. Yet there is little one reason why foreign investors are sign that the United States will be able to achieve even a modest amount of ‘bur- 33 See Michael P. Dooley, David Folkerts-Lan- den sharing’ in the foreseeable future. dau, and Peter Garber, “An Essay on the Re- During the Cold War, American allies vived Bretton Woods System,” nber Working Paper No. 9971 (September 2003), and “The contributed at least some money and Revived Bretton Woods System: The Effects of considerable manpower to the mainte- Periphery Intervention and Reserve Manage- nance of the West’s collective security. ment on Interest Rates and Exchange Rates in But those days are gone. At the Demo- Center Countries,” nber Working Paper No. 10332 (March 2004). 36 Niall Ferguson, “A Dollar Crash? Euro Trashing,” The New Republic, June 21, 2004. 34 Treasury Bulletin, June 2004, . Cf. Pýivi 37 See Paul Krugman, “Questions of Interest,” Munter, “Most Treasuries in Foreign Hands,” The New York Times, April 20, 2004. For a differ- Financial Times, June 14, 2004. ent view, see David Malpass, “Don’t Blame the De½cits for America’s Rate Hikes,” Financial 35 See, most recently, Peter G. Peterson, Run- Times, May 3, 2004. ning on Empty: How the Democratic and Republi- can Parties Are Bankrupting Our Future and What 38 Niall Ferguson, “Who’s Buried by Higher Americans Can Do About It (New York: Farrar, Rates,” Fortune, June 14, 2004. On the macro- Straus and Giroux, 2004). According to the economic implications of the decline of the April 2004 report of the Medicare trustees, the American savings rate, see Lawrence H. Sum- system’s obligations to future retirees are un- mers, “The United States and the Global Ad- funded by $62 trillion; see Joe Liebermann, justment Process,” Third Annual Stavros S. “America Needs Honest Fiscal Accounting,” Niarchos Lecture, Institute for International Financial Times, May 25, 2004. Economics, Washington, D.C., March 23, 2004.

Dædalus Spring 2005 31 Niall cratic National Convention in Boston, growing threat of Islamist terrorism is Ferguson on John Kerry pledged to “bring our allies to distance themselves from the United imperialism to our side and share the burden, reduce States. In a recent Gallup poll, 61 per- the cost to American taxpayers, and cent of Europeans said they thought the reduce the risk to American soldiers” in European Union plays a positive role order to “get the job done and bring our with regard to peace in the world; just troops home.” “We don’t have to go it 8 percent said its role was negative. No alone in the world,” he declared. “And fewer than 50 percent of those polled we need to rebuild our alliances.”39 took the view that the United States Yet it is far from clear that any Ameri- now plays a negative role.40 can president would be able to persuade Europeans today to commit signi½cant So the United States is what it would resources to Iraq. In accepting his par- rather not be: a colossus to some, a Go- ty’s nomination, Kerry recalled how, as liath to others–an empire that dare not a boy, he had watched British, French, speak its name.41 Yet what is the alterna- and American troops working together tive to American empire? If, as so many in postwar Berlin. In those days, howev- people seem to wish, the United States er, there was a much bigger incentive– were to scale back its military commit- symbolized by the Red Army units that ments overseas, then what? surrounded West Berlin–for European Unless one believes that international states to support American foreign poli- order will occur spontaneously, it is nec- cy. It is not that the French and the Ger- essary to pin one’s faith on those supra- mans (or for that matter, the British) national bodies created under U.S. lead- were passionately pro-American during ership after World War II: the United the Cold War; on the contrary, Ameri- Nations, the International Monetary can experts constantly fretted about the Fund, the World Bank, and the World levels of popular anti-Americanism in Trade Organization. There is no short- Europe, on both the Left and the Right. age of liberal thinkers willing to make Nevertheless, as long as there was a the case for global governance on the Soviet Union to the east, there was one basis of these institutions.42 Unfortu- overwhelming argument for the unity of nately, their limitations are all too obvi- the West. That ceased to be the case ous when it comes to dealing with (to ½fteen years ago, when the reforms of use the now hackneyed but convenient Mikhail Gorbachev caused the Soviet empire to crumble. And ever since then 40 Robert Manchin and Gergely Hideg, “E.U. the incentives for transatlantic harmony Survey: Are Transatlantic Ties Loosening?” have grown steadily weaker. . not regard the threat posed by Islamist 41 “An empire that dare not speak its name” is terrorism as suf½ciently serious to justify Charles Maier’s phrase. unconditional solidarity with the United States. On the contrary, since the Span- 42 See, for example, David Held, Global Cove- ish general election last year, they have nant: The Social Democratic Alternative to the acted as if the optimal response to the Washington Consensus (Cambridge, Mass.: Poli- ty, 2004). Rather more pessimistic–and more 39 “Kerry’s Acceptance: There Is a Right Way aware of medieval visions of a global ‘civil so- and a Wrong Way to Be Strong,” The New York ciety’–is Ian Linden, A New Map of the World Times, July 30, 2004. (London: Darton Longman & Todd, 2003).

32 Dædalus Spring 2005 phrase) failed states and rogue regimes, treasure, and time they consume. Yet Limits of (& alter- and with the non-state actors–above all, saddest of all, there seems to be no bet- natives to) terrorist organizations–that flourish in ter alternative available to the United American the conditions they create. It is a sad fact States and to the world. empire that the total budget of the United Na- Once, a hundred and sixty years ago, tions and all its ancillary organizations is America’s imperial destiny seemed man- equal to barely 1 percent of the federal ifest. It has since become obscure. But it budget of the United States. is America’s destiny just the same. If the United Nations tries to fashion itself as some kind of alternative to American power, it is bound to fail; its only future lies in playing the role its architects intended for it, namely, as an agency through which the United States, in partnership with the other Great Pow- ers of the postwar era, can build some measure of international consensus for their Grosse Politik. In doing so, it will no more prevent the United States from behaving like an empire than the regular meetings of the sovereigns, foreign min- isters, and ambassadors of the Great Powers prevented the United Kingdom from behaving like an empire in the nineteenth century. But it may help American policymakers from stumbling into that less than splendid isolation abhorred by the later Victorian imperial- ists. Empires are not all bad; nor should anyone claim that they are all good. They are inevitably compromised by the power they wield; they are doomed to engender their own dissolution at home, even as they impose order abroad. That is why our expectations should not be pitched too high. It is hard enough to be an empire when you believe you have a mandate from heaven. It is still harder for the United States, which believes that heaven intended it to free the world, not rule it. Sadly, there are still a few places in the world that must be ruled before they can be freed. Sadly, the act of ruling them will sorely try Americans, who instinc- tively begrudge such places the blood,

Dædalus Spring 2005 33 Kenneth Pomeranz

Empire & ‘civilizing’ missions, past & present

‘Imperialism’ is a frustratingly vague mark out the last two hundred years for term, but a useful one–and not only for a different, though complementary, rea- outside observers and protesting sub- son: as an era in which Western empires, jects.1 Historically, rulers have often influenced by the Enlightenment, cast sought to make their empires visible as themselves as agents of progress. such by following regional–and in re- In this essay I will also emphasize the cent centuries, global–standards for act- self-assigned ‘civilizing’ mission of mod- ing imperially. Even the past century, in ern empires, but will argue that the two- which empires often shunned that desig- hundred-year, Atlantic-centered frame- nation, is only a partial exception. work is both too narrow and too broad. Imperialism is also topical. While On the one hand, civilizing empires have some compare the contemporary United emerged outside the Enlightenment States to imperial Rome, more analysts West; an East/West dichotomy often see it as the latest of a series of military- proves less useful than one between con- mercantile hegemons that set the rules tiguous and overseas empires. On the for their eras’ global political economies. other hand, since the 1970s the Ameri- Depending on where they locate the can government’s approach to ‘develop- start of the world economy, some stretch ment’ and ‘nation building’–the twenti- that series back many centuries, while eth-century version of ‘civilizing’–has most identify only an Anglo-American broken with basic ideas about how em- succession spanning two centuries of pire could confer bene½ts on subject liberal industrial capitalism. Others peoples that had evolved over the previ- ous two centuries. This makes today’s Kenneth Pomeranz is Chancellor’s Professor of American empire different both in word History at the University of California, Irvine. and deed. He has written extensively on the reciprocal influ- ences of state, society, and economy in late impe- In empires, leaders of one society rule rial and twentieth-century China, and on the rise directly or indirectly over at least one of a global economy. His most recent book is “The other society, using instruments differ- Great Divergence: China, Europe, and the Mak- 1 My thanks to Walter LaFeber, Robert Moel- ing of the Modern World Economy” (2000). ler, Jeffrey Wasserstrom, and R. Bin Wong for exceptionally helpful comments on earlier © 2005 by the American Academy of Arts drafts of this essay, and to Mark Elliott for clar- & Sciences ifying speci½c questions of Qing frontier policy.

34 Dædalus Spring 2005 ent from (though not necessarily more to citizens were expanded in Britain Empire & ‘civilizing’ authoritarian than) those used to rule at itself. missions, home. For empires, varied kinds of rule Nonetheless, the distinction between past & are not just concessions to large spaces a supposedly civilized core nation and present and limited means, but appropriate to backward others was not new in 1800. differences among their subject peoples. Indeed, the groups most closely tied to Many contemporary states rule less ac- historic imperial centers often made cessible regions very differently from their alleged cultural superiority a justi- their capital districts, but this is consid- ½cation for empire. Some tried hard to ered a temporary failing; in theory, na- ‘civilize’ their subjects. For instance, a tions should have one kind of govern- civilizing agenda has been part of Chi- ment and citizen from border to border. nese imperial statecraft for more than Empires, by contrast, may plan to modi- two thousand years. Insistence on this fy differences among their domains, but civilizing mission waxed and waned not to extinguish them. over time, but not on the strength of In modern times, one particular differ- rival claims for the allegiance of border ence increasingly overshadowed others: peoples. Recent scholarship emphasizes most empires came to have at their core how Qing (1644–1912) expansionism one nation conceived to be ‘free’ and in the southwest resembled many con- ‘modern,’ while other domains were temporaneous expansionisms, and ‘unfree’ and ‘backward.’ This distinction how Eastern and Western empires self- became more pronounced in the nine- consciously adopted standard ways of teenth century than it had been before: claiming territory and peoples, such as most of those whom we anachronistical- increasingly standardized ethnographic ly call the ‘German’ or ‘Spanish’ subjects and cartographic conventions.3 of the seventeenth-century Hapsburgs, for instance, had not been notably more Around 1800, the imperial stake in enfranchised than many of the other ‘civilization’ got higher–for at least two Hapsburg subjects. Even in the eigh- reasons. First, Europeans and Americans teenth-century British Empire, which (North and South) increasingly accepted may have come closest among pre-nine- the idea that civilized peoples should teenth-century empires to having a na- rule themselves. (The Romans had nev- tion at its core, the majority of Britons er worried that respecting Greek civiliza- were neither economically nor politi- tion conflicted with imposing outside cally more privileged than their North rule on them. In fact, as far as the Ro- American cousins, or even perhaps mans were concerned, being too civi- than the white residents of various oth- er British colonies. The citizen/subject dichotomy only became sharp when and reorganized colonies of the 1800–1840 era as “proconsular despotisms.” the thirteen colonies broke away, many local representative bodies in the rest 3 Laura Hostetler, Qing Colonial Enterprise: of the empire were either emasculated Ethnography and Cartography in Early Modern or abolished,2 and the rights afforded China (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2001); James A. Millward, “‘Coming onto the Map’: ‘Western Regions’ Geography and Car- 2 See C. A. Bayly, Imperial Meridian: The British tographic Nomenclature in the Making of Chi- Empire and the World, 1780–1830 (London: nese Empire in Xinjiang,” Late Imperial China Longman, 1989), who labels many of the new 20 (2) (December 2000): 61–98.

Dædalus Spring 2005 35 Kenneth lized–i.e., decadent–could be a disqual- by civilization; increasingly they also Pomeranz on i½cation for self-rule.) The Atlantic revo- saw themselves as civilizers. Decades be- imperialism lutions both promulgated this idea and fore the Tanzimat reforms of the 1830s, spawned expansionist states, producing the Ottomans began working to stan- strange new locutions: Jefferson de- dardize administration and property law, scribed American westward expansion reform social practices, and rein in mys- as “an empire of liberty,” and Napoleon tical and enthusiastic forms of Islam in insisted that French conquests brought their outer provinces. The Romanovs “freedom.” undertook ‘Russi½cation’ efforts in Po- These locutions paralleled tensions in land and the Ukraine around 1830 and the metropoles, where liberal regimes in Central Asia thereafter. acknowledged certain universal rights The Qing, descended from Manchu but then denied many groups those invaders, had long made ‘civilizing’ ef- rights in practice. It was frequently ar- forts on some frontiers–replacing tribal gued that those whose rights were de- chiefs with appointed magistrates, im- nied lacked reason or self-control or posing Han Chinese marriage customs, were in some other way not fully human. and promoting Chinese education for By the same token, if civilized people elites; but they had also criticized exces- should rule themselves, societies ruled sively civilized Han Chinese. This latter from afar had to be labeled uncivilized. stance became harder to sustain after Empire was then justi½ed as tutelage spectacular corruption and high living that would eventually make those soci- among elite Manchus were exposed in eties ½t either for self-rule or full union 1799. After 1800, Han literati became with the metropole. Though civilizing more interested and involved in frontier remained a vague, contested goal, most management, emphasizing the superior- nineteenth- and twentieth-century em- ity of Chinese civilization rather than pires invoked this rationale much more commonalities among the Qing and than their predecessors had. their Central Asian subjects. Many Man- The second reason why the imperial chu of½cials followed suit, invoking ear- stake in civilization got higher was that lier Mongol precedents less frequently.4 an alternate model for empire was van- (Implementation of more aggressively ishing. For centuries, nomadic cavalry ‘civilizing’ policies came slowly, howev- experts had periodically conquered the er, due to a series of nineteenth-century sedentary empires they lived near, but invasions, rebellions, and other crises.) this pattern was disappearing by 1800. Thus, nineteenth-century empires that The Qajars in Persia, the Sauds in west- did not share Enlightenment notions ern Arabia, and, more briefly, the Mara- about progress, tutelage, and self-rule thas and Nadir Shah in India faintly also worked to ‘civilize’ their subject echoed processes that had put the Mon- populations. gols, Mughals, and others in power, but record population growth and intensi- 4 On Qing disdain for decadent Han Chinese, ½ed land use put nomads on the defen- see, for instance, Philip Kuhn, Soulstealers: The sive thereafter throughout Eurasia. Chinese Sorcery Scare of 1768 (Cambridge, Mass.: Existing empires that had descended Harvard University Press, 1990). On the in- creased assertiveness of Han literati in frontier from tribal conquerors also became less and foreign policy, see James Polachek, The prone to claim they had virtues that re- Inner Opium War (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard sulted from being relatively uncorrupted University Press, 1992).

36 Dædalus Spring 2005 But accepting a civilizing justi½cation, quite remote from later ambitions to Empire & ‘civilizing’ even rhetorically, created a distinctive create new citizenries. As Christopher missions, tension in which any empire claiming Bayly has shown, despite the growing past & complete success would in effect be call- importance of commercial interests in present ing for its own dissolution.5 Conse- early-nineteenth-century Britain, the quently, modern empires have claimed empire’s dominant ideas were evangelist to be readying ‘natives’ for self-rule, and agrarianist.6 Taking Britain’s con- while simultaneously asserting that the centrated landholding as a model, agrar- empires’ continued presence is essen- ianism sought to build colonial societies tial for maintaining this direction. (This that would also be led by an elite of large problem has appeared in Iraq, as the U.S. landlords dedicated to improving their government has insisted on rapid prog- properties and to setting an example for ress toward Iraqi self-rule–even as it their neighbors. Meanwhile, evangelist also insists that a continued American rhetoric often held that imperial rule military presence is essential.) would ‘awaken’ its subjects. By 1900, perceived readiness for self- Many, including Macaulay, equated rule involved social, economic, and cul- awakening with rejecting local tradition tural characteristics of whole popula- to embrace superior Western ideas. tions: readiness to be self-disciplined Others–from colonial of½cials such as free laborers, patriotic soldiers, practi- Thomas Munro, who hoped to revive an tioners of modern hygiene, etc. These ancient “Hindoo constitution,” to intel- civilizing projects went well beyond lectuals such as F. D. Maurice and James Macaulay’s famous proposal, in his 1834 Legge, who saw anticipations of Chris- “Minute on [Indian] Education,” that tian monotheism in various ancient civi- Britain should aim to create a class of lizations–regarded imperialism as help- people in the subcontinent who would ing people rediscover truths their cul- share its outlook. In focusing on training tures had forgotten but that Europeans a ‘civilized’ ruling class, Macaulay’s as- had meanwhile enlarged upon. Many similationist imperialism was, despite its Westerners, for instance, considered Enlightenment origins, not unlike that China a ‘sleeping giant,’ thus justifying of Wanyan Yun Zhu (who wrote in 1833 the Opium War (1839–1842) as a way to that ½nding a few Yunnanese women rouse that country from its slumber. who could write decent Chinese showed Increasingly, colonial nationalists the glories of Qing expansion) and that picked up this metaphor, which conve- of Chen Hongmou, the eighteenth-cen- niently implied that the long-sleeping tury of½cial who tirelessly promoted nation was old enough to be historically classical education on China’s south- authentic. ‘Awakening,’ as this appropri- western frontier. ation of the term showed, was an unsta- Whatever their similarities, all these ble justi½cation for empire; it could the- projects for creating new gentries were oretically happen instantaneously, mak- ing foreign rule suddenly superfluous. 5 The most influential formulation of this is ‘Development,’ by contrast, implied a Ann Laura Stoler and Frederick Cooper, “Be- need for continuing guidance. It ½t an tween Metropole and Colony: Rethinking a understanding that whole societies had Research Agenda,” in Cooper and Stoler, eds., to be transformed, and it had more ob- Tensions of Empire: Colonial Cultures in a Bour- geois World (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1997), 1–56. 6 Bayly, Imperial Meridian, 133–163.

Dædalus Spring 2005 37 Kenneth jective, measurable correlatives. Devel- mental effort–but this was hardly sim- Pomeranz on opment could also serve metropolitan ple. Herders, shifting cultivators, and imperialism economic interests, making an empire forest peoples–many of whose tradi- a valuable market for the metropole’s tional practices were construed as crimi- manufactures and ½nancial services nal trespassing under that system–suf- rather than just a source of raw ma- fered greatly; so did tenants who lost terials. customary guarantees against eviction Amidst increasingly restive ‘nationali- and access to common lands. Liberaliza- ties’ and growing metropolitan queasi- tion could also undermine local elite col- ness about the ethics and feasibility of laborators central to cost-saving indirect relying on force, pomp, and often impro- rule (those, for instance, with rights to vised ‘tradition’ to sustain European collect tribute goods or use unpaid la- rule, a mission stressing economic de- bor), or white settlers for whom coer- velopment provided a seemingly defen- cion kept labor cheap amidst still plenti- sible basis for a colonial social contract. ful land. For these and other reasons, co- A fundamentally socioeconomic notion lonial powers rarely implemented full- of empire’s purpose also suited metro- fledged liberalization. (In fact, the late politan professionals seeking opportuni- Ottoman and Qing Empires, which were ties abroad as well as the desires of some cautious but persistent about extending of the colonized. The commitment of the sway of markets, were probably many colonial nationalists to develop- more successful in this respect than mentalism is among modern imperial- some European empires.) ism’s most important legacies. It is strik- The part of laissez-faire most ½rmly ing how many twentieth-century argu- upheld in many empires was stinginess ments about North-South relations on the part of the state. The most notori- came to assume that good regimes create ous example was the near-total absence sustained per capita economic growth– of relief during India’s massive late- a relatively novel and narrow measure of nineteenth-century famines. Growing human well-being. trade may have raised aggregate income Meanwhile, non- or semi-European and lifted some boats; but more general- states that wanted to be recognized as ly, the combination of minimal famine great powers, including old empires like relief, incentives to export crops, new the Ottoman and new ones like Japan, property rights that sometimes placed also assimilated many Western notions emergency ‘wasteland’ food sources off- of what constituted appropriate imperial limits, and new migration patterns that behavior. The resulting fusions of West- spread epidemics, made the late nine- ern and indigenous notions reoriented teenth century a particularly deadly era these states’ policies toward their Miao, for much of the developing world–and Palestinian, Kazakh, Taiwanese, and guaranteed resistance to a narrowly lib- other ‘backward’ subjects–and thereby eral developmentalism.7 gave attempts to recast empire as a de- Efforts to increase raw materials ex- velopmental effort a truly global scope. ports often created enclaves, built and maintained in ways that kept costs low any late-nineteenth-century colo- M 7 See Mike Davis, Late Victorian Holocausts nial regimes believed that creating and (London: Verso, 2001), for a harrowing account enforcing a more liberal property rights of the Indian episode and similar ones during system constituted a suf½cient develop- the same period.

38 Dædalus Spring 2005 but hardly created market economies. metropoles themselves, faith in govern- Empire & ‘civilizing’ Forced labor on infrastructure projects ment planning, rising liberal/Left politi- missions, and some plantations continued into the cal coalitions, and interest in colonies as past & 1940s in French Africa; such unpaid ‘ap- social laboratories were all factors. But present prenticeships’ were justi½ed by the argu- if a civilizing mission were to include ment that the ‘natives’ were not yet self- building infrastructure, educating peo- disciplined enough to be motivated by ple, promoting public health, channeling wages.8 investment, and buffering social disloca- The Dutch Cultivation System, in tions, its costs would rise considerably. which Javanese export crops were ex- Moreover, by claiming as a mission’s tracted as tribute with help from local aim the need to transform the entire elites, was of½cially abolished in 1870, population, even in such intimate as- but coerced labor continued in Java well pects of their lives as hygiene and mar- into the 1880s. Mines and plantations riage, modern empires undertook tasks often utilized immigrant workers isolat- at which they were particularly likely to ed in barracks rather than paying local fail, potentially raising embarrassing workers the family-supporting wages questions about their own superiority in demanded by (and gradually conceded the process. (By contrast, the Qing had to) North Atlantic workers. Outside cap- backed off a campaign against Han Chi- ital and skills often came from other col- nese footbinding in the late 1600s, al- onies (for instance, in British Africa) lowing even their own women to adopt rather than the metropole. shoes that made their feet look bound.) Where exported raw materials began Meanwhile, the colonial development to be locally processed, these infant in- initiatives were mostly locally funded dustries were often undone by post– (as witness, for instance, the rapid post- World War I protectionism. Thus, while 1900 growth of India’s public debt). This gross output grew signi½cantly in many limited their scale, and usually meant re- colonies and semicolonies during the lying on ½scal instruments available to 1870–1914 trade boom, this dynamic states weak at the grassroots, including would probably not have proved self- tariffs, monopolies, sin taxes, and price- sustaining even if World War I had not ½xing export control boards. These often intervened, and even if people had ac- had unfortunate social effects or imper- cepted the massive human costs of keep- iled other developmental efforts–for ex- ing social spending minimal. ample, discouraging export production A combination of circumstances elicit- by taxing it. But once established, these ed broader developmental efforts after measures frequently became the way for 1900, and especially after World War I. postindependence regimes to support Movements among the colonized often themselves. (Opium monopolies, which demanded basic public services. In the provided anywhere from 15 to 50 percent of revenue in various colonies and pro- 8 Frederick Cooper, Thomas Holt, and Rebec- 9 ca Scott, “Introduction,” and Cooper, “Condi- tectorates, were an exception, being so tions Analogous to Slavery,” in Cooper, Holt, and Scott, Beyond Slavery: Explorations of Race, 9 For sample ½gures, see Carl Trocki, “Drugs, Labor, and Citizenship in Post-Emancipation Soci- Taxes, and Chinese Capitalism,” in Timothy eties (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Brook and Bob Tadashi Wakabayashi, eds., Press, 2000), 1–32, 107–149, develop this point Opium Regimes: China, Britain, and Japan, 1839– –and the metaphor of apprenticeship in par- 1952 (Berkeley: University of California Press, ticular. 2000), 82; John Richards, “The Opium Indus-

Dædalus Spring 2005 39 Kenneth strongly associated with national weak- Nor could developmentalism prevent Pomeranz on ness that they rarely survived independ- growing nationalist movements from imperialism ence.) making empire increasingly costly, in Nonetheless, when developmental blood as well as money. Once it became imperialism chose cost-effective proj- clear how dif½cult broad-gauged devel- ects–for example, vaccinations, sanita- opment would be–and that even activist tion, clean water, and basic literacy ef- tutelage would not guarantee lasting def- forts–it could contribute signi½cantly erence–most colonial powers quit. Cold to human well-being. While life expec- War competition, which made the So- tancy often stagnated or declined during viet Union and the United States eager to early colonial rule, it generally improved create societies that could be attractive near the end of it.10 The empire that ‘showcases’ of either state socialist or probably has the strongest claim to hav- capitalist development, sustained ing laid ½rm foundations for its colonies’ some nation building and development economic success–albeit often very co- efforts into the 1970s, but these rarely ercively–is Japan, which conquered Tai- approached what would have been need- wan, Korea, and southern Manchuria ed to make the hoped-for transforma- and took a very interventionist stance tions or to legitimate continued direct from the start, targeting entire popula- rule. tions for social, economic, and cultural change.11 The forms of imperialism that flour- Whatever its merits and demerits, this ished in the nineteenth and twentieth activism was short-lived, curtailed by centuries encompassed more than rul- the Depression and World War II. Twen- ing colonies and long-term protector- tieth-century enthusiasm for social engi- ates. Imperial powers often intervened neering notwithstanding, empire was militarily in formally independent states not supposed to cost metropolitan tax- that committed or permitted ‘uncivi- payers money. lized’ acts: piracy on the North African coast, the Boxer Uprising in China, or try in British India,” Indian Economic and Social occasional kidnappings of Westerners. History Review, Special Issue: Essays in Memory The resulting invasions also claimed an of Dharma Kumar 39 (2, 3) (2002): 149–180. educational purpose; the eight-power See especially charts 2 and 3. Boxer intervention, for instance, was 10 See, for instance, Norman Owen, ed., Death supposed to teach China an unforget- and Disease in Southeast Asia (Singapore: Oxford tably violent lesson about respecting University Press, 1987), 13–14, 82–84, 276– ‘civilized’ norms.12 But these were un- 277; Leela Visaria and Pravin Visaria, “Popula- derstood as short-term missions to re- tion (1757–1947),” in Dharma Kumar and Ta- dress ‘outrages’ and inflict instructive pan Raychaudhuri, eds., The Cambridge Econom- ic History of India, Volume 2: 1757–1970 (Cam- traumas, not as long-term developmen- bridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983), 471, tal commitments. Certainly nobody ex- 501–502. pected development aid to follow the Boxer expedition; on the contrary, a 11 The essays in Mark R. Peattie and Ramon H. huge indemnity was imposed, in part Myers, eds., The Japanese Colonial Empire, 1895– 1945 (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1984), are a good starting place; Samuel 12 James L. Hevia, English Lessons: The Pedagogy Ho’s contribution on economic development is of Imperialism in Nineteenth-Century China (Dur- particularly useful. ham, N.C.: Duke University Press, 2003).

40 Dædalus Spring 2005 to reinforce the lesson. While in practice rated more fully into the empire–but Empire & ‘civilizing’ punitive excursions sometimes became this difference is not logically necessary, missions, lengthy occupations, in theory they were nor does it sharply divide East from past & quite distinct. West. The French envisioned incorpora- present Decolonization, however, muddied tion rather than independence for civi- this distinction. On the one hand, sur- lized colonies, while the Chinese imag- rendering sovereignty allowed metro- ined their influence civilizing both sepa- politan powers to limit their responsibil- rate tributary kingdoms (for example, ity for development, even when they Vietnam) and minority peoples within remained influential. On the other hand, the empire. the characteristically modern imperial But the breadth and depth of socioeco- idea that violating self-determination nomic transformation imagined by late- creates moral and economic obligations nineteenth-century civilizing missions had become widely accepted. While created new differences between capital- many in the Bush administration quite poor and capital-rich empires. While the likely wanted an Afghan war that resem- correlation is not perfect, the capital- bled the Boxer expedition–an exempla- poor empires tended to be contiguous ry punishment for Western civilian and land based, while the capital-rich deaths, followed by a relatively quick ones were more often noncontiguous exit–this was not broadly acceptable. and maritime. Russians, Chinese, and, Even in a decolonized and post–Cold to some extent, Turks found the costs of War world, imperial powers cannot developmental imperialism in their bor- completely abjure nation building– derlands particularly challenging. But especially when failed states become because no oceans separated their em- potential terrorist bases. pires from their metropoles–nor did strong representative institutions sharp- Western developmental imperialism ly distinguish their core polity from their had parallels in Eurasia’s great land- other domains–they also found it hard- based empires both before and after the er than Western Europeans to declare Russian and Chinese revolutions–em- success and pull out. Moreover, the pires where capital for such efforts was ussr and revolutionary China–even particularly scarce. As noted earlier, more than their Western rivals, who also even Macaulay’s quintessentially liberal invoked individual rights and religion– “Minute on Education” shared several staked their legitimacy on a universally assumptions with Chinese agendas for applicable formula for economic prog- civilizing conquered societies. Both as- ress. Especially relative to the countries’ sumed that there was one truly civilized resources, central government spending way to live; that one could ½nd an elite to develop Soviet Central Asia and the anywhere (if not necessarily the current post-1949 Chinese Far West was quite elite) suf½ciently rational to embrace impressive, though the results were that way of life; and that such an elite much less so. (The same, of course, could then legitimately rule their society was often true of their investments at in accordance with universal (imperial) home.) And with other methods falling values. Macaulay’s formulation suggests short, Russia and especially China often that once civilized, India’s elite would encouraged immigration to their bor- rule its own country, while the Qing derlands–not just for basic labor pow- imagined civilized Miao being incorpo- er, but also to improve work skills, ‘civi-

Dædalus Spring 2005 41 Kenneth lization,’ and loyalty in ‘backward’ re- masters, were quick to claim racial supe- Pomeranz on gions. riority over their colonial subjects, they imperialism Thus China’s recently accelerated “Go also often asserted a racial solidarity that West” initiative–aimed at both extract- allowed their Asian subjects to join the ing raw materials and securing the re- ‘imperial race’; this differed sharply gion by raising living standards–has both from European assertions of un- seen previous restrictions on Han im- bridgeable difference from their sub- migration replaced by encouragements, jects and from universalist assertions and minorities’ exemptions from Chi- that anyone could be Europeanized. na’s “fewer, later, better” birth control Japanese leaders and intellectuals al- policy rescinded. With state-led devel- ways imagined their empire as regional, opment for western China emphasizing naturally suited to only some ‘backward’ natural resource production for sale to peoples. the semicapitalist, consumer-driven In this context, Japan pursued both East, contemporary China has many fea- cultural aggression (including, for in- tures of imperial dualisms, with large stance, plans to eliminate the Korean differences in average wealth, the degree language) and broad developmental ef- of local autonomy, the scope allowed to forts (which consumed over 40 percent dissent, and the prominence of military of Taiwan’s colonial budget, versus min- priorities between core and periphery. It iscule amounts in most European colo- has some of the features of settler colo- nies), mobilizing people and resources nialism as well, with Han Chinese immi- with an intensity more often found in in- grants increasingly reshaping much of dependent mid-twentieth-century states the landscape to their liking. Any ambiv- that claimed a mandate to fundamental- alence about exporting Han values (now ly transform their societies. Massive Jap- including consumerism) to Central Asia anese settlement in the colonies was also seems gone, despite serious political and considered, though not much had been ecological risks. carried out by 1945. And since Japan’s Imperial Japan combined features of empire ended with defeat in World War contiguous and overseas empires. Al- II rather than with defeat at the hands of though water separated it from Korea, anticolonial insurgents, we will never Taiwan, and southern Manchuria, Japan know how doggedly Tokyo would have considered these close enough to be part resisted decolonization. of its metropole’s security zone–areas that had to be kept stable and in friendly In recent decades, Western imperialism hands at almost any price in order for has moved in a different direction, weak- the home islands to be secure. The low ening the link between empire and de- transport costs and ecological comple- velopmentalism. While this shift has mentarity between Japan and these near- been most starkly evident since Cold by colonies also facilitated plans for War competition for third-world clients more thorough economic integration ended, it seems to have originated in than was easily imagined for Europe and the 1970s when, roughly speaking, Por- its tropical colonies. And early-twenti- tugal’s withdrawal from Africa and the eth-century Japan, though capital-poor ouster of the West from Indochina es- relative to Western Europe, was less so sentially completed decolonization. than China and probably Russia. Finally, Great powers continue to abridge the while the Japanese, like other colonial sovereignty of others, often by force or

42 Dædalus Spring 2005 threat of force. With American military aid, which never reached its target levels, Empire & ‘civilizing’ bases in over 120 countries, we have is down more than 25 percent since 1962; missions, hardly seen the end of empire. Like oth- as a percentage of either gdp or the fed- past & er modern empires, the United States eral budget, it is down more than 80 per- present today invokes a rationale of benevolent cent.15 transformation, but the nature of the ra- Indeed, since the Mayaguez incident tionale has changed in recent decades. of 1975 (the ½rst post-Vietnam use of Defeat in Vietnam, stagflation, and po- U.S. troops abroad), most U.S. military litical backlash reduced American inter- interventions have been presented as est in ‘nation building’ from the 1970s one-time rescues or retaliation for unciv- on; meanwhile, the structural adjust- ilized behavior (as in Grenada, Somalia, ment policies increasingly favored over Panama, Haiti, etc., plus various bomb- Keynesian development strategies mean ings without ground troops), whatever that market-oriented advice has come to additional motives there were. Even in be considered more useful than material tiny and highly literate Grenada, which assistance.13 earlier might have seemed an ideal place From the 1970s on, American geopolit- to create a postinvasion showcase, the ical concerns shifted toward the Middle United States undertook no substantial East, where some key client states had developmental program–and that was substantial wealth. Those that did not, in 1983, when Cold War tensions were such as Egypt, received economic aid high. When the Soviet Bloc collapsed a that rarely aimed for more than stabi- few years later, U.S. policymakers be- lization, in contrast to the grander de- came even less interested in concrete velopmental plans of earlier decades for development assistance. favored clients such as Taiwan, South Some still argue that U.S. hegemony Korea,14 and (much less successfully) serves developmental and civilizing pur- the Philippines. U.S. foreign economic poses. But rather than promising to transform any particular place through 13 For a fascinating discussion of how Ameri- dif½cult ‘nation building,’ American pol- cans as far back as the 1890s misunderstood icymakers now argue that U.S. power their own economic history in a way that made such an approach to development seem logical, creates opportunities for any society to see Emily Rosenberg, Spreading the American transform itself by underpinning a glob- Dream (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, al order of security and free markets. 1982), and Rosenberg, Financial Missionaries While the idea that underdevelopment to the World: The Politics and Culture of Dollar breeds terrorism has been more salient Diplomacy, 1900–1930 (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1999). since September 11, the U.S. commit- ment to an almost exclusively private- 14 From 1945 to 1984, South Korea and Taiwan sector development model means that received almost as much U.S. aid as all Africa this has not led to much aid. Indeed, cur- and Latin America put together (Bruce Cum- rent American emphasis on privatiza- ings, “The Origins and Development of the Northeast Asian Political Economy,” Interna- tion of basic services, on openness to tional Organizations 38 [1] [1984]: 24). But as Taiwan and South Korea became more prosper- 15 Isaac Shapiro and Nancy Birdsall, “How ous, the U.S. relationship with China stabilized, Does the Proposed Level of Foreign Economic and oil imports became more critical (U.S. pro- Aid Under the Bush Budget Compare with His- duction peaked in 1970, and imports doubled torical Levels?” Center on Budget and Policy in the next three years), American geopolitical Priorities, , accessed July 5, 2004.

Dædalus Spring 2005 43 Kenneth foreign bidders, and on removing subsi- from Niall Ferguson to Deepak Lal, and Pomeranz on dies for basic goods (most recently wa- critics such as Immanuel Wallerstein imperialism ter) is so unpopular that even a govern- and Giovanni Arrighi, have cast the ment that endorses these as long-term United States as the latest in a succes- strategies is unlikely to want to imple- sion of hegemons guaranteeing a global ment them unless publicly forced to. order facilitating trade. But even the The downsizing of secular nationalist nineteenth-century Pax Britannica never governments has also contributed to the involved comparable efforts to lay down rise of ethnoreligious mass movements global rules.17 Britain promoted free that provide alternative services, from trade within its empire, made bilateral Hezbollah in Lebanon to the B.J.P. in agreements with a few countries–some India. Current U.S. development strate- freely negotiated, others products of gies are thus much harder to integrate gunboat diplomacy–and kept Britain’s into strategies for stable rule than were own markets open. But much of the twentieth-century colonial development world, including rapidly growing Ger- efforts or New Deal–influenced Cold many, Russia, and the United States, was War development efforts. protectionist–certainly there was noth- Moreover, as in the late nineteenth ing remotely comparable to the World century, the invisible hand alone has had Trade Organization. limited success. ‘Free markets’ have also Britain’s claims to upholding human notably excluded open borders for mi- rights were likewise more modest than grants and the elimination of subsidies the United States’ rhetoric in recent de- for farmers in wealthy countries. Global cades, though using the Royal Navy in a income inequality has soared since 1973, sustained campaign against the slave and poverty reduction has been slight trade may have actually done more than outside of China–which has relied on contemporary developed-world govern- heavy state investment and other mea- ments (as opposed to ngos, the United sures to stimulate its economy while Nations, and so on) can claim.18 And shielding some of its more vulnerable sectors from foreign competition, thus 17 Patrick O’Brien, “The Governance of Glob- violating the ‘Washington consensus’ in alization: The Political Economy of Anglo- favor of growth strategies based on min- American Hegemony, 1793–2003,” cesifo imal government intervention and max- Working Paper No. 1023 (Center for European Studies, University of Munich, and Ifo Insti- imum openness to the global econo- tute for Economic Research), October 2003. my.16 As a result, the globalizing imperial 18 Parliament outlawed the slave trade within vision the United States now pursues the British Empire in 1807 and authorized the is quite different from earlier imperial Royal Navy to collect ½nes for slaves found on any British ship. In 1827, it declared participa- visions, though proponents ranging tion in the slave trade to be a form of piracy 16 See Robert Hunter Wade, “The Rising In- punishable by death. At ½rst, British action equality of World Income Distribution,” Fi- was limited to British ships and ports, but Brit- nance and Development 38 (4) (December 2001). ain gradually claimed the right to board other On numbers of people in poverty in 2001 ver- countries’ ships as well. For British policy with sus 1981, see Shaohua Chen and Martin Raval- respect to the Brazilian slave trade (the world’s lion, “How Have the World’s Poor Fared Since largest), see Leslie Bethell, The Abolition of the the Early 1980s?” Brazil and the Slave /research/povmonitor/index.htm>, especially Trade Question, 1807–1869 (Cambridge: Cam- table 3, accessed July 8, 2004. bridge University Press, 1970).

44 Dædalus Spring 2005 today’s vast archipelago of U.S. military Empire & ‘civilizing’ bases policing access to raw materials missions, far exceeds nineteenth-century British past & ambitions. Britain’s imperium consisted present of speci½c, albeit numerous, colonies and clients; the American imperial vision is much more global, and yet makes fewer commitments involving any particular place. While the United States has pressed the governments of other wealthy nations (which of course share a stake in stability, especially in the Middle East) to provide postwar aid in the Balkans, Afghanistan, and Iraq, it has provided very little such aid itself and has not offered much political influence in return for aid. And though private foundations, ½rms, and international organizations carry out many develop- ment projects, most have a distant rela- tionship to the United States and other governments and often prefer it that way. We thus have some multilateral devel- opment efforts, but they are separate from what is essentially a unilateral im- perialism. As long as the United States keeps political power for itself, its retreat from hands-on ‘nation building’ will break the link between hegemony and the promise of development that was central in most other modern empires, and accelerate the widespread loss of hope that secular nation-states can both transcend ethnoreligious identi½cations and promote material progress. This gives the Bush administration’s current imperial vision an oddly pre-Enlighten- ment cast: one that offers a particularly stingy understanding of development, subverts negotiated exchanges of assis- tance for the acceptance of hegemony, and inadvertently encourages violent efforts to escape empire altogether.

Dædalus Spring 2005 45 Anthony Pagden

Imperialism, liberalism & the quest for perpetual peace

For at least two generations, ‘empire’ who had lived under imperial rule would and ‘imperialism’ have been dirty much rather not have and ½nally they words. Already by 1959, when neither had all risen up and driven out their con- the French nor the British Empire had querors. yet quite ceased to exist, Raymond Aar- Very recently this picture has begun to on dismissed imperialism as a “name change. Now that empires are no more given by rivals, or spectators, to the di- (the last serious imperial outpost, Hong plomacy of a great power”–something, Kong, vanished in 1997), a more nuanced that is, that only others did or had. By account of their long histories is begin- the 1970s, a consensus had emerged in ning to be written. It has become harder liberal circles in the West that all em- to avoid the conclusion that some em- pires–or at least those of European or pires were much weaker than was com- North American origin–had only ever monly claimed; that at least some of the been systems of power that constituted a colonized collaborated willingly, for at denial by one people of the rights (above least some of the time, with their colo- all, the right to self-determination) of nizers; that minorities often fared better countless others. They had never bene- under empires than under nation-states; ½ted anyone but their rulers; all of those and that empires were often more suc- cessful than nation-states at managing the murderous consequences of religious Anthony Pagden is a professor in the departments differences. of history and political science at the University Ever since 9/11 and the war in Afghan- of California, Los Angeles. His main area of re- istan, a few intrepid voices have even search is the prolonged contact between Europe been heard to declare that some empires and the non-European world. He is the author of might in fact have been forces for good. more than a dozen books, including “Lords of All Books both for and against–with such the World: Ideologies of Empire in Spain, Brit- titles as The Sorrows of Empire, America’s ain, and France c. 1500–c. 1800” (1995) and Inadvertent Empire, Resurrecting Empire, “Peoples and Empires: A Short History of Euro- and The Obligation of Empire–now ap- pean Migration, Exploration, and Conquest, from pear almost daily. As these titles suggest, Greece to the Present” (2003). the current revival of interest in empire is not unrelated to the behavior of the © 2005 by the American Academy of Arts current U.S. administration in interna- & Sciences

46 Dædalus Spring 2005 tional affairs, and to the widespread (the so-called Aztec and Inca Empires), Imperialism, assumption that the United States has tribal conquest states (the Mongol and liberalism & the quest become a new imperial power. Even so, Ottoman Empires), European composite for perpetual most Americans continue to feel uncom- monarchies (the Hapsburg and Austro- peace fortable with the designation, which Hungarian Empires), and even networks (forgetting Hawaii, the Philippines, and of economic and political clientage (the Puerto Rico) they have long regarded as current relation of the First to the Third a European evil. Yet ever since the mid- World)–not to mention the British Em- 1990s, the rhetoric of U.S. international pire, which combined features of all of relations has become increasingly impe- these. Faced with such diversity, simple rial. “If we have to use force, it is because de½nitions will clearly be of little use. It we are America,” declared Madeleine is, of course, possible to de½ne the word Albright in 1998, taking care not to pro- so narrowly as to exclude all but the nounce the word ‘empire.’ “We are the most obvious European (and a few indispensable nation, We stand tall, We Asian) megastates. On the other hand, see further into the future.”1 No British de½ning it so widely as to include any proconsul could have put it better. kind of extensive international power runs the risk of rending the concept But for all the talk about a new Ameri- indeterminate. can empire, is the United States today So let me begin by saying that an em- really, in Niall Ferguson’s words, “the pire is an extensive state in which one empire that does not dare to speak its ethnic or tribal group, by one means or name–an empire in denial”?2 another, rules over several others– This would appear to suggest that the roughly what the ½rst-century Roman United States behaves like and pursues historian Tacitus meant when he spoke the recognized objectives of an empire of the Roman world as an “immense while being unprepared to commit itself body of empire” (immensum imperii cor- ideologically to imperialism, or to take pus).3 As such, empires have always been the necessary measures to ensure that more frequent, more extensive political those objectives constitute a long-term and social forms than tribal territories or success. Is that really so? nations have ever been. Ever since antiq- Before these questions can be an- uity, large areas of Asia were ruled by swered, we need to answer a rather more imperial states of one kind or another, fundamental one–namely, what is an and so too were substantial areas of Af- empire? The word has been used to rica. Vishanagar, Assyria, Elam, Urartu, describe societies as diverse as Meso- Benin, Maori New Zealand–all were, in american tribute-distribution systems this sense, empires. All empires inevitably involve the ex- 1 Quoted in Emmanuel Todd, Après l’empire: essai sur la décomposition du système américain ercise of imperium, or sovereign author- (Paris: Gallimard, 2002), 22. Ironically–or per- ity, usually acquired by force. Few em- haps not–she was justifying a missile attack on pires have survived for long without sup- Iraq. pressing opposition, and probably all were initially created to supply the 2 Niall Ferguson, Empire: The Rise and Demise of the British World Order and the Lessons for Global 3 See P. A. Blunt, “Laus imperii,” in Peter Garn- Power (New York: Basic Books, 2003), 317; Fer- sey and C. R. Whittaker, eds., Imperialism in the guson, Colossus: The Price of America’s Empire Ancient World (Cambridge: Cambridge Univer- (New York: Penguin Press, 2004), 3–7. sity Press, 1978), 159–191.

Dædalus Spring 2005 47 Anthony metropolis with goods it could not oth- concept that, in its recognizably modern Pagden on erwise acquire. In 1918, the great Austri- form, the Romans invented and that, imperialism an economist Joseph Schumpeter de- ever since the early days of the Republic, scribed territorial expansion as “the had been the main ideological prop of purely instinctual inclination towards the Roman world. Of course, not all war and conquest” and relegated it to Rome’s subject peoples wished for such an earlier atavistic period of human his- things; but if a substantial number had tory that he believed was now past.4 He not, its empire could not have survived would have to wait another half centu- as long as it did. ry for the ½nal dismemberment of the All the later European empires did the world’s last signi½cant colonial outposts. best they could to follow at least part of But he could see that in the new global the example Rome had set them. The economies that he projected for the Spanish and the French both attempted world in the wake of the Great War, con- to create something resembling a single quest would no longer be possible and society governed by a single body of law. that without conquest there could be no Similarly, the British in India could nev- empire er have succeeded in seizing control of But Schumpeter’s view is only part of the former Mughal Empire without the the picture. War and conquest would active and sometimes enthusiastic assis- have achieved very little if that is all tance of the emperors’ former subjects. there had been. To survive for long, Without Indian bureaucrats, Indian all empires have had to win over their judges, and, above all, Indian soldiers, conquered populations. The Romans the British Raj would have remained a learned this very early in their history.5 private trading company. At the Battle of “An empire,” declared the historian Livy Plassey in 1757, which marked the begin- at the end of the ½rst century b.c., “re- ning of the East India Company’s politi- mains powerful so long as its subjects cal ascendancy over the Mughal Empire, rejoice in it.” twice as many Indians as Europeans Rome had a lot to offer its conquered fought on the British side.6 populations–architecture, baths, the It was this process of absorption–and ability to bring fresh water from distant with it the ambition to create a single hills or to heat marble-lined rooms in community that would embrace, as the villas in the wilds of Northumberland. Roman Empire had, both the mother (The historian Tacitus acidly comment- country and the indigenous inhabitants ed that in adopting baths, porticos, and of its colonies–that allowed Edmund banquets, all the unwitting Britons had Burke to speak of the victims of the bru- done was to describe as “humanity” tal regime of Warren Hastings, governor what was in reality “an aspect of their of Bengal, as “our distressed fellow-citi- slavery.”) Ultimately, however, Rome’s zens in India.”7 Empire was a sacred greatest attraction was citizenship–a trust, “given,” as Burke insisted, “by an 4 Joseph Schumpeter, Imperialism and Social 6 Linda Colley, Captives: Britain, Empire and the Classes, trans. Heinz Norden (New York: A. M. World, 1600–1850 (London: Jonathan Cape, Kelley, 1951), 7. 2002), 259.

5 This has been described most recently and 7 “Speech on the Nabob of Arcot’s Debts,” with great brilliance by Clifford Ando, Imperial quoted in Uday Singh Mehta, Liberalism and Ideology and Provincial Loyalty in the Roman Em- Empire: A Study in Nineteenth-Century British Lib- pire (Berkeley: University of California Press, eral Thought (Chicago: University of Chicago 2000). Press, 1999), 157. 48 Dædalus Spring 2005 incomprehensible dispensation of Di- seemed to provide a means to create a Imperialism, vine providence into our hands.” To new, more ecumenical form of empire liberalism & the quest abuse it, as Hastings had, was not just that now would bene½t all its members. for perpetual morally offensive; more signi½cantly for For, in theory at least, commerce created peace Burke, it threatened the very existence a relationship between peoples that did not only of the “British constitution,” not involve dependency of any kind and but of “the civilization of Europe.”8 that, most importantly, avoided any use Yet the idea of empire based upon uni- of force. In these new commercialized versal citizenship created a paradox. If societies, the various peoples of the all the inhabitants of the empire were world would swap new technologies indeed fellow citizens, then a new kind and basic scienti½c and cultural skills as of society, universal and cosmopolitan, readily as they would swap foodstuffs. would have had to come into being to These would not be empires of con- accommodate them. With hindsight it quest, but “empires of liberty.”10 was possible to argue, as Edward Gibbon But this vision never materialized be- did, that in the second century, when cause, as Smith fully recognized, the Eu- “the Roman Empire comprehended the ropean empires were not, nor had ever fairest part of the earth and the most civ- been, merely means to economic ends; ilized portion of mankind,” a new kind they were also matters of international of society had indeed arisen.9 But in the prestige.11 Smith knew that without eighteenth century, things did not look colonies Britain would be nothing more quite so harmonious. Instead of one than a small European state. The dispari- world community, the European over- ty in size between the mother country seas powers had created what the French and the rest of the empire remained a philosopher and economist the Marquis constant worry. Furthermore, as David de Mirabeau described in 1758 as “a new Hume pointed out, the “sweet com- and monstrous system” that vainly at- merce” in which Montesquieu and oth- tempted to combine three distinct types ers had placed such trust was, at best, an of political association (or, as he called uncertain panacea for the ills of man- them, esprits): domination, commerce, kind: in reality, even the most highly and settlement. The inevitable con- commercialized states tended to “look flict that had arisen between these had upon their neighbours with a suspicious thrown all the European powers into cri- eye, to consider all trading states as their sis. In Mirabeau’s view, the only way for- rivals, and to suppose that it is impossi- ward was to abandon both settlement ble for any of them to flourish, but at and conquest–especially conquest–in their expence.”12 favor of commerce. He was not alone. For those like Mira- 10 See Anthony Pagden, Lords of All the World: Ideologies of Empire in Spain, Britain and France beau and his near-contemporary Adam c.1500–c.1800 (New Haven, Conn.: Yale Uni- Smith, what in the eighteenth century versity Press, 1995), 178–187. was called ‘the commercial society’ 11 Adam Smith, “Thoughts on the State of the 8 Edmund Burke, On Empire, Liberty, and Re- Contest with America,” in Ernest Campbell form: Speeches and Letters, ed. David Bromwich Mossner and Ian Simpson Ross, eds., Correspon- (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, dence of Adam Smith, vol. 6 (Oxford: Clarendon 2000), 15–16. Press, 1977), 383.

9 Edward Gibbon, Decline and Fall of the Ro- 12 David Hume, “On the Jealousy of Trade,” in man Empire, chap. 3. Eugene F. Miller, ed., Essays, Moral, Political, and

Dædalus Spring 2005 49 Anthony ume’s skepticism proved all too er or later those hatreds, those opinions, Pagden H on accurate. It was in the long run more and those desires would explode and en- imperialism pro½table, as both the British and the gulf it.13 Dutch discovered in Asia, to exercise di- Like Smith, Constant also believed rect control over the sources of supply that commerce, or “civilized calcula- through conquest than it was to trade tion,” as he called it, would come to con- with them. But the Enlightenment vi- trol all future relationships between peo- sion of the future transvaluation of em- ples. Nearly a century later, Schumpeter pire was ½nally swept aside not so much expressed, in characteristically unques- by the actual practice of the “empires of tioning terms, the same conviction. “It liberty” as by Napoleon’s attempt to may be stated as beyond controversy,” build quite a different kind of empire he declared, “that where free trade pre- within Europe itself. vails no class has an interest in forcible Initially the very brevity and bloodi- expansion as such.”14 ness of the Napoleonic ambition to Ironically, in view of the similarity transform Europe into a series of satel- of these claims, what separated Schum- lite kingdoms seemed to the liberals who peter from Constant in time was a phase had suffered from it–Alexis de Tocque- of imperial expansion that was more ata- ville and Benjamin Constant in particu- vistic, more “enthusiastic” even than the lar–to have rendered all such projects one Constant hoped he had seen the last unrepeatable. In 1813, with Napoleon of. For what in fact followed Napoleon’s apparently out of the way, Constant felt ½nal defeat was not a return to the En- able to declare that, at last, “pleasure lightenment status quo ante, but the and utility” had “opposed irony to every emergence of modern nationalism. After real or feigned enthusiasm” of the kind the Congress of Vienna, the newly self- that had always been the driving force conscious European states and, subse- behind all modes of imperialism. Napo- quently, the new nations of Europe– leon, and, above all, Napoleon’s fall, had Belgium (founded in 1831), Italy (1861), shown that postrevolutionary politics and Germany (1876)–all began to com- were to be conducted not in the name pete with one another for the status and of “conquest and usurpation,” but in ac- economic gains that empire was thought cordance with public opinion. And pub- to bestow. Public opinion, far from turn- lic opinion, Constant con½dently pre- ing an ironical eye on the imperialistic dicted, would have nothing to do with pretensions of the new European na- empire. “The force that a people needs tions, embraced them with enthusiasm. to keep all others in subjection,” he National prestige was, for instance, the wrote, main grounds on which Tocqueville sup- is today, more than ever, a privilege that ported the French invasion of Algeria in cannot last. The nation that aimed at such 1830. an empire would place itself in a more dangerous position than the weakest of 13 Benjamin Constant, The Spirit of Conquest and Usurpation and their Relation to European tribes. It would become the object of uni- Civilization in Political Writings, ed. and trans. versal horror. Every opinion, every desire, Biancamaria Fontana (Cambridge: Cambridge every hatred, would threaten it, and soon- University Press, 1988), 79.

Literary (Indianapolis: Liberty Classics, 1985), 14 Schumpeter, Imperialism and Social Classes, 328. 99.

50 Dædalus Spring 2005 The new imperialism turned out to be peoples, half devil and half child,” had Imperialism, very different from the kind of empire of not merely to be ruled, they had to be liberalism & the quest liberty for which Burke and Smith and ruled for their own good–however for perpetual Mirabeau had argued. No “sacred trust” much they might resent it at ½rst–and peace was involved here–only, in Joseph Con- had to be made to recognize that one rad’s famous phrase, “the taking away way of life was the inevitable goal of all [of the earth] from those who have a dif- mankind. This was empire as tutelage. ferent complexion or slightly flatter Ironically, and fatally for the imperial noses than ourselves.” In the new na- powers as it turned out, it also implied tionalist calculus, the more of this earth that one day all the subjects of all the you could take away, the greater you be- European empires would become self- came. By 1899, imperialism had indeed governing. become, as Curzon remarked, “the faith “By good government,” Lord Macau- of a nation.”15 lay had declared as early as 1833, “we There was something else that was may educate our subjects into a capacity new about the new imperialism. With for better government; that having be- the exception of the Spanish, the earlier come instructed in European knowledge European powers had been only margin- they may, in some future age, demand ally concerned with changing the lives, European institutions.” He did not know beliefs, and customs of the peoples when this would come about, but he was whose lands they had occupied. Mis- certain that when it did, “it will be the sionaries–Catholic, Anglican, Lutheran, proudest day in English history.”16 In Calvinist–were present in British and practice, self-determination would be French America, and even in British, postponed into the remote future. But French, and Dutch Asia, but their activi- Macaulay was forced to acknowledge ties were always of secondary political that, theoretically at least, it could not importance and generally looked upon be postponed inde½nitely. by the civilian authorities as something Nationalist imperialism, however, of a nuisance. brought to the fore a question that had In the nineteenth century, however, remained unanswered for a long time: in Africa and even India became the testing the modern world what, precisely, was grounds for a new missionary zeal. Dri- the nature of empire? Ever since 1648, ven partly by Christian ideals, partly by the modern nation-state has been one in a belief in the overwhelming superiority which imperium has been regarded as of European culture, the new imperial- indivisible. The monarchs of Europe had ists sought to make of the world one spent centuries wresting authority from world–Christian, liberal, and, ultimate- nobles, bishops, towns, guilds, military ly (since none of the virtues peddled by orders, and any number of quasi-inde- the missionaries could be sustained in pendent, quasi-sovereign bodies. Indi- any other kind of society), commercial visibility had been one of the shibbo- and industrial. leths of prerevolutionary Europe, and In this vision of empire, the ‘natives,’ one which the French Revolution had Rudyard Kipling’s “new-caught sullen gone on to place at the center of the con-

15 Quoted in Harold Nicolson, Curzon: The Last Phase, 1919–1925: A Study in Post-War Diploma- 16 Quoted in Thomas R. Metcalf, Ideologies of cy (New York: Houghton Mifflin Company, the Raj (Cambridge: Cambridge University 1934), 13. Press, 1994), 34.

Dædalus Spring 2005 51 Anthony ception of the modern state. The mod- Sir Robert Seeley in 1883 to make his fa- Pagden on ern person is a rights-bearing individual, mous remark that it seemed as if Eng- imperialism but–as the 1791 Déclaration des droits de land had “conquered and peopled half l’homme et du citoyen had made clear–he the world in a ½t of absence of mind.”19 or she is so only by virtue of being a citi- zen of a single indivisible state.17 Nothing, it seems, could be further re- Such a strong notion of sovereignty moved from the present position of the could apply, however, only within Eu- United States. Is then the United States rope. In the world beyond, things were really an empire? very different. It had been impossible I think if we look at the history of the for any empire to thrive without sharing European empires, the answer must be power with either local settler elites or no. It is often assumed that because with local inhabitants. As Henry Maine, America possesses the military capabili- a renowned jurist, historian, and legal ty to become an empire, any overseas member of the viceroy’s council in In- interest it does have must necessarily be dia, had declared in 1887, “Sovereignty imperial.20 But if military muscle had has always been regarded as divisible in been all that was required to make an international law.”18 Failure to cede this empire, neither Rome nor Britain–to point had, after all, been the prime cause name only two–would have been one. of the American Revolution, and, after Contrary to the popular image, most 1810, of the revolt of the Spanish colo- empires were, in fact, for most of their nies in South America–and had almost histories, fragile structures, always de- driven the French settlers of Saint-Dom- pendent on their subject peoples for sur- ingue, Guadeloupe, and Martinique into vival. Universal citizenship was not cre- the waiting arms of the British. ated out of generosity. It was created out Nowhere was the question of divided of need. “What else proved fatal to Spar- sovereignty so acute as in the British ta and Athens in spite of their power in Empire, which by the early nineteenth arms,” the emperor Claudius asked the century had become larger and more Roman Senate when it attempted to de- widespread, and consequently more var- ny citizenship to the Gauls in Italy, “but ied, than any of its rivals or predeces- their policy of holding the conquered sors. “I know of no example of it either aloof as alien-born?”21 in ancient or modern history,” wrote This is not to say that the United Disraeli in 1878. “No Caesar or Charle- States has not resorted to some of the magne ever presided over a dominion so peculiar.” If such a conglomerate was to 19 Sir John Robert Seeley, The Expansion of Eng- survive at all, it could insist on no single land (London: Macmillan, 1883), 12. constitutional identity. It was this fea- ture of the empire that led the historian 20 This, for instance, is the argument behind Robert D. Kaplan’s Warrior Politics: Why Leader- ship Demands a Pagan Ethos (New York: Random 17 See Anthony Pagden, “Human Rights, Nat- House, 2002), and in a very different and more ural Rights and Europe’s Imperial Legacy,” Po- measured tone, Chalmers A. Johnson’s, The Sor- litical Theory 31 (2003): 171–199. rows of Empire: Militarism, Secrecy, and the End of the Republic (New York: Metropolitan Books, 18 Quoted in Edward Keene, Beyond the Anar- 2004)–although Kaplan approves and Johnson chical Society: Grotius, Colonialism and Order in disapproves. World Politics (Cambridge: Cambridge Univer- sity Press, 2002), 63. 21 Tacitus, Annals II, 23–24.

52 Dædalus Spring 2005 strategies of past empires. Today, for in- sire to impose its political values on the Imperialism, stance, Iraq and Afghanistan look re- rest of the world. Like the ‘liberal’ em- liberalism & the quest markably like British protectorates. pires of nineteenth-century Britain and for perpetual Whatever the administration may claim France, the United States is broadly peace publicly about the autonomy of the cur- committed to the liberal-democratic rent Iraqi and Afghan leadership, the view that democracy is the highest pos- United States in fact shares sovereignty sible form of government and should with the civilian governments of both therefore be exported. This is the Amer- places, since it retains control over the ican mission to which Madeleine Al- countries’ armed forces. What, however, bright alluded, and it has existed in one the United States is not committed to is form or another ever since the creation the view that empire–the exercise of of the republic. imperium–is the best, or even a possi- In addressing the need to “contain” ble, way to achieve this. Communist China, Harry Truman– In a number of crucial respects, the comparing America to Achaemenid United States is, indeed, very unimperi- Persia, Macedonian Greece, Antonine al. Despite allusions to the Pax America- Rome, and Victorian Britain–claimed na, twenty-½rst-century America bears that the only way to save the world from not the slightest resemblance to ancient totalitarianism was for the “whole world Rome. Unlike all previous European em- [to] adopt the American system.” By this pires, it has no signi½cant overseas set- he meant, roughly, what George W. Bush tler populations in any of its formal de- means by freedom–democratic institu- pendencies and no obvious desire to ac- tions and free trade. Truman, knowingly quire any. It does not conceive its hege- or unknowingly, took the phrase “Amer- mony beyond its borders as constituting ican system” from Alexander Hamilton, a form of citizenship. It exercises no di- who ½rmly believed that the new repub- rect rule anywhere outside these areas; lic should one day be able to “concur in and it has always attempted to extricate erecting one great American system su- itself as swiftly as possible from any- perior to the control of all transatlantic thing that looks as if it were about to de- force or influence and able to dictate the velop into even indirect rule. terms of the connections between the Cecil Rhodes once said that he would old world and the new.”23 “For the colonize the stars if he could. It is hard American system,” Truman continued, to image any prominent American poli- could only survive “by becoming a world cymaker, even Paul Wolfowitz, even se- system.”24 What for Hamilton was to be cretly, harboring such desires. As Vis- a feature of international relations, for count James Bryce, one of the most as- Truman was to be nothing less than a tute observers of the Americas both world culture. North and South, said of the (North) But even making the rest of the world Americans, “they have none of the adopt the American system did not earth-hunger which burns in the great mean, as it had for all the other empires nations of Europe.”22 Truman cited, ruling the rest of the

The one feature the United States does share with many past empires is the de- 23 Federalist 11 in The Federalist Papers, ed. Isaac Kramnick (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 22 Quoted by Arthur Schelsinger, Jr. in “The 1987), 133–134. Making of a Mess,” The New York Review of Books 51 (14) (September 2004): 41. 24 Quoted in Ferguson, Colossus, 80. Dædalus Spring 2005 53 Anthony world. For Truman assumed, as has far side of the Mediterranean.”26 The Pagden on every American administration since, French government chose to ignore him imperialism that the world’s ‘others’ no longer need- and made it into a colony nonetheless. ed to be led and cajoled until one day But such an arrangement has never they ½nally demanded their own demo- been an option for the United States. If cratic institutions. American values, as only because the United States is the one Bush put it in 2002, are not only “right modern nation in which no division of and true for every person in every socie- sovereignty is, at least conceptually, pos- ty”–they are self-evidently so.25 All sible. The federal government shares humanity is capable of recognizing that sovereignty with the individual states democracy, or ‘freedom,’ will always be of which the union is composed, but it in its own best interest. All that has ever could not contemplate, as former em- prevented some peoples from grasping pires all had to, sharing sovereignty with this simple truth is fanaticism, the mis- the members of other nations. Only very guided claims of (certain) religions, and briefly has the mainland United States the actions of malevolent, self-interested ever been considered an empire rather leaders. Rather than empire, the United than a nation. As each new U.S. territo- States’ objective, then, is to eliminate ry was settled or conquered it became, these internal obstacles, to establish the within a very short space of time, a new conditions necessary for democracy, and state within the Union. This implied that then to retreat. any territories the United States might There can be little doubt that this as- acquire overseas had, like Hawaii, to be sumption has been the cause, in Iraq as incorporated fully into the nation–or much as in El Salvador, of the failure to returned to its native inhabitants. No establish regimes that are democratic in American administration has been will- more than name. Humanity is not, as ing to tolerate any kind of colonialism Iraq and Afghanistan have demonstrat- for very long. Even so resolute an impe- ed, destined to ½nd democracy more rialist as Teddy Roosevelt could not enticing than any other alternative. You imagine turning Cuba or the Philippines may not need to be an American to em- into colonies.27 The United States does brace ‘American values’–but you cer- possess a number of dependent territo- tainly need to be much closer to Ameri- ries–Guam, the Virgin Islands, Samoa, can beliefs and cultural expectations etc.–but these are too few and too small than most of the populations of the Mid- to constitute an overseas colonial em- dle East currently are. Tocqueville made pire. The major exception to this rule is a similar point about Algeria. It would Puerto Rico. The existence of a vigorous have been impossible to make Algeria debate over the status of this ‘common- into a modern nation without “civiliz- wealth’–a term which itself suggests ing” the Arabs, he argued, a task that would be impossible to achieve unless 26 “Rapport fait par M. Tocqueville sur le pro- Algeria was made into not a “colony,” jet de la loi relative aux credits extraordinaires but “an extension of France itself on the demandés pour l’Algérie,” in Seloua Luste Boul- bina, ed., Tocqueville sur l’Algérie, 1847 (Paris: Flammarion, 2003), 228. 25 Quoted in Rashid Khalidi, Resurrecting Em- pire: Western Footprints and America’s Perilous 27 Frank Ninkovich, The United States and Impe- Path in the Middle East (Boston: Beacon Press, rialism (Malden, Mass.: Blackwell Publishers, 2004), 3. 2001), 75.

54 Dædalus Spring 2005 that Puerto Rico is an independent re- In the end, perhaps, what Smith, Con- Imperialism, public–and the fact that the status quo stant, and Schumpeter prophesied has liberalism & the quest strikes everyone, even those who sup- come to pass: commerce has ½nally re- for perpetual port its continuation, as an anomaly, placed conquest. True, it is commerce peace largely proves the rule.28 stripped of all its eighteenth-century Those advocating a more forceful U.S. attributes of benevolence, but it is com- imperial policy overlook that if America merce nonetheless. The long-term polit- is in denial, it is in it for a very good rea- ical objectives of the United States, son. To become a true empire, as even which have varied little from adminis- the British were at the end of the nine- tration to administration, have been to teenth century, the United States would sustain and, where necessary, to create a have to change radically the nature of its world of democracies bound inexorably political culture. It is a liberal democracy together by international trade. And the (as most of the Western world now con- political forms best suited to interna- ceives it)–and liberal democracy and tional commerce are federations (such liberal empire (as Mill conceived it) are as the European Union) and trading incompatible.29 The form of empire partnerships (the oecd or nafta), not championed by Mill existed to enforce empires. the virtues and advantages that accom- In Paradise and Power: America and Eu- panied free or liberal government in rope in the New World Order, Robert Kagan places that otherwise would be, in Mill’s boasts that whereas the “old” Europeans language, “barbarous.” The time might had moved beyond “power into a self- indeed come when the inhabitants of contained world of laws and rules and such places would demand European transnational negotiation and coopera- institutions–but as Mill and even Ma- tion . . . a post-historical paradise of peace caulay knew, when that happened, the and relative prosperity, the realization of empire would be at an end. Immanuel Kant’s ‘perpetual peace,’” the By contrast the United States makes United States no claim to be holding Iraq and Afghan- remains mired in history, exercising pow- istan in trust until such time as their er in an anarchic Hobbesian world where peoples are able to govern themselves international rules are unreliable, and in a suitable–i.e., Western–manner. It where true security and the defense and seeks, however imperfectly, to confer promotion of a liberal order still depend free democratic institutions directly on on the possession and use of military those places, and then to depart, leaving might.30 the hapless natives to fabricate as best they can the social and political infra- It is dif½cult to know just what Kagan structure without which no democratic takes the words ‘Kant’ and ‘Hobbes’ to process can survive for long. stand for. But on any reasoned under- standing of the writings of Thomas Hobbes and Immanuel Kant, he would 28 See Christina Duffy Burnett and Burke Mar- seem to have inverted the objectives of shall, eds., Foreign in a Domestic Sense: Puerto the Europeans and the Americans. For it Rico, American Expansion, and the Constitution (Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press, 2001). 30 Robert Kagan, Paradise and Power: America 29 On this term, see Michael Mann, Incoherent and Europe in the New World Order (London: At- Empire (London: Verso, 2003), 11. lantic Books, 2003), 3.

Dædalus Spring 2005 55 Anthony is the Europeans (or at least the majority would ever go to war to satisfy the greed Pagden on of them) who–by attempting to isolate or ambition of their rulers. imperialism the European Union as far as possible With due allowance for the huge dif- from all forms of external conflict that ferences between the late eighteenth are considered to pose no immediate do- century and the early twenty-½rst, and mestic threat–are the true Hobbesians. between what Kant understood by rep- And in most respects the objectives of resentative republics and what is meant Kant’s conception of a “universal cosmo- today by liberal democracies, the United politan existence”–which would consti- States’ vision for the world is roughly tute the “matrix within which all the similar: a union of democracies, cer- original capacities of the human race tainly not equal in size or power, but all may develop”31–is, mutatis mutandis, committed to the common goal of great- what the current U.S. government er prosperity and peace through free claims to be attempting to achieve. trade. The members of this union have Kant argued that the peoples of the the right to defend themselves against world would never be at peace so long aggressors and, in the pursuit of defense, as the existing world powers–what he they are also entitled to do their best to called “universal monarchies”–were cajole so-called rogue states into mend- locked into internecine competition ing their ways suf½ciently to be admitted with one another. They had, he said, to into the union. This is what Kant called be persuaded to join a league for their the “cosmopolitan right.”32 We may own mutual protection. To make this assume that Truman had such an ar- possible, however, it was not enough to rangement in mind when he said that rely on international trade agreements the American system could only survive or peace treaties, because in the long run by becoming a world system. the parties to such agreements would For like the “American system,” honor them only if they perceived them Kant’s “cosmopolitan right” was intend- to be in their interests. A true world fed- ed to provide precisely the kind of har- eration could only come about once all monious environment in which it was the states of the world shared a common possible to pursue what Kant valued political order, what Kant called “repre- most highly, namely, the interdepend- sentative republicanism.” Only then ence of all human societies. This indis- would they all have the same interests, putably “liberal order” still depended and only then would those interests be “on the possession and use of military to promote mutual prosperity and to might,” but there would be no perma- avoid warfare. The reason he believed nent, clearly identi½able, perpetual en- this to be so was that such societies were emy–only dissidents, ‘rogue’ states, the only ones in which human beings and the perverse malice of the excluded. were treated as ends not means; the only Kant was also not, as Kagan seems to im- ones, therefore, in which human beings ply, some kind of high-minded idealist, could be fully autonomous; and the only in contrast to Hobbes, the indefatigably ones, consequently, in which no people realist. He was in fact very suspicious of high-mindedness of any kind. “This 31 Immanuel Kant, “Idea for a Universal His- tory with a Cosmopolitan Purpose,” in Hans 32 Immanuel Kant, The Metaphysics of Morals, Reiss, ed., Political Writings (Cambridge: Cam- trans. Mary Gregor (Cambridge: Cambridge bridge University Press, 1991), 51. University Press, 1991), 156.

56 Dædalus Spring 2005 rational idea of a peaceful, even if not Revolution, at least in its early phases, Imperialism, friendly, thoroughgoing community of offered one kind of model). liberalism & the quest all the nations on the earth,” he wrote, Kant’s project for perpetual peace has for perpetual “is not a philanthropic (ethical), prin- often been taken to be some kind of peace ciple, but a principle having to do with moral blueprint for the United Nations. rights.”33 It was based quite as ½rmly But in my view, it is far closer to the ½nal upon a calculation of reasonable self- objective of the modern global state sys- interest as was Hobbes’s suggestion for tem in which the United States is un- exiting from the “war of all against doubtedly, for the moment at least, the all.”34 key player. It is also, precisely because it Kant, however, was also aware that is a project for some future time, a far bringing human beings to understand better guide to the overall ideological just what is in their own self-interest objectives of the United States than any- would always be a long and arduous thing that now goes under the name of task. In order to recognize that autono- ‘empire.’ my is the highest human good, humans have to disentangle themselves from the “leading strings” by which the “guard- ians”–priests, lawyers, and rulers– have made them “domesticated an- imals.” Only he who could “throw off the ball and chain of his perpetual im- maturity” would be properly “enlight- ened,” and only the enlightened could create the kind of state in which true au- tonomy would be possible.35 Because of this, the cosmopolitan right still lay for most at some considerable distance in the future. It still does–few states today ful½ll Kant’s criteria. And of course Kant never addressed the problem of how the tran- sition from one or another kind of des- potism to “representative republican- ism” was to be achieved (although he seems to have thought that the French

33 Kant, The Metaphysics of Morals, 158; Antho- ny Pagden, “Stoicism, Cosmopolitanism and the Legacy of European Imperialism,” Constella- tions 7 (2000): 3–22.

34 Immanuel Kant, “Perpetual Peace: A Philo- sophical Sketch,” in Reiss, ed., Political Writings, 112.

35 Immanuel Kant, “An Answer to the Ques- tion: ‘What is Enlightenment?’” in Reiss, ed., Political Writings, 54–55.

Dædalus Spring 2005 57 Jack Snyder

Empire: a blunt tool for democratization

On its face, using military occupation this bandwagon. Historian Niall Fergu- as a tool to promote democratization is son, in a colorful collection of stories about as intuitive as forcing people to that ends with a paean to empire, con- take a self-improvement class to learn tends that “without the influence of how to be more spontaneous. And yet British imperial rule, it is hard to believe the two most recent U.S. administra- that the institutions of parliamentary tions, though on opposite ends of the democracy would have been adopted by political spectrum, have used America’s the majority of states in the world, as might to try to advance the cause of de- they are today.”2 Indeed, most of the mocracy in Iraq, Bosnia, Kosovo, and, at postcolonial states that have remained least nominally, Afghanistan. The Bush almost continuously democratic since administration’s major statement of its independence, such as India and some strategic policy, known mainly for its West Indian island states, are former justi½cation of preventive war, dwells British possessions. Still, as Ferguson on the need to “shift the balance of pow- acknowledges, many former British col- er in favor of freedom.”1 onies have failed to achieve democratic Scholars and public intellectuals have stability: Pakistan and Nigeria oscillate played a prominent role as drummers on between chaotic elected regimes and military dictatorships; Sri Lanka has held elections that stoked the ½res of Jack Snyder is the Robert and Renée Belfer Profes- ethnic conflict; Malaysia has averted sor of International Relations in the political sci- ethnic conflict only by limiting democ- ence department and the Institute of War and racy; Singapore is stuck in a pattern of Peace Studies at Columbia University. His books stable but noncompetitive electoral poli- include “The Ideology of the Offensive: Mili- tics; Kenya is emerging from a long in- tary Decision Making and the Disasters of 1914” terlude of one-party rule; and Iraq in the (1984), “Myths of Empire: Domestic Politics and late 1940s flirted with electoral politics International Ambition” (1991), and “From Vot- that played into the hands of violent rad- ing to Violence: Democratization and Nationalist Conflict” (2000). He has been a Fellow of the 1 Of½ce of the President, “National Security Strategy of the United States,” September 2002, American Academy since 1999. .

© 2005 by the American Academy of Arts 2 Niall Ferguson, Empire: How Britain Made the & Sciences Modern World (London: Allen Lane, 2003), 358.

58 Dædalus Spring 2005 icals. The list continues with even more tion: a competent civil service; impartial Empire: a blunt parlous cases, from Burma to Zimbabwe. courts and police that can implement tool for Despite this mixed track record, it is the rule of law; independent, profession- democra- worth looking back on imperial Brit- alized news media; and the rest. Even tization ain’s strategies, successes, and failures when these institutions are well estab- in attempting to prepare its far-flung lished, outcomes may not conform to possessions for democratic self-govern- the empire’s wishes, because the self- ment. From the 1920s onward, the Brit- determining people may have their own ish undertook systematic efforts to write ideas and interests that diverge from the transitional democratic constitutions for empire’s. countries they expected would soon be When democratic institutions are on- self-governing. At the same time, they ly partially formed, as is commonly the devised political, economic, administra- case at the moment of decolonization, tive, and cultural strategies to facilitate the problem is much worse. Transition- this transition. al regimes typically face a gap between In other words, they attempted rough- high demand for mass political partici- ly what the United States and the United pation and weak institutions to integrate Nations have been trying to accomplish society’s conflicting needs.3 The imperi- on a shorter timetable in Iraq, Bosnia, al power may have put in place some of Kosovo, and East Timor. What problems the institutional window dressing of de- and trade-offs they faced in this enter- mocracy, but daily political maneuver- prise help illuminate, at least in a general ing, energized by the devolution of pow- way, the kind of troubles that the democ- er, is shaped more by ties of patronage racy-promoting empire still confronts and ethnicity, and by unregulated oppor- today. tunism, than by democratic processes. To illustrate these processes, I draw on This situation is ripe for the turbulent several examples, particularly those of politics of ethnic particularism, coups, Iraq in the late 1940s, India in the 1930s and rebellions. through the 1940s, Sri Lanka in the 1930s The imperial ruler sometimes imag- through the 1950s, and Malaysia in the ines that politics will take a holiday 1940s through the 1960s. while the democratic system is being es- tablished–that groups contending for Democratization by imperial ½at power will not exploit the weakness of sounds paradoxical, and it is. The impe- transitional arrangements. In Malaya rial power insists not only that the so- shortly after World War II, for example, ciety it rules should become democratic, the British hoped that a battery of social but also that the outcome of democrati- and economic reforms inspired by Fabi- zation should be one that it approves: an socialism would depoliticize class and namely, that the new democracy should ethnic conflicts during democratization. continue to abide by the rules laid down When it turned out that reform inten- by the departing imperial power, should si½ed the expression of competing de- be stable and peaceful, and should main- mands, the British temporarily reverted tain good relations with the former over- to their earlier reliance on indirect rule lord. This is dif½cult enough when the through undemocratic traditional elites empire has actually succeeded in install- 3 Samuel P. Huntington, Political Order in ing the full set of tools the postcolonial Changing Societies (New Haven, Conn.: Yale state will need to make democracy func- University Press, 1968).

Dædalus Spring 2005 59 Jack Snyder of the Malay ethnic group. “Colonial in British colonial policy, “one cheerful on 7 imperialism policy,” says historian T. N. Harper, thing in a depressing world.” “The fun- “lurched between authoritarianism and damental objectives [for 1948] in Africa a missionary adherence to the rule of are to foster the emergence of large-scale law.”4 societies, integrated for self-government Imperial strategists of the democratic by effective and democratic political and transition often thought of this simply as economic institutions both national a problem of the speed of reform. A 1960 and local, inspired by a common faith Foreign Of½ce memorandum, for exam- in progress and Western values and ple, stated that the task in East Africa equipped with ef½cient techniques of was “to regulate the pace of political de- production and betterment.”8 The velopment so that it was fast enough to problem, at least at this stage of impe- satisfy the African desire for self-govern- rial stewardship, was not primarily bad ment but not so fast as to jeopardize eco- intentions. Rather, it was the paradox of nomic progress or the security situa- promoting democracy by ½at, which tion.”5 Actually, the problem is far more often required the adoption of politically complex than this. Temporarily putting expedient methods of rule that undercut on the brake, as in the Malayan example, the achievement of the ultimate objec- often involved ruling undemocratically tive of democratic consolidation. through traditional elites or minority ethnic groups in the classic strategy of Attempted democratic transitions are divide and rule. This was not simply a likely to turn violent and to stall short of matter of “freezing colonial societies.”6 democratic consolidation when they are Rather, this process actively created new undertaken in a society that lacks the divisions, altered the political meaning institutions needed to make democracy of traditional identities, and distributed work. Such societies face a gap between power in ways that would complicate rising demands for broad participation subsequent efforts to install a sense of in politics and inadequate institutions to national unity. manage those popular demands. All of Both in public and private, of½cials of this happens at a time when new institu- the Colonial Of½ce sounded well mean- tions of democratic accountability have ing: “the present time [1947] is one of not yet been constructed to replace the unprecedented vigour and imagination” old, divested institutions of imperial authority or traditional rule. 4 T. N. Harper, The End of Empire and the Mak- ing of Malaya (Cambridge: Cambridge Univer- In the absence of routine institutional sity Press, 1999), 378; for other points, see 58, authority, political leaders ½nd they need 75, 82–83. to rule through ideological or charismat- ic appeals. Rallying popular support by 5 Ronald Hyam, “Bureaucracy and ‘Trustee- invoking threats from rival nations or ship’ in Colonial Empire,” in Judith M. Brown and Wm. Roger Louis, eds., The Oxford History ethnic groups is an attractive expedient of the British Empire: The Twentieth Century, vol. 7 Speech by A. Hilton Poynton at the United 4 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999), 278, Nations, October 3, 1947, quoted in Hyam, quoting a Foreign Of½ce memorandum by Wil- “Bureaucracy and ‘Trusteeship’ in Colonial liam Gorell Barnes. Empire,” 277.

6 John W. Cell, “Colonial Rule,” in Brown and 8 Colonial Of½ce paper, quoted in Hyam, Louis, eds., The Oxford History of the British Em- “Bureaucracy and ‘Trusteeship’ in Colonial pire: The Twentieth Century. Empire,” 277.

60 Dædalus Spring 2005 for hard-pressed leaders who desperately egies that will prevent their fall, while Empire: need to shore up their legitimacy.9 The rising elites try to muscle in. Both sets a blunt tool for institutional weaknesses of early democ- of elites scramble for allies among the democra- ratization create both the motive to use newly aroused masses. tization this strategy of rule and the opportunity Nationalism–the doctrine that a dis- to dodge accountability for its costs. tinctive people deserve to rule them- A common side effect of state weak- selves in a state that protects and ad- ness during early democratization is a vances their distinctive cultural or politi- poorly de½ned sense of the nation. De- cal interests–often emerges as an appar- mocracy requires national self-determi- ently attractive solution to these political nation, but people in weak states who dilemmas. It helps rally mass support on are just emerging into political con- the basis of sentiment in lieu of institu- sciousness often lack a clear, agreed tional accountability, and helps de½ne answer to the question, who are we? the people who are exercising self-deter- Notwithstanding the typical view mination. It thus clari½es the lines be- among nationalists that the identity of tween the people and their external foes, nations is ½xed by immutable nature or who become available as scapegoats in a culture, it is normally the common ex- self-ful½lling strategy that rallies support perience of a people sharing a fate in a in protection against external threats. strong state that solidi½es and demar- Civil or international war may some- cates a sense of nationality. Even in times result from this potent political France, a country with a long and ven- brew as a direct result of nationalist po- erable history, it was only the late-nine- litical objectives, such as the aim of re- teenth-century experience of common gaining a lost piece of national territory. military service, national railways, stan- However, war may also be an indirect dardized education, and mass democra- result of the complex politics of transi- cy that completed the process of forging tional states. Political leaders may be- a culturally diverse peasantry into self- come trapped in reckless policies when conscious Frenchmen.10 In the absence uncompromising nationalism becomes of strong state institutions to knit to- the indispensable common denominator gether the nation, leaders must struggle that keeps their heterogeneous political for legitimacy in an ill-de½ned, contest- coalitions together. ed political arena. These problems are likely to face any In weakly institutionalized, newly society that tries to democratize before democratizing states, this contestation building the requisite institutions. This over national self-determination takes is no less the case when a democracy- place amid the shifting fortunes of elites promoting empire is overseeing the and mass groups. Elites left over from process. If the empire understands this the old regime look desperately for strat- problem, it may try to maintain its posi- tion of domination longer to buy time 9 Edward D. Mans½eld and Jack Snyder, Elect- ing to Fight: Why Emerging Democracies Go to War to put the needed institutions in place. (Cambridge, Mass.: mit Press, 2005); Snyder, When considerations of rising cost and From Voting to Violence: Democratization and waning legitimacy ½nally compel decol- Nationalist Conflict (New York: Norton, 2000). onization, the empire may attempt an awkward compromise between authori- 10 Eugene Weber, Peasants into Frenchmen (Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, tarian order keeping and democratic 1976). legitimacy, leaving in place a hybrid

Dædalus Spring 2005 61 Jack Snyder political system based on both tradition- Iraqi prime minister told a British diplo- on imperialism al and elected authority. This expedient mat that his government had “decided acknowledges the problem but does not to allow political parties in order that it necessarily solve it. should become clear how harmful they The chaotic democratic processes that are and their abolition be demanded.”14 followed Britain’s imperial departure Reflecting traditions of patronage poli- from Iraq provide a telling example of tics in a still largely rural society, local such dilemmas. notables dominated the parliament cho- sen in the election of 1946.15 Iraq in the 1920s and 1930s was a coun- Middle-class nationalists, though try undergoing the strains of socioeco- thinly represented in parliament, re- nomic modernization and decoloniza- mained loud voices in public debate. tion with no coherent identity, tradition, Important in government service, in the or political institutions.11 Under a Brit- military, in the economy, and potentially ish mandate, Iraq’s 1924 constitution in the streets, these educated urbanites divided powers between the king and an could not be ignored. To appease such indirectly elected parliament chosen by critics, Iraqi diplomats took the most universal manhood suffrage. After gain- radical stance on the Palestine issue at ing independence in 1932, Iraq suffered a the June 1946 meeting of the Arab series of tribal rebellions and leadership League, gratuitously calling for a boy- struggles. These culminated in a coup by cott of British and American trade that nationalist military of½cers, which trig- they knew the Saudis and Egyptians gered British reoccupation of the coun- would have to veto.16 try from 1941 to 1945.12 Such public relations tactics became Following World War II, the British increasingly entrenched in 1947, as the encouraged the regent Abd al-Ilah, who new Iraqi prime minister Salih Jabr was ruling on behalf of the young King groped to ½nd a rhetorical stance that Faysal II, to liberalize the regime to would reconcile Iraq’s diverse con- enhance its popular legitimacy in the stituencies to his weakly institutional- eyes of the alienated urban middle class. ized regime. Jabr faced a general eco- Press restrictions were removed, opposi- nomic crisis, severe food shortages, and tion parties were licensed, and electoral a shortfall of money for salaries of civil districts were redrawn to reflect popula- servants, a prime constituency for Arab tion shifts to urban areas. However, the nationalist groups.17 The regent and plan for political liberalization provoked the traditional ruling elites hoped that resistance from established elites.13 The 14 Elliot, “Independent Iraq,” 26. 11 Reeva Simon, Iraq Between the Two World Wars: The Creation and Implementation of a Na- 15 Marr, The Modern History of Iraq, 101; Mi- tionalist Ideology (New York: Columbia Univer- chael Eppel, The Palestine Conflict in the History sity Press, 1986), 3–4. of Modern Iraq (London: Frank Cass, 1994), 139.

12 Phebe Marr, The Modern History of Iraq 16 Bruce Maddy-Weitzman, The Crystallization (Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press, 1985), 55–93. of the Arab State System, 1945–1954 (Syracuse, N.Y.: Syracuse University Press, 1993), 36. 13 Ibid., 96–100; Matthew Elliot, “Independent Iraq”: The Monarchy and British Influence, 1941 17 Eppel, The Palestine Conflict in the History of –1958 (London: Tauris Academic Studies, Modern Iraq, 167; Marr, The Modern History of 1996), 25. Iraq, 103.

62 Dædalus Spring 2005 British economic and military aid would is not slow to challenge them to make Empire: help them weather the crisis and fend off good.”20 In a vicious cycle of outbid- a blunt tool for burgeoning urban radicalism. In pursuit ding, the regent, the parliamentary no- democra- of that strategy, Jabr hoped to renegoti- tables, and the socialist parties now all tization ate Iraq’s treaty with Britain in order to competed with the nationalist opposi- eliminate the embarrassing presence of tion to adopt the most militant position British air bases on Iraqi soil and to cre- on Palestine. Since Iraq was not a front- ate a ½rmer basis for economic and polit- line state, the costs of undermining the ical cooperation.18 chances of compromise in Palestine For the nationalists, however, even an were low compared to the domestic po- improved agreement with the former litical costs of being outbid on the Arab colonial overlord was anathema. Thus, nationalism issue. This rhetoric rever- to immunize himself from nationalist berated not just within Iraq, but also objections, Jabr relied on demagogy on throughout the Arab world. Jabr’s mili- the Palestine issue. In August of 1947, he tant stance on Palestine at the October broke precedent in calling for the use of and November 1947 meetings of the Ar- the regular armies of Arab states, not ab League helped to set off a spiral of just volunteers, to ½ght against the Jews increasingly vehement anti-Israeli rhet- in Palestine. Nonetheless, amid a wors- oric in other Arab states. In the echo ening of the economy and a shortfall of chamber of popular Arab politics, Iraq’s expected British aid, the strategy of na- incompletely democratized regime led tionalist demagogy on this issue failed to the way in adopting a demagogic strate- reconcile Iraqi nationalists to the renew- gy that increasingly tied the hands of less al of the treaty with Britain. The signing democratic Arab states that otherwise of the treaty in January of 1948 provoked might have been able to resist such pop- a wave of student strikes, demonstra- ular pressures.21 tions, and denunciations from political It would be an exaggeration to say parties, leading to Jabr’s replacement by that Britain’s inadequate effort to install a politician who was untainted by asso- partially democratic institutions in Iraq ciation with the treaty.19 was the sole cause of these outcomes; While Jabr’s rhetoric on Palestine politics in modernizing Iraq might have failed to achieve its intended conse- been fraught with turmoil under any sce- quences, its unintended consequences nario. Nonetheless, this serves as a cau- were profound. A British diplomat re- tionary tale, demonstrating how a de- ported that “the Iraqi Government is mocracy-promoting empire can unleash now to some extent the victim of their illiberal forces in societies with weak po- own brave words, which the opposition litical institutions.

20 Eppel, The Palestine Conflict in the History of 18 Eppel, The Palestine Conflict in the History of Modern Iraq, 169. Modern Iraq, 159, 162–163; Marr, The Modern History of Iraq, 101–102. 21 Ibid., 141–142, 158, 181, 193; Marr, The Mod- ern History of Iraq, 102; Maddy-Weitzman, The 19 Maddy-Weitzman, The Crystallization of the Crystallization of the Arab State System, 49. For Arab State System, 49; Eppel, The Palestine Con- a related argument, see Michael Barnett, Dia- flict in the History of Modern Iraq, 143, 164–166, logues in Arab Politics: Negotiations in Regional 174–175; Marr, The Modern History of Iraq, 101– Order (New York: Columbia University Press, 105. 1998), 87–91.

Dædalus Spring 2005 63 Jack Snyder ne of the most common charges laid universal-suffrage democracy that em- on O imperialism against the British Empire is that it un- powered the majority. The generation scrupulously played the game of divide of British-trained politicians that took and rule. In order to maintain its author- power immediately after independence ity over millions of colonial subjects kept up this balancing game for a time, with a minimum of expense and British but in the long run the system’s opposed manpower, the British built up elites of principles turned out to be incompati- local ethnic groups or tribes who served ble. In Malaysia, the problem was solved as Britain’s agents of indirect rule. The when the state curtailed the democratic British also armed local ethnic minori- process and civil rights in 1969; in Sri ties who kept order effectively at rock- Lanka, democracy spiraled into ever- bottom prices. Scholars have argued that worsening ethnic warfare. These exam- these tactics contributed to the politici- ples illustrate a widespread pattern in zation of ethnicity, which loaded the imperial attempts to democratize multi- dice in favor of bloody ethnic conflicts ethnic societies. once the empire retreated. Even when the British were trying to prepare a col- Democratic transitions are most suc- ony for peaceful, democratic self-gov- cessful and peaceful when undertaken in ernment, such tactics as institutional- a context of bureaucratic ef½ciency, rule ized power sharing or minority repre- of law, mature political parties, and es- sentation among ethnic groups tended tablished free press. One of the reasons to politicize earlier ethnic divisions. that India has remained a fairly stable These latent ½ssures tended to crack democracy is that all these elements open with the move to independence were put in place, largely as a result of and true universal-suffrage democracy. British efforts, before its independence India is often invoked as an example in 1947. However, to buy the time to ac- of the divisive legacy of British tactics complish this (both for Britain’s own of divide and rule, but it is by no means strategic reasons and arguably to prepare unique. In Ceylon (later Sri Lanka), for India better for the transition), the em- example, the British relied dispropor- pire needed to shore up local allies who tionately on English-speaking civil ser- supported the continuation of the colo- vants from Tamil and other minority nial regime. In India in the 1920s and groups. In Malaya, the British encour- 1930s, these included traditional Muslim aged immigration of Chinese and Indian elites who welcomed British rule as a workers to man the rubber plantations protection against the feared tyranny of and other enterprises needed to sustain the Hindu majority. (A consequence of the broader imperial economy and mili- this policy, many have argued, was the tary machine. These measures laid the bloody partition of the British Raj into groundwork in both of these colonies India and Pakistan in 1947, in which it for the envy of the rural ethnic majority has been estimated that nearly a million groups, the Sinhalese and Malays, that people died.22) To strengthen these al- sought af½rmative action and language- lies while gradually introducing demo- use privileges to correct perceived injus- cratic reforms in preparation for eventu- tices. The British dealt with these problems 22 Radha Kumar, “The Troubled History of by oscillating between power-sharing Partition,” Foreign Affairs 76 (1) (January/Feb- schemes that protected minorities and ruary 1997): 26.

64 Dædalus Spring 2005 al independence, the British established partition of the extensively intermingled Empire: a system of separate electorates and religious communities. a blunt tool for guaranteed numbers of seats in provin- On the one hand, the British legacy democra- cial parliaments for Muslims and Hin- of liberal institutions facilitated India’s tization dus. As the political system began to de- transition to a fairly stable democracy. mocratize, this system of ethnic repre- On the other hand, the legacy of insti- sentation helped to channel mass loyal- tutionalized ethnicity, an expedient to ties along ethnic lines.23 sustain British rule while awaiting the British policy promoted the politiciza- transfer of power to the local majority, tion of Muslim identity still further dur- increased the likelihood that cultural ing World War II. When Britain commit- cleavages would become the basis for ted India to the war effort against Ger- divisive politics in the transitional state. many without consultation, Congress Party members in the Indian govern- In Sri Lanka, the British fostered the ment resigned en masse. Congress lead- development of a small, English-educat- ers were jailed. The Muslim League, ed, cosmopolitan political and bureau- however, continued to see Britain as cratic elite who tended to favor the their protector against the Hindu major- inclusive civic identity of ‘Ceylonese,’ ity, and so supported the British war ef- based on loyalty to the governmental fort. Enjoying a clear ½eld for political system that Britain had established in organizing with no opposition from the the colony of Ceylon, rather than the Congress, the League emerged from the exclusive ethnic identities of Sinhalese war with a strengthened hold over the or Tamil.25 Because of the success of Muslim electorate. Christian missionary activities in the In the postwar 1946 elections, the Tamil-populated Jaffna region, Tamils League gained 76 percent of the Mus- constituted a disproportionate share lim vote through its irresistible call for of that elite. Fewer Sinhalese learned the creation of the state of Pakistan.24 English because the powerful Buddhist When in 1947 the League euphemistical- priesthood blocked British inroads in- ly called for “direct action” in the streets to the traditional monopoly of temple to press the Congress for concessions on schools over the education of lay chil- Muslim autonomy, the new electorate, dren.26 its loyalties channeled by the system of High-level British-trained native of½- representation separated by ethnicity, cials never sunk deep roots into local responded by rioting in Calcutta and in communities and thus failed to attract other major cities. Looking to extricate a popular following. During the 1920s, themselves through a policy that critics Ceylon’s main representative body, the have labeled ‘divide and quit,’ the British State Council, was elected under a pow- abandoned India to a chaotic, bloody er-sharing system that restricted suf- 23 Anita Inder Singh, The Origins of the Partition 25 K. N. O. Dharmadasa, Language, Religion, of India, 1936–1947 (Delhi: Oxford University and Ethnic Assertiveness: The Growth of Sinhalese Press, 1987), 237; Peter Hardy, The Muslims of Nationalism in Sri Lanka (Ann Arbor: University British India (Cambridge: Cambridge University of Michigan Press, 1992), 225–226, 254. Press, 1972), chap. 8; H. V. Hodson, The Great Divide (London: Hutchison, 1969), 14–15, 48. 26 Stanley Jeyaraja Tambiah, Sri Lanka: Ethnic Fratricide and the Dismantling of Democracy 24 Singh, The Origins of the Partition of India, (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1986), 243. 65–66, 79, 155.

Dædalus Spring 2005 65 Jack Snyder frage and reserved a proportion of the lar, cosmopolitan, Oxford-educated pol- on imperialism seats for Tamils. This system buffered itician such as Solomon Bandaranaike indigenous of½cials from full accounta- found it expedient to tap into this popu- bility to mass constituencies. In 1931, lar movement. Perceiving an opportuni- however, the British Donoughmore ty to gain power in the 1956 elections, Commission, in an attempt to prepare the Buddhist political organization of- Ceylon for independence and full de- fered to support Bandaranaike’s chal- mocracy, stripped away this buffer by lenge to the ruling United National Par- eliminating separate minority represen- ty, on the condition that he campaign tation and introducing universal suf- on the platform of making Sinhala the frage.27 of½cial state language. This marriage Despite growing populist ferment, the of convenience consolidated the ideo- old cosmopolitan elite managed to pre- logical shift of Ceylon’s Buddhist move- vail in elections to form the ½rst two ment from socialism to ethnonational- postindependence governments in 1947 ism. Through word of mouth, by playing and 1952. Soon, however, the Sinhalese a central role at local political meetings, rebellion against pro½ciency in the Eng- and by distributing election leaflets, lo- lish language as a requirement for gov- cal monks delivered ‘vote banks’ on be- ernment employment began to gather half of Bandaranaike and the ethnically force. Sinhalese teachers and Buddhist divisive language policy.29 monks also wanted to exclude Tamil as Although Bandaranaike owed his elec- an of½cial language, arguing that lan- toral victory to the support of militant guage parity would somehow allow the Buddhists, once in power he negotiated large Tamil population of South India to a pact with Tamil leaders to establish swamp Sinhalese culture. Radical monks Tamil as the language of administra- in the less wealthy temples resented the tion in Tamil-majority provinces in the influence of Western culture and admin- northeast of the country and to allow istrative practices, which deprived them local authorities to block Sinhalese im- of their traditional role as the link be- migration into their regions. These con- tween the state and the villages.28 These cessions triggered anti-Tamil rioting in monks experimented with socialist rhet- the capital city of Colombo. Bandara- oric in the late 1940s, but by the mid- naike gave up his plan to gain legislative 1950s they found that nationalist pop- approval of the pact, declared an emer- ulist themes were a more effective vehi- gency, and implemented the main fea- cle for expressing their demands. tures of the agreement by decree. Bud- Given the competitive incentives of dhists, claiming the pact would “lead to universal-suffrage elections, even a secu- the total annihilation of the Sinhalese race,” only intensi½ed their resistance.30 27 Urmila Phadnis, Religion and Politics in Sri Lanka (New Delhi: Manohar, 1976), 159; Chel- 29 Phadnis, Religion and Politics in Sri Lanka, vadurai Manogaran, Ethnic Conflict and Reconcil- 73–74, 160, 164–165, 183–187; Manor, “The iation in Sri Lanka (Honolulu: University of Ha- Failure of Political Integration in Sri Lanka waii Press, 1987), 8; James Manor, “The Failure (Ceylon),” 21–22; Dharmadasa, Language, Reli- of Political Integration in Sri Lanka (Ceylon),” gion, and Ethnic Assertiveness, 296–297, 300, 314. Journal of Commonwealth and Comparative Poli- tics 17 (1) (March 1979): 23. 30 Stanley Jeyaraja Tambiah, Buddhism Be- trayed?: Religion, Politics, and Violence in Sri 28 Tambiah, Sri Lanka, 8, 20; Phadnis, Religion Lanka (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, and Politics in Sri Lanka, 74. 1992), 50.

66 Dædalus Spring 2005 A monk assassinated Bandaranaike in Lanka. In many respects, the two started Empire: 1959. out on similar trajectories. In a process a blunt tool for From this point on, the pattern of elec- that closely resembled Sri Lanka’s tran- democra- toral outbidding among Sinhalese par- sition to independence, the British in tization ties was ½rmly established. Even Junius Malaysia brokered an agreement for a Jayawardene’s hitherto moderate Sin- democratic constitution, which was un- halese United National Party attacked derpinned by a power-sharing accord Bandaranaike’s power-sharing agree- between cosmopolitan, English-speak- ment with the Tamils. On several subse- ing elites from the Malayan and Chinese quent occasions, the Sinhalese party in communities. Having brought Chinese power sought an agreement with the and Indian immigrants to Malaya to sus- Tamil minority to achieve a majority tain the imperial economy, the British coalition in parliament, and the Sin- hoped that democratic power sharing halese opposition party responded with could overcome the political divisions demagogic attacks to wreck the agree- this had brought about. But that expec- ment. Revamping the electoral system in tation was too optimistic. As in Sri Lan- 1977 to reward candidates who appealed ka over the course of the ½rst decade across ethnic lines also failed to break after independence, the logic of mass the spiral of conflict.31 By that time, electoral competition began to under- groups had developed the habit of riot- mine the power-sharing accord, as na- ing in the streets against policies they tionalist parties in both major ethnic disliked, so conflict was fueled regard- groups began to draw votes away from less of electoral incentives. the centrist, cross-ethnic alliance. Inter- The legacy of British imperialism ethnic harmony was restored only after exacerbated the problems of the demo- democracy was truncated through a sus- cratic transition in Sri Lanka’s multieth- pension of the liberal constitution fol- nic society. In Sri Lanka as elsewhere, lowing the 1969 postelectoral riots.32 this legacy included the contradictory During the early years of the Cold elements of a divide-and-rule preference War, an armed rebellion mounted by the for ethnic minorities and the subsequent Chinese-dominated Malaysian Commu- move to universal-suffrage democracy. nist Party had left all Chinese politically In this setting, even the Donoughmore suspect. As a result, the Chinese business Commission’s well-intentioned plan elite faced dif½culties in organizing po- turned out to be fraught with unintend- litically on its own. Moreover, wealthy ed consequences. Chinese found that their interests often coincided more closely with those of Malaysia achieved independence Malayan bureaucratic elites than with from Britain in 1957, a decade after Sri those of working-class Chinese. As a result, the main Chinese party, the Ma- 31 Donald Horowitz, “Making Moderation laysian Chinese Association, combined Pay,” in Joseph Montville, ed., Conflict and Peacemaking in Multiethnic Societies (New York: with the Malayan elite party, the United Lexington Books, 1991), 463. On the more re- cent period, see Amita Shatri, “Government 32 Gordon P. Means, Malaysian Politics: The Sec- Policy and the Ethnic Crisis in Sri Lanka,” in ond Generation (Singapore: Oxford University Michael E. Brown and Sumit Ganguly, eds., Press, 1991), chap. 1; Muthiah Alagappa, “Con- Government Policies and Ethnic Relations in Asia testation and Crisis,” in Alagappa, ed., Political and the Paci½c (Cambridge, Mass.: mit Press, Legitimacy in Southeast Asia (Stanford, Calif.: 1997), 129–164. Stanford University Press, 1995), 63–64.

Dædalus Spring 2005 67 Jack Snyder Malays National Organization, to form a civic-territorial nationalism, not Ma- on 35 imperialism coalition, known as the Alliance, for the layan ethnic nationalism. purpose of contesting the Kuala Lumpur This reasonable-seeming formula be- city elections in 1952. The British rein- gan to wear thin, however, in the trou- forced this arrangement and made eth- bled economic context of 1969. Both the nic cooperation a precondition of even- Malays and the Chinese had grounds for tual independence.33 complaint against the elitist Alliance, The cross-ethnic coalition agreement whose supporters came disproportion- held ½rm for the ½rst two postindepen- ately from the upper-income groups of dence elections: In 1959, the Alliance both ethnicities. By 1969, Malays’ per won 52 percent of the vote in free and capita income remained less than half fair elections and, because of the magni- that of non-Malays. Opposition parties fying effects of single-member districts, catering to Malay constituencies be- 74 out of 104 seats in parliament. In 1964, lieved the solution should be a massive the Alliance bene½ted from the rallying program of employing Malays in new, effect induced by military threats from state-sector industries. Yet they saw that Indonesia and increased its margin of the Malay political power needed to ac- victory.34 complish this was receding, because the By 1969, however, the Alliance’s pow- Alliance’s liberal citizenship policies er-sharing formula was coming under were swelling the ranks of Chinese na- intense challenge by a second generation tionalist voters. “Racial harmony is only of political elites that was more ethnical- skin deep,” the manifesto of the Malay ly oriented and less cosmopolitan than opposition party concluded. “Ninety the founders of the independent Malay- percent of the nation’s wealth is still in sian state. The Alliance continued to the hands of non-Malays.”36 campaign on what in retrospect sounds At the same time, Chinese economic like an extraordinarily reasonable plat- grievances were rising. A devaluation of form: Alliance politicians offered pro- the British pound sterling harmed Chi- grams to rectify the economic disadvan- nese business interests. Because the Alli- tages of impoverished, poorly educated ance was hard-pressed by the Malay op- Malayans, and they justi½ed these pro- position in the hard-fought 1969 parlia- grams in terms of the need to develop mentary election campaign, it refused to agriculture, not of ethnic favoritism. compensate those who suffered ½nancial Malay was to become the sole of½cial losses as a result of the devaluation. This language, but other languages could be gave added ammunition to the Chinese used for of½cial business as needed. The opposition parties. In a perverse form Chinese would continue to bene½t from of interethnic elite collusion, the Malay a liberal policy on citizenship. The Al- nationalist and Chinese nationalist par- liance’s ideology was one of Malaysian ties had agreed not to divide the opposi- tion vote and so refrained from running 33 Stanley S. Bedlington, Malaysia and Singa- opposing candidates in districts where pore: The Building of New States (Ithaca, N.Y.: one of the two parties held the majority. Cornell University Press, 1978), 85–87. The Alliance had gained only 49 percent

34 Karl von Vorys, Democracy Without Consen- sus: Communalism and Political Stability in Ma- 35 Ibid., 268. laysia (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1975), 249, 297. 36 Ibid., 271.

68 Dædalus Spring 2005 of the popular vote, though it retained a ties had been co-opted into the ruling Empire: majority of the seats in parliament. De- Alliance, which now controlled 80 per- a blunt tool for spite this ‘victory,’ the Alliance govern- cent of the seats in parliament. Under democra- ment eventually succumbed to tactics of this system of sharp limitations on free tization ethnic polarization and suffered ultimate speech and truncated democratic rights, electoral defeat at the hands of the eth- Malaysia enjoyed three decades of extra- nic opposition parties. When riots broke ordinary economic growth without seri- out in Kuala Lumpur between Chinese ous ethnic violence, with the Alliance and Malays in the ethnically polarized unassailably in power.39 atmosphere after this tense election, the A key factor in this success was the government declared an emergency and power of Malaysian state administra- suspended the constitution. tors over society. British Malaya had be- The government then began to pursue queathed an effective central bureaucra- a two-pronged strategy of truncating cy, a powerful tool that Alliance politi- democracy while implementing a tech- cians could use to coerce or buy off op- nocratic policy designed to maximize ponents under the Second Malaysia economic growth and increase educa- Plan.40 The powers held by the state un- tional and employment opportunities der the revised 1971 constitution includ- for ethnic Malays. Heavy government ed the ability to distribute patronage to investments would modernize rural ar- cooperative opposition politicians, to eas where Malays were the majority. Ac- distribute central tax revenues to coop- cording to this formula, which was codi- erative localities, and to parcel out eco- ½ed in the Second Malaysia Plan of 1971, nomic development projects. The loyalty Chinese businesses could continue to and ef½ciency of the Malay-dominated enrich themselves, but national symbol- military and police immediately made it ism and government-backed af½rmative possible to repress rioting. Sarawak ran- action would strongly favor Malays. In- ger units, composed of Iban tribesmen flammatory ethnic appeals were made brought in from the Malaysian part of illegal. Political coalitions were arranged Borneo, proved equally ruthless in re- through backroom bargaining and pa- pressing unruly gangs.41 tronage deals rather than through open Finally, the state had strong powers to contestation.37 In the jargon of social bar ethnonationalist messages from the science, the Alliance instituted an “eth- nic control regime” based on a combina- 39 Bedlington, Malaysia and Singapore, 152; Wil- liam Case, “Malaysia: Aspects and Audiences of tion of repression and side payments to 38 Legitimacy,” in Alagappa, ed., Political Legitima- some of the losers. cy in Southeast Asia, 75–76, 79–80, 106; Sumit This strategy was so successful that by Ganguly, “Ethnic Politics and Political Quies- 1973 even the nationalist opposition par- cence in Malaysia and Singapore,” in Brown and Ganguly, eds., Government Policies and Ethnic Relations in Asia and the Paci½c, 233–272. 37 Ibid., 394–412; Means, Malaysian Politics, 439; Bedlington, Malaysia and Singapore, 116. 40 Milton Esman, Administration and Develop- ment in Malaysia: Institution Building and Reform 38 D. Rumley, “Political Geography of Control in a Plural Society (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell Univer- of Minorities,” Tijdschrift voor Economische in sity Press, 1972). Sociale Geographie 84 (1) (1993); Ian Lustick, “Stability in Deeply Divided Societies: Consoci- 41 Bedlington, Malaysia and Singapore, 166– ationalism Versus Control,” World Politics 31 (3) 167; von Vorys, Democracy Without Consensus, (April 1979): 325–344. 348.

Dædalus Spring 2005 69 Jack Snyder media. A 1971 constitutional amendment a higher risk of civil or international war. on imperialism made it a crime even for legislators to Nonetheless, when a democratic power discuss ethnically sensitive questions militarily occupies a country, it is likely about Malay language dominance, citi- to promote democracy there as part of zenship, or the constitutionally mandat- its strategy of withdrawal. This prefer- ed special rights of Malays as the coun- ence reflects the democratic power’s try’s indigenous group. Ownership and self-image and values, its expectation staff of the mass media were ‘Malaysian- that democratization will create a coop- ized’ in the 1970s. This assertion of state erative partner after the withdrawal, and authority over the press was legitimized its desire to legitimate the military inter- in part by a policy begun under the Brit- vention as consistent with the target ish, who had required newspapers to ap- state’s presumed right to national self- ply for annual licenses and had threat- determination. ened seditious newspapers with closure. Normally, the imperial state seeks to Even as recently as 1987, the main Chi- organize the basic institutional precon- nese newspaper was closed down for a ditions for democracy before handing year after it protested the policy of hav- power back to the occupied nation. ing Malay principals administer Chinese However, while this effort is being un- schools.42 dertaken, the empire usually must gov- The paired cases of Sri Lanka and Ma- ern through local elites whose legitima- laysia show that democratization risks cy or political support is typically based the exacerbation of ethnic tensions, es- on traditional authority or ethnic sectar- pecially when imperial policies have fos- ianism. tered envy and promoted politicization Unfortunately, such short-run expedi- along ethnic lines. Ironically, some of ents may hinder the long-run transition the measures that became ethnically to democracy by increasing ethnic polar- divisive were originally adopted as expe- ization. Even if the empire does not take dients to sustain imperial rule while try- active steps to politicize ethnicity, the ing to prepare the ground for democracy. mere act of unleashing premature de- Whereas British-style institutions of rep- mands for mass political participation resentative democracy were a dubious before democratic institutions are ready blessing in both cases, the most valuable will increase the risk of a polarized, vio- legacy of empire in Malaysia turned out lent, unsuccessful transition. British to be an effective administrative appa- imperialists fell prey to these dilemmas ratus capable of managing ethnic divi- between the 1920s and 1960s, notwith- sions while overseeing coherent eco- standing their frequently benign inten- nomic policies that bene½ted all groups. tions. The United States risks falling into the same trap as it tries to promote de- In countries with weak political institu- mocracy in the wake of military inter- tions the transition to democracy carries ventions. Elections under the U.S. occupation of 42 Means, Malaysian Politics, 137–140; Bedling- Iraq in January of 2005 reflected the typ- ton, Malaysia and Singapore, 150; Jon Vanden ical pattern of ethnic and religious polar- Heuvel, The Unfolding Lotus: East Asia’s Changing ization in culturally divided societies Media (New York: Columbia University, Free- that attempt democracy before coherent dom Forum Media Studies Center, 1993), 146– 162; von Vorys, Democracy Without Consensus, state institutions have been constructed. 429. The United States was not consciously

70 Dædalus Spring 2005 playing the game of divide and rule, but Empire: the elections it sponsored inadvertently a blunt tool for complicated efforts to overcome divi- democra- sions among Kurds, Shia Arabs, and tization Sunni Arabs. With the Sunni refraining from voting out of fear or protest, and the Kurds and Shia voting strictly along group lines, the assembly elected to write the country’s constitution turned out to be less comprehensive in its repre- sentation and more culturally polarized than a nondemocratic process would have devised. After the elections, Sunni insurgents increasingly directed their attacks against Shia civilian targets rath- er than only against U.S. and Iraqi gov- ernment targets. If the United States continues to try to impose democracy on ill-prepared societies, it can expect more uphill struggles such as this one.

Dædalus Spring 2005 71 Robin Blackburn

Emancipation & empire, from Cromwell to Karl Rove

‘Empire’ only became a dirty word in virtue of this form of government, even the twentieth century. Prior to this, edu- as they worried about the danger that cated Europeans and North Americans a republican empire could be under- believed that while there were certainly mined by its own successes and cap- bad empires (usually Eastern and des- size (as Rome did) into militarism and potic in character), there were also good monarchy. empires–notably that of Rome, the cra- Under the circumstances, it is not so dle of Christian civilization and a model surprising that the idea that there might for enlightened later monarchies and re- be something wrong with empire caught publics. The Catholic Church always had on very slowly–a process worth review- an af½nity with empire and saw even the ing in more detail. heathen variety as providential if there was any chance of converting the ruler, The triple success of colonial rebels in as had happened with such prodigious the Americas (of the North American consequences with Constantine in revolutionaries in 1776–1783, the Haitian fourth-century Rome. Charlemagne, revolutionaries in 1791–1804, and the Frederic II, Charles V, Philip II, Louis Spanish American revolutionaries in XIV, Napoleon–all dreamt of reestab- 1810–1825) should have impressed on lishing the universal empire. Republi- all thoughtful observers the vanity of cans, too, admired the emancipatory empire, and for a time it did play a part vigor of the Roman Republic, seeing its in discouraging overseas expansion. The imperial reach as proof of the special terms Jefferson used in 1811 to denounce European imperialism also stressed its absurdity: Robin Blackburn is Visiting Distinguished Profes- sor at the Graduate Faculty of the New School What in short is the whole system of University and professor of sociology at the Uni- Europe towards America? One hemi- versity of Essex. He is the author of “The Over- sphere of the earth, separated from the throw of Colonial Slavery, 1776–1848” (1988) other by wide seas on both sides, having a and “The Making of New World Slavery: From different system of interests flowing from the Baroque to the Modern, 1492–1800” (1997). different climates, different soils, different productions, different modes of existence © 2005 by the American Academy of Arts and its own local relations and duties, is & Sciences made subservient to all the petty interests

72 Dædalus Spring 2005 of the other, to their laws, their regula- The victory of the North in the Civil Emancipation & empire, tions, their passions and wars. War was a striking victory for republican from empire, just as the defeat of the Confed- Cromwell to The implications were ironic, however. eracy was a defeat for the right of self- Karl Rove For Jefferson’s anathema left open a path determination. The slave emancipation for the United States to further extend policy lent a needed idealistic dimension its own institutions in its own continent. to the Union cause. Elsewhere in the For much of the U.S. Republic’s ½rst Americas, attempts were made to con- one hundred and forty years, its leading struct monarchical empires–in Mexico statesmen would ½nd it natural to talk of (Iturbide, 1823–1824; Maximilian, 1863 an American empire–an ‘empire of lib- –1865), Haiti (Dessalines, 1804–1806; erty,’ as it was sometimes called–and to Soulouque, 1849–1859), and Brazil (Pe- see no tension between this and the rev- dro I and II, 1821–1889). With the ex- olutionary tradition of 1776. This was ception of the Brazilian Empire, which good republican empire, not bad monar- boasted many ‘liberal’ and parliamen- chical empire. John Quincy Adams and tary features, these attempts foundered Martin Van Buren opposed the unfold- quite quickly. The imperial idea fared ing of empire and the wars and displace- better in the Old World: Napoleon III ments it involved, but this stance led helped to unify Italy and was himself de- them to defeat or isolation. The removal feated by the formidable new German of Indians and the acquisition of territo- Empire. Russia consolidated a transcon- ry were justi½ed in the name of a ‘mani- tinental empire even larger than that of fest destiny’ that would spread good or- the U.S. Republic. der and good husbandry, prosperity and Following the Berlin Africa Confer- republican institutions. ence of 1884–1885, the European Great Thus domestic disorder in Mexico in Powers carved up what was left of Africa the 1840s was seen as a suf½cient threat and Asia. This was empire not simply as to warrant a wholesale military invasion a monarchical style, but as a program of and the seizure of extensive territory. overseas territorial expansion and rule. Though the actions of statesmen–espe- The Europeans claimed they were ac- cially the Louisiana Purchase and the quiring colonies in order to stamp out Mexican War–were decisively impor- the slave trade, to improve the condition tant to U.S. expansion in the nineteenth of women, and to extend the bene½ts of century, these could only be effective be- free trade and civilization. The repub- cause they expressed the dynamic of a lics of Central and South America were whole social formation, with its increas- spared outright colonization, but were ingly commercial farming and new man- still the objects of debt-collecting gun- ufacturing, its canals and railways, its boat diplomacy. The United States had slave plantations, and its celebration of not claimed any prizes in the scramble liberty and race. When Spain and France for Africa–though it did support the acquired Louisiana by treaty, each could Belgian king’s claim to the Congo, citing make nothing of it. Within a few de- his supposed abolitionist credentials.1 cades of its acquisition by the United States it comprised eleven flourishing Notwithstanding the antislavery claims states. Empire was felt to be a projection made by the European imperialists, the of the republic’s native virtues and, like 1 Adam Hochschild, King Leopold’s Ghost: A Sto- the republic’s, was rooted in revolution. ry of Greed, Terror, and Heroism in Colonial Africa (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Co., 1999).

Dædalus Spring 2005 73 Robin spread of European rule in Africa in the terms of the Platt Amendment, to lease Blackburn on late nineteenth century led to a horren- back Guantánamo and to accept a con- imperialism dous expansion of slavery and forced stitutional clause allowing for U.S. inter- labor in the newly acquired territories as vention if Washington deemed good the new rulers and their favored enter- order or U.S. property to be at risk. The prises recruited labor for public works, nominal independence given to Cuba plantations, and mines. While cynicism, stemmed from the fact that the United racism, and cruelty contributed to this States had supposedly gone to war to result, it was also brought on by colonial help the plucky Cubans in their valiant entrepreneurs whose efforts to recruit struggle to free their country. There was, paid labor attracted little response. The indeed, some danger that the Cubans Atlantic slave trade had created large- might revolt once again if denied the scale slave raiding and trading complex- form of independence. Washington was es. With its end, large numbers of slaves also aware that the government and peo- were available on the African market at ple of the war-devastated island would low prices. be more likely to be accommodating if Still, attitudes toward empire were treated with a little respect. changing. The implicitly positive charge However, in the case of the Philip- of the term was challenged around the pines and Puerto Rico, the openly impe- turn of the century by three spectacles rial reflex triumphed, because President of colonial bloodletting: in 1895–1898, McKinley and Vice President Theodore Spain sought to suppress a Cuban rebel- Roosevelt believed that the United States lion; in 1899–1902, Britain put down the could not stand aside from the global Boer republics in South Africa; and in scramble for territory and coaling sta- 1901–1904, the United States stamped tions. Unlike Jefferson and Jackson, Mc- out Filipino resistance to colonization. Kinley proposed overseas, not continen- This moment witnessed the rise of an tal, acquisition: it was America’s sacred anti-imperial movement in the United duty to rule over its ‘little brown broth- States that attracted such illustrious er.’ The president famously claimed to a supporters as Henry Adams and Mark visiting delegation of Protestant pastors Twain. In Britain there was radical and that he had gone down on his knees to liberal opposition to the groundswell of the Almighty in his perplexity as to what imperial jingoism. J. A. Hobson’s Imperi- to do–and then it came to him that the alism elaborated a thoroughgoing cri- Philippines should not be given back to tique of the new imperialism. Spain, nor turned over to Germany or But in neither the United States nor France, “our commercial rivals,” but the United Kingdom did the anti-impe- should rather be taken into American rial movement prevail: The British im- custody to “uplift and civilize and Chris- posed their rule on the Boers. Washing- tianize” its inhabitants.2 ton clung on to the Philippines and Puer- The sanctimonious rhetoric of impe- to Rico, extended its grip on Hawaii, es- rial statesmen was belied by the results tablished naval stations in the Paci½c of the new colonialism that included a and Caribbean, and schemed to promote huge loss of life among native peoples, as a canal in the Isthmus of Panama. The well as wholesale plunder and great cru- U.S. military occupation of Cuba ended 2 Leon Wolff, Little Brown Brother: How the Unit- in 1902 with the establishment of a Cu- ed States Purchased and Paci½ed the Philippines ban republic, which was obliged, by the (New York: Oxford University Press, 1992).

74 Dædalus Spring 2005 elty. Whether monarchical or republi- ers. In 1750, India produced 24.5 percent Emancipation & empire, can, liberal or conservative, parliamen- of global manufactures; by 1900 this from tary or presidential, the new imperialism number had sunk to 1.7 percent.4 Cromwell to was based on racial oppression and eco- The famines that brought many mil- Karl Rove nomic exploitation. In this species of lions of deaths to India in 1876–1878 imperialism, the ownership of railways, and 1896–1897 were not widely reported loans, plantations, and mines were just in Europe, where they were seen as un- as important as the control of territory, avoidable natural disasters. But while harbors, and coaling stations. Indeed, Britain was not responsible for the J. A. Hobson de½ned the new imperial- drought cycle, it was responsible for the ism by its mobilization of extra-econom- agricultural and commercial policies ic means to gain complex economic ends that aggravated the impact of the dearth. – its willingness to use gunboats or gar- Native irrigation systems were neglect- risons to secure supplies of tropical pro- ed, and, in deference to laissez-faire doc- duce and scarce mineral deposits, to trines, huge quantities of wheat were control overseas markets, and to guaran- sold for export to Britain. Some U.S. ob- tee the most secure investment condi- servers blamed these devastating events tions for the export of capital. It was this, on British arrogance, thirst for revenue, rather than the seizure of territory, that and lack of concern for native peoples. de½ned the new capitalist imperialism.3 The Indian elite, upon whom British The British Empire drew great pro½t rule depended, protested the destruction from plantations in the Americas, Afri- of native manufacturing and the flaunt- ca, and the Far East; it balanced its inter- ing of racial privilege. When the Indian national trade thanks to its grip on In- National Congress called for a boycott dia; and it staked out strategic claims of British manufactures in 1905–1906, to oil in the Middle East. The British it was speaking for an anticolonial move- built railways and harbors but their aim ment that was well organized, respect- was to facilitate the movement of grain able, popular, and modern, at a time and troops. While the troops were to when the Raj, under Lord Curzon, was deter native unrest, the grain was to mounting such pseudo-feudal displays of move to where it could be sold. In Ire- vice-regal splendor as the Delhi Durbar. land and India, even in times of dearth, During the same period, reports of huge quantities of grain were sold to pitiless repression and concentration the metropolis, and thus were not avail- camps in Spanish Cuba, British South able to feed the starving subjects of the Africa, and the U.S.-occupied Philip- Queen-Empress. Indian textiles enjoyed pines in the years 1897–1903 showed global primacy when the British arrived, that armies supposedly answerable to but the commercial arrangements of the Raj rendered the entire subcontinent a 4 See Mike Davis, Late Victorian Holocausts: El Niño Famines and the Making of the Third World captive market for English manufactur- (London: Verso, 2001), especially 279–340; Eric Hobsbawm, Industry and Empire (London: 3 J. A. Hobson, Imperialism (Ann Arbor: Uni- Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1968); S. B. Saul, Stud- versity of Michigan Press, 1965), 71–109. Hob- ies in British Overseas Trade, 1870– 1914 (Liver- son’s sharp attention to the “economic taproot pool: Liverpool University Press, 1960); B. R. of imperialism” is complemented by a vigorous Tomlinson, “Economics: The Periphery,” in discussion of the “moral and sentimental fac- Andrew Porter, ed., The Oxford History of the tors” mobilized by imperialist policy. See Ibid., British Empire (Oxford: Oxford University 196–222. Press, 1990).

Dædalus Spring 2005 75 Robin presidents and parliaments could act lies, he declared in early 1918 that the Blackburn on with great brutality. Imperial rivalries United States was aiming for a peace imperialism made it dif½cult to conceal news of that would embody the self-determina- atrocities. In the 1900s, the revelation tion of peoples. of the terrible consequences of King Wilson’s brandishing of the right of Leopold’s rule in the Congo, and of the peoples to self-determination reflected extermination of indigenous peoples an understanding of the power of na- by German forces in southwest Africa, tionalism and aimed to head off any made a mockery of the claims of the revolutionary appropriation of the anti- powers that had met in Berlin two de- imperial cause. As a Southerner, Wilson cades earlier. Indeed anyone who cared was keenly aware of the bitterness and to look into the matter would discover resentment that could be provoked by that, since empire was everywhere alien occupation. He also sensed that plagued by a lack of legitimacy, colonial the United States had no need of a terri- authorities would typically resort to na- torial empire–a conclusion also belated- ked violence when challenged. But in ly reached by Theodore Roosevelt. The these cases the victims were ‘colored’ U.S. president was able to wield great and seen as savages or heathens of the leverage in 1918–1920 because of the ut- ‘lower races.’ ter exhaustion of Europe and the boom- The Great War of 1914–1918 was dif- ing state of the U.S. economy. In the dif- ferent. It showed that the rival empires ½cult year or two following the end of were also prepared to slaughter white the war, the United States denied succor Christians, and to do so on an industrial to those states that were reluctant to fall scale. into line with its plans. Béla Kun’s revo- lutionary government in Hungary was The carnage of World War I discredited brought down by a food blockade and a the new imperialism in the eyes of many Western-backed Romanian military in- citizens of the belligerent states. It was tervention. Herbert Hoover, the ‘Food also marked by nationalist stirrings in Tsar,’ saw it as his duty to prevent radical the colonial empires. In Russia, the Bol- socialists from gaining strength in the sheviks sought to make themselves the German Revolution and to offer support standard-bearers of the anti-imperial only to moderates, even though they had idea. They gained power in 1917 by in- earlier backed the war. Arno Mayer has sisting that Russia would withdraw from shown that the arbitrating role of the the war, and they kept their promise. Le- United States in 1918–1919 stemmed not on Trotsky, the ½rst commissar for for- only from General Pershing’s divisions, eign affairs, published the secret treaties but also from the U.S. ability to orches- between France, Britain, and Russia that trate a blockade of Central Europe that outlined their aim to dismember the threatened millions with starvation.6 Hapsburg and Ottoman Empires.5 Presi- But Wilson’s hope that the United dent Wilson, notwithstanding his will- States would continue to exercise world ingness to enter the conflict in alliance leadership was not shared by Congress, with the Entente Powers, saw the need which declined to ratify the League of to rede½ne the aims of the war. To the 6 Arno Mayer, The Politics and Diplomacy of considerable discomfort of his new al- Peacemaking: Containment and Counterrevolution 5 Isaac Deutscher, The Prophet Armed: Trotsky, at Versailles, 1918–1919 (New York: Knopf, 1967), 1879–1921 (London: Verso, 2003). 3–30, 266–273, 510–514, 716–852.

76 Dædalus Spring 2005 Nations. The Treaty of Versailles dis- a crudely colonialist Anglo-French pow- Emancipation & empire, membered the German and Ottoman er play at Suez in 1956, it often contrived from Empires, chiefly to the advantage of to integrate strategic assets that had pre- Cromwell to Britain and France, though in deference viously been exploited by the former co- Karl Rove to Wilsonian rhetoric the latter acquired lonial powers. ‘trusteeships,’ not colonies. The collapse of the Soviet Union in Wilson had sent a punitive expedition 1989–1991 boosted U.S. global power to to Mexico in 1913, and his immediate new heights, prompting a rede½nition successors routinely ordered U.S. Ma- and extension of the United States’ in- rines to occupy any Caribbean or Central formal empire. If the Soviet Bloc had American state whose government was crumbled almost bloodlessly, then it deemed to be slacking in its duties to might have seemed rational to rely on U.S. companies or creditors. Franklin the existing apparatus of sanctions and Roosevelt believed there were better and incentives, and the new alliance with more effective ways to promote U.S. in- Russia, against lesser threats. But the terests. When the military strongman opportunity to act with less constraint Fulgencio Batista put an end to Cuban could not be resisted. Both the elder revolutionary turmoil in 1933–1934, the Bush and Bill Clinton advanced the idea U.S. government formally revoked the of a new world order led by the United Platt Amendment while retaining the States and structured by an expansion of lease on Guantánamo. World War II and the old system of alliances–in particu- the Cold War were to consolidate the lar, a nato that spread eastward, sur- emergence of a de facto U.S. global em- rounding Russia. The new nato, spurn- pire based on ½nancial and military ing help that Russia and the Organiza- power rather than territorial conquest. tion for Security and Cooperation in The expansion of Japan had swept West- Europe would willingly have furnished, ern colonialism out of Southeast Asia, its took unilateral action against Serbia and defeat opening the path for indigenous was prepared to act out of theater.7 Ac- nationalism. But Washington had the re- cording to Clinton’s secretary of state sources to bid for leadership of the mul- Madeleine Albright, the United States tiplying ranks of the United Nations. was the “essential nation” because only The U.S. sway over the greater part of it possessed decisive military might. the world’s peoples was embodied in the Those wishing to impress by their special role of the dollar, the structures realism already spoke of a U.S. empire. of the imf and World Bank, the power But it was George W. Bush and his re- to open or deny access to the U.S. do- sponse to the 9/11 attack that gave the mestic market, the power of Wall Street term ‘empire’ wide currency through the and Hollywood, and, last but not least, writings of Max Boot, Niall Ferguson, the global network of alliances and mili- and Michael Ignatieff, who all supported tary bases. From fdr onward, U.S. pres- the second Iraq war. Capitalizing on the idents once again took to decrying terri- global wave of sympathy elicited by 9/11, torial colonialism and to proclaiming a Wilsonian faith in national self-deter- 7 I explain my reasons for believing this, based mination. But the bases and alliances in part on observations made by Gorbachev during a visit to Cambridge, England, in March meant that there was still a territorial of 1999, in Robin Blackburn, “Kosovo: The War dimension to U.S. global ascendancy. of nato Expansion,” New Left Review, series 1, While the United States refused to back no. 235 (May/June 1999): 107–123.

Dædalus Spring 2005 77 Robin the United States acted with needless lead to a revisionism that forgets why Blackburn on unilateralism, ½rst in Afghanistan, and colonialism was discredited in the ½rst imperialism then by seeking long-term advantage by place. Niall Ferguson made himself an establishing new bases in Central Asia. outstanding exponent of this revision- The invasion of Iraq in 2003 was a more ism with the publication of Empire: How brazen act of empire, responding to no Britain Made the Modern World in 2003 direct aggression or threat. Washington and Colossus: The Price of America’s Em- rubbed salt in the wound by ½rst solicit- pire in 2004. ing un help and then flouting a Security Ferguson is to be commended for Council veto. calling empire by its name, and for not The new imperialists held that the un shrinking from spelling out its logical Charter doctrine that one member state corollaries. His message is that Britain had no right to attack another was obso- did much to invent capitalism and, with lete and dangerous in a world menaced it, the most valuable ideas and institu- by rogue states, failed states, terrorist tions of the modern world–the English networks, and proliferating weapons of language, private property, the rule of mass destruction. A global gendarme, law, parliamentary institutions, individ- equipped with the power to intervene ual freedom, and Protestant Christianity. preemptively, was needed. Only the This British self-regard easily segues in- United States could play this role, and it to endorsement for American national could not allow others to determine its messianism, with the Anglo-American actions. Washington’s willingness to imperial formula (handily termed ‘An- overthrow governments and establish globalization’) offering the colonized occupation authorities was saluted by the best hope of capitalist success. As a some as the unveiling of a new empire. historian of the English-speaking peo- However, most of those who endorsed ples, Ferguson seeks to rescue Winston the Iraq war still shrank, as did the ad- Churchill’s narrative from its contempo- ministration itself, from using the e rary fate–that of being entombed in word: ‘Empire’ was not a term that countless forbidding leather-bound vol- George W. Bush or Colin Powell wanted umes. He offers a pacier narrative, gar- to use, for reasons I will explore later. nished with excellent quotes from the great man and many shafts of his own The recent turn to overt empire talk droll wit (his one-liners are too reliant stems as much from frustration at the on puns to be fully Churchillian). state of the planet as it does from the un- Still, Ferguson’s subtitle to Empire– precedented power of the United States. “How Britain Made the Modern World” The misery of Africa and the dismal con- –should have given him some pause, dition of the Middle East and of parts of considering the sad state of our world. South Asia and Latin America generate Many of the most intractable and bloody frustration and despair among bien- communal divisions we live with today pensant observers of every description. were fostered, if not invented, by Brit- Neocon advocates of the big stick ac- ain’s imperial policy of divide and rule. quire liberal allies who also believe that Any list of the world’s most dangerous the answer is for the world’s most pow- and dif½cult communal conflicts would erful state to lead and to take matters in- include the standoff between Pakistan to its own hands. The often deeply dis- and India and the Arab/Israeli clash. The appointing results of decolonization partition of Cyprus, the still unresolved

78 Dædalus Spring 2005 conflict in Northern Ireland, and the nation and neglect. Ferguson cites the Emancipation & empire, deep racial tensions in Guyana and Fiji disappointing performance of most ex- from would also ½gure in such a list. In the colonies as part of his case for empire, Cromwell to postapartheid era, the racial legacy of when it would be more logical to con- Karl Rove empire and colonization is being grad- clude that the empires did not, in fact, ually dismantled in South Africa, but really equip the colonized with survival problems remain in many other parts skills. The poor record of Britain’s for- of Africa. mer African colonies leads him to plead Ferguson urges that ethnic sentiment that “even the best institutions work less and division long preceded colonization. well in landlocked, excessively hot or He rightly observes that expatriate colo- disease-ridden places.”8 He concedes nizers were often the driving force be- that, at 0.12 percent, India’s overall an- hind injurious racial privileges and dis- nual rate of growth between 1820 and tinctions. Yet liberal imperial strategists 1950 was pitifully low, but he won’t hold from Locke to Gladstone went along sel½sh imperial arrangements responsi- with colonial racism because that is ble because “[t]he supposed ‘drain’ of what empire was based on. Nor does capital from India to Britain turns out Ferguson register the fondness of impe- to have been surprisingly modest: only rial administrators for cultivating the 1 percent of Indian national income be- so-called martial races at the expense of tween the 1860s and the 1930s, according other colonial subjects; or the deliberate to one estimate of the export surplus.”9 fostering of poisonous divisions–be- But obviously a country growing at only tween Muslims and Hindus in India, 0.12 percent a year would have had many Jews and Arabs in Palestine, Turks and good uses for that lost 1 percent of na- Greeks in Cyprus, Protestants and Cath- tional income. Ferguson himself points olics in Ireland, Indians and natives in out that in 1913, Britain’s school enroll- Fiji, blacks and (east) Indians in British ment rate was eight times that of India’s. Guyana. The communal fault lines were Empires did not invent the uneven not always of the imperial administra- development of capitalism, but, having tors’ making, but those administrators inherited or established a hierarchical nevertheless have much to answer for– structure of advantage, they reinforced after all, they were in charge. (Likewise, it. For example, plantation slavery cer- today’s neo-imperialists are partly re- tainly brought great wealth to some in sponsible for aggravating communal the plantation colonies and states. But divisions in the Balkans and Iraq.) it did not generate sustained and inde- Today the division of the world be- pendent growth in the plantation zone, tween rich and poor regions roughly fol- as the postemancipation experience of lows the former division between impe- the U.S. South, the Caribbean, and the rial and colonized areas, even though it Brazilian northeast testify. Empires has sometimes been partially counter- tended to encourage only those infra- acted or quali½ed by resistance to em- structure improvements that facilitated pire, or by prior institutional or natural the movement of troops and the export endowments. The colonial experience weakened the ability of the colonized to 8 Niall Ferguson, Colossus: The Price of Ameri- ca’s Empire (New York: Penguin Press, 2004), negotiate an advantageous relationship 197. to the emerging capitalist world market and often condemned them to subordi- 9 Ibid., 195.

Dædalus Spring 2005 79 Robin of commodities. In the process that Da- to the miners. It was this ingenious sys- Blackburn on vis calls “the origins of the third world,” tem, not looting, that sustained a highly imperialism Western incursions into China from the productive network of exploitation for Opium War onward weakened the Qing nearly three centuries. This is just one authorities and prevented them from example of the productive organization maintaining the country’s vital system promoted by Iberian imperialism that of hydraulic defenses. With its customs explains why the Mexican and Peruvian service run by a consortium of foreign elite were so reluctant to break with em- powers, China suffered a deindustri- pire. But with Spanish American inde- alization almost as severe as that of pendence, all such coordination ceased, India.10 and entry into Britain’s informal empire At the same time, Ferguson’s neoliber- of free trade led to economic stagnation al agenda and British focus lead him to or regression. miss the way that non-Anglo-Saxon em- Empires could promote a limited and pires promoted economic integration usually self-interested species of colonial and coordination by nonmarket means. development. Often, as today, the impe- In an off-the-cuff remark explaining rial impulse stemmed from overweening “why it was that Britain was able to con½dence and a missionary impulse as overhaul her Iberian rivals,” he fails to much as from a sober calculation of ma- explain the source of Spanish wealth, terial gain. When empires spread, they but says that Britain “had to settle for did so partly because they could, partly colonizing the unpromising wastes of because they engaged in a rivalrous mul- Virginia and New England, rather than tistate system, and partly because, in the eminently lootable cities of Mexico metropolitan regions where capitalism and Peru.”11 Both the Spanish and the was taking hold, consumers wanted co- British certainly looted American silver lonial products. Starting with the Por- and gold. But Ferguson does not explain tuguese, the European maritime empires how this Spanish, rival species of empire entered the lists partly because they saw worked, and seems to regard it as eco- an advantage they did not want to yield nomically less impressive than the re- to others, and partly because those new- cord of British settlement. Spanish ad- ly in receipt of rents, fees, pro½ts, and ministrators were, in fact, innovators wages had a thirst for exotic commodi- who mainly relied on wage labor to mine ties. and process the silver ore. In place of But there was still another more simple ‘looting’ they adopted a tribute paradoxical and perplexing factor. This system, echoing Inca and Aztec arrange- was the role that revolutionary changes ments that required the native villages to within the metropolitan societies played supply either labor or foodstuffs and tex- in boosting the impulse to empire. Since tiles to the royal warehouses. The king Ferguson does not much address the claimed a royalty of a ½fth of the silver connection between the domestic and mined. But he garnered much more by overseas articulation of power, it will be selling mining concessions and the trib- necessary to pursue the argument with- ute food and clothing in his warehouses out his help. 10 Davis, Late Victorian Holocausts, 279–310. There have been at once real and fan- 11 Niall Ferguson, Empire: How Britain Made the tastic connections between empire and Modern World (London: Allen Lane, 2003), 369. revolution. The real connection is that

80 Dædalus Spring 2005 societies that had been internally trans- The rise of the absolutist states had Emancipation & empire, formed by revolution thereby acquired been based on the defeat of rebellious from social capacities that made economic, peasants and independent towns, on a Cromwell to cultural, and territorial expansion possi- military and administrative revolution, Karl Rove ble. But the fantastic connection was just and on the raising of suf½cient revenue as important, in that a deluded revolu- and credit to pay for this. Absolutist tionary conceit dreamt that empire monarchs embodied an administrative might elevate and redeem otherwise transformation and sociopolitical for- benighted, recalcitrant native peoples. mula that easily carried over into em- Such notions as the elect nation, the pire.14 Despite setbacks and reversals, New Zion, and the republic ‘one and in- England’s Tudors and Stuarts emulated divisible,’ prepared the ground for the enough of this to make a contribution to ‘Anglo-Saxon race,’ jingoism, and chau- the imperial organization of the British vinism. state. When clerics beholden to Henry In areas where the native peoples VIII ½rst spoke of a ‘British Empire,’ the were largely wiped out by settlers and term certainly gestured at a wish to rule disease, as in North America and Aus- the whole of the British Isles. But the tralia, something approaching the repli- charge of the term ‘empire’ was also the- cation of the metropolis–or of those el- ological and political. It was a declara- ements of the metropolis that were com- tion of independence from the pope, and patible with modernity–was achieved. an insistence that the ruler of Britain had The land was appropriated in a way that direct access to the Almighty–a foible echoed Europe’s own social arrange- more forgivable in a sixteenth-century ments as they had been shaped by the monarch than in George W. Bush. neolithic revolution, the Roman Empire, While several British monarchs, nota- the territorial expansion of Christen- bly James II, made a contribution to the dom, and the rise of commercial society foundations of empire, the real sub- in England. The relationship of settlers stance came from elsewhere. England’s to the land was de½ned by displacement new merchants of the mid-seventeenth of the original inhabitants, deforesta- century took their cue from Dutch busi- tion, exhaustive exploitation, and ab- nessmen, not the Spanish kings. They solute property rights.12 The resulting were interested in catering to mass con- transformations nourished the mistaken sumption, not in supplying the court idea that the metropolis in other areas as or aristocracy with rare silks and ½ne well would eventually transform the col- wines. Both the civil war of the 1640s onized into replicas of the colonizers, and the Glorious Revolution of 1688 namely, self-governing, individualist carried forward a fateful link between Anglo-Saxons.13 domestic transformation and overseas expansion.15 As in nineteenth-century 12 See Alfred W. Crosby, Ecological Imperialism: The Biological Expansion of Europe, 900–1900 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, Saxonism (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard Univer- 1986); Robert Bartlett, The Making of Europe, sity Press, 1981). 950–1350 (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1993); William Cronon, Changes in the 14 Perry Anderson, Lineages of the Absolutist Land (New York: Hill and Wang, 1983). State (London: N.L.B., 1974).

13 See Reginald Horsman, Race and Manifest 15 Robert Brenner, Merchants and Revolution: Destiny: The Origins of American Racial Anglo- Commercial Change, Political Conflict, and Lon-

Dædalus Spring 2005 81 Robin America, military victories and diplo- network of trading posts and colonies. Blackburn on matic treaties could only lead to perma- But the disinclination of many Dutch imperialism nent results where the ground had al- to emigrate and the vulnerability of the ready been prepared by pioneering set- Dutch state in Europe led to the loss of tlers and entrepreneurial merchants. Dutch Brazil and North America. The This explains the very different fates of English Puritans who had opposed the England’s seventeenth-century acquisi- Stuarts did so in the name of a more ag- tions of Virginia and Algeria: while the gressive policy against Spain in the New former became a self-½nancing tobacco World. The Commonwealth period in plantation, the latter had to be aban- Britain organized a new navy, checked doned as a costly encumbrance. Dutch power, and confronted Spain. It The colonial impulse fed on the notion gave birth to the ‘Western Design,’ the that native barbarism and backwardness capture of Jamaica, and the ½rst version demanded civilized intervention. The of the empire-fostering Navigation Acts. colonial mission was a transformative British colonial rule in Ireland was ex- one. Indeed, the nature of modern em- tended and reinforced. The Glorious pire, with its commercial impulses, can- Revolution of 1688 con½rmed the impe- not be grasped unless its relationship to rial orientation and scope of the British revolution–real and surrogate–is un- state. derstood. The process classically known The American Declaration of Indepen- as the ‘bourgeois revolution’–and the dence in 1776 certainly enunciated mo- tremendous boost it gave to the polities mentous principles of self-determina- it transformed–helps us to identify one tion but, as we have seen, these soon of the dynamic components of modern spilled over into the project of a new imperialism, from the seventeenth to empire. The Continental Congress, the the twentieth century and beyond, or, if Northwest Ordinance, and the Louisi- you can forgive the bathos, from Crom- ana Purchase all bear witness to the im- well to Karl Rove (on whom more be- perial urge of many of America’s Found- low). If colonialism had a partly revo- ing Fathers, their wish to expand their lutionary impulse, it also invariably sway over all North America. Long be- marked the limits of the transformative fore the French Republic was trans- power of revolution, the geographical formed into Napoleon’s empire, the rev- and social spaces that the bourgeois rev- olutionary Convention, by hurling itself olution could not penetrate. against the old order in both Europe and The Dutch war of independence the Caribbean, enunciated some of the against Spain could not be con½ned to themes of an ‘emancipatory’ empire ra- the Low Countries and eventually en- diating from the republic ‘one and indi- compassed an attempt to take on, and visible.’ In each of these cases there were take over, Iberian imperial strong points countercurrents that saw the urge to em- in the Americas and Africa. Grotius’s pire as a betrayal of the true ideals of the Mare Liberum was both a cry of Dutch revolution–but the countercurrents did de½ance and a charter of commercial not prevail. expansion. The Dutch East and West These revolutions did much to shape India Companies established a global the world in which we live. But their best results were at home, not overseas. don’s Overseas Traders, 1550–1653 (Princeton, They could export goods much more N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1993). easily than social arrangements. The

82 Dædalus Spring 2005 Dutch intensi½ed an odious slave traf½c, improved on Iberian seamanship and Emancipation & empire, while the English Puritans resorted to trading; they also passed on expertise from barbaric reprisals against the stubbornly to English and French planters and Cromwell to Catholic and alien Irish. The Americans merchants. The English re½ned and Karl Rove repeatedly failed to turn Indians into developed their own slave plantations ‘Americans’ and instead sought to re- and colonial system while the French move or extirpate them. Following the brought to both a new pitch of intensity. Civil War, America’s ‘Second Revolu- The colonialism of the late nineteenth tion,’ the North failed to modernize the and early twentieth centuries was even South and instead allowed it to remain more imitative and reflexive, with each for a century in the grip of Jim Crow, power trying to preempt the other. The landlordism, and rapacious supply mer- United States was drawn into colonial chants. Under pressure from a tenacious acquisition in part because it believed slave uprising in Saint-Domingue, the that it had to have its own coaling sta- French enacted the ½rst comprehensive tions and secure territory in the Carib- emancipation in 1794, but within less bean and Paci½c to compete with Euro- than a decade Napoleon’s forces were pean rivals. Most of today’s far-flung trying to reintroduce slavery. U.S. military outposts are relics of by- In 1848 and 1871 Europe was again gone battles with bygone empires. The haunted by the specter of revolution. imperial practices that prevailed were In the wake of the suppression of revo- those that inspired imitation and stood lutionary movements, the governments the test of time–which often meant the of France, Belgium, Germany, and Italy tests of war, revolution, and economic turned to a new wave of colonial expan- competition. sion, partly in the hope that it would fur- The retreat of empire was often im- nish an outlet for those who were dis- pelled by genuine national and social contented, and partly to display the po- revolutions that trumped the phony tency of newly established polities–the imperial variety–as in China, Cuba, Al- French Third Republic, newly reunited geria, and Vietnam. However, none of Italy and Germany–but overseas these the European empires collapsed simply newly constitutional states resorted to from internal resistance. The two world a grim repertoire of land clearances, wars were watershed events, rendering forced labor, racial privilege, and, where the European empires very vulnerable. resistance was encountered, native ex- But there was one empire–the Soviet– termination. of which this was less true. While it was The national historiography of empire obviously weakened by economic failure stresses each state’s unique features and and the strain of Afghanistan, it was also destiny. In reality the different empires undermined by its relative success in ceaselessly borrowed from one another. fostering nation-states. Stalin’s rise at The Spanish borrowed from the Incas the expense of Bolshevik international- and Aztecs, drawing on their tribute sys- ism, and the Red Army’s advances in the tems to extract silver, textiles, and food- Great Patriotic War, seemed simply to stuffs in the Andes and Central America. boost the old Russian Empire, albeit in The Portuguese learned from local mer- Communist disguise. Yet the Soviet con- chants how to trade slaves along the stitution entrenched a right of secession African coast and drew on this trade to to its constituent republics, while the au- establish sugar plantations. The Dutch tarchic economy nourished a species of

Dædalus Spring 2005 83 Robin nation building. In Eastern Europe, greater boldness on Washington. But if Blackburn on where Yalta brutally aligned national we scan the speeches of George W. Bush imperialism groups with new borders, the “people’s or the National Security Document of democracies” were allotted the trap- September of 2002, we ½nd a repeated pings of sovereignty, and Moscow’s of- invocation of the need for ‘liberation,’ ten heavy-handed tutelage nourished understood not just as national inde- a countervailing nationalism.16 The pendence but as a further commitment peaceful breakup of the Soviet empire to what the president called “democratic was owed partly to the strength of such revolution” in his speech at the Banquet- processes, partly to Gorbachev’s ideal- ing Hall, London, in November of 2003. ism, and partly to the Russian people’s Given that he was the guest of the Eng- disinclination to defend an empire that lish monarch, it is understandable that brought more burdens than privileges. he did not remind his listeners of the No other empire yielded with such read- Banqueting Hall’s previous rendezvous iness. with history–the execution of Charles I Today the major international ques- –but he did declare that the time for tion is whether, for a similar mixture of alliance with absolutist monarchs and motives, the people and government of dictatorships in the Middle East was the United States can also be induced to over. give up empire. The echo of revolution may be no The optimist must hope that a similar- more than rhetoric, but it would be ly mild quietus can be administered to wrong to neglect it just the same. It al- the new imperialism. While the new lowed Bush and Blair to sell their subse- lurch to empire will certainly join the quent war, at least for a while, to their heap of discards sooner or later, there electorates and to some sectors of liberal are many in U.S. ruling circles who still opinion. When the charge that Saddam cannot read the writing on the wall, even Hussein possessed wmd was discredit- though that wall is in the land of ancient ed, it was the subsidiary claim that re- Babylon. Their dream is that neoliberal- gime change would open the way to de- ism, with its market fundamentalism, mocracy in the Middle East that took its and neoconservatism, with its jingoism place. and Old Testament certainties, can im- Bush’s address to the United Nations pose on the whole world what Ferguson in September of 2004, in the midst of calls Anglobalization. the presidential election, returned to the theme that the U.S. mission was to ad- In the aftermath of twentieth-century vance liberation, rights, and democracy. decolonization and the breakup of the By contrast, John Kerry, the Democratic Soviet Bloc, some neoconservatives and contender, urged that ‘stability,’ not liberal imperialists got a frisson from democracy, was the best that could be rehabilitating the ‘politically incorrect’ hoped for in Iraq. While President Bush language of empire. It underlines the appealed to a naive but idealistic belief hard-headedness and candor of those among voters that their country could who use it and allows them to urge even and would promote democracy, Kerry implicitly favored the argument from 16 Ronald Suny, “Incomplete Revolution: National Movements and the Collapse of the realpolitik and a deal with the strong- Soviet Empire,” New Left Review, series 1, no. men who run so much of the Arab 189 (September/October 1991): 111–125. world. In their different ways, both poli-

84 Dædalus Spring 2005 cies were imperial: they were based on complexes.17 The whole awkward struc- Emancipation & empire, the idea that Iraq should be occupied for ture is to be guaranteed, as Chalmers from years to come, with the occupier deter- Johnson stresses, by a multiplication of Cromwell to mining the scope of the country’s poli- military bases in the Middle East, Af- Karl Rove tics. Prior to its departure in June of ghanistan, and Central Asia.18 Once ac- 2004, the Coalition Provisional Authori- quired, such dubious assets are dif½cult ty (cpa) had dismantled much of the to give up, further swelling the hugely apparatus of the Iraqi state, with dire expensive, provocative–and ultimately consequences for the delivery of basic indefensible–global U.S. military estab- public services. It had seized and spent lishment. oil revenues and had handed out large The emphasis that Niall Ferguson contracts to foreign, mainly U.S., ½rms. places on the imperial export of a neo- Resistance from Shiite leaders obliged liberal institutional package places him the cpa to abandon an attempt to en- squarely in the camp of those who be- trench in Iraq’s basic law the wholesale lieve that democratic revolution can be privatization of national property. These introduced from outside. leaders also insisted that the date for Ferguson believed that the overthrow elections be brought forward. The cpa, of Saddam Hussein and the occupation and the caretaker government led by of Iraq would help bring Middle Eastern Allawi that it appointed, chose to pre- terrorism under control–he still argues pare for elections by attempting to si- this as justi½cation for the war in his lence or arrest critics of the occupation. book Colossus. But instead of wiping out Allawi’s party received less than an those he calls Islamo-Bolsheviks, the eighth of the total votes. occupation has given them perfect con- Karl Rove, George W. Bush’s chief po- ditions for jihadist mayhem. This is ex- litical strategist, has said that the book tremely unwelcome to most Iraqi na- that most influenced him as a graduate tionalists and to the long-oppressed student was Eric Foner’s classic study of Shia majority. But since the continuing the origins and rise of the Republican occupation furnishes an excuse to the ideology in the 1840s and 1850s, Free Soil, jihadists, it is unrealistic to expect Iraqis Free Labor, Free Men. There can be little to rally round the occupiers. Large num- doubt that Bush sees himself as the man bers of Iraqis who loathed Saddam have ordained to complete the neoconserva- nevertheless come out in opposition to tive revolution of Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher, and to bring it 17 Tariq Ali, Bush in Babylon, 2nd ed. (London: home to the ‘axis of evil’ and to any Verso, 2004). For the “prison industrial com- other countries that stand in the way plex,” see Loic Wacquant, “From Slavery to (China, Vietnam, Cuba, and Venezuela Mass Incarceration,” New Left Review, series being candidates here). The vision is 2, no. 13 (January/February 2002): 41–60. While contemporary imperial thinking denies both an imperial and a revolutionary the state a social role, it still needs to foster a one, since it seeks to reshape the whole global network of states strong enough to en- social formation of target countries. force property rights and trading conditions; That vision seeks to dismantle the local see Ellen Meiksins Wood, The Empire of Capital state and to entrust its essential func- (London: Verso, 2003), 138–169. tions to foreign corporations linked to 18 Chalmers A. Johnson, The Sorrows of Empire: the military-industrial, and as Abu Militarism, Secrecy, and the End of the Republic Ghraib made clear, prison-industrial (New York: Metropolitan Books, 2004).

Dædalus Spring 2005 85 Robin the occupation. The second anniversary have to be purchased and sold at market Blackburn on of the overthrow of Saddam Hussein in prices. If there are energy shortages in imperialism April of 2005 was marked by a demon- store, then fuel ef½ciency will be cheaper stration of 300,000 people in Baghdad in the long run than expeditions that calling for the withdrawal of all occupy- require a down payment of $200 billion, ing forces. So far as the scourge of ter- followed by heavy running costs. rorism is concerned, the U.S. presence is The new imperialism is a very much part of the problem, not part of the solu- more flimsy entity than the old. The sad tion. Only a government fully represen- condition of Iraq, Afghanistan, Kosovo, tative of Iraqi opinion and beholden to and Bosnia–plagued by differing com- no outside power–especially a power binations of insecurity, communalism, interested in Iraqi assets–can hope to lack of legitimacy, drug traf½cking, and defeat the jihadists. The jihadists are nei- warlordism–is no advertisement for it. ther numerous nor popular, but they can Few will be happy to pay a price in blood only be isolated by an unimpeachably and money to achieve such results. Iraqi government. A government that There are no problems that the United cannot secure the withdrawal of the oc- States should expect to be able to solve cupying powers and the closing of their by flexing its military muscles. China bases will lack legitimacy. and India must soon be recognized as Great Powers, and Brazil and Iran as The old empires eventually yielded to, worthy of a place at the top table. Bully- or preempted, a rising tide of national- ing these countries would be folly, just as ism. The agitations of the Irish and the it is perilous and provocative to encircle Indians, the pitched battles fought by China and Russia with bases. Eventually, Vietnamese and Algerians, the need to it must be hoped, the United States will crush rebels in Malaya and Kenya–all acquire a president who will understand prompted the metropolitan elite to un- and see the advantages of a less exposed dertake a rigorous cost-bene½t analysis and overweening stance. Withdrawal and to explore decolonization as a new from all overseas bases would be a good form of indirect rule. While particular start. colonial ventures could be very pro½ta- The neo-imperial project may well ble (I have given examples above), the help to destabilize the old order without costs tended to rise as other empires achieving its own goals. We can be quite sought to enter the ½eld, acting as com- sure that indigenous democratic revolu- petitors or spoilers. tions will sweep the Arab lands, Iran, As the British found out as early as the and China. They will arise sooner rather 1780s, decolonization did not need to be than later, and advance notions of liber- an economic disaster. In fact, Anglo- ty without any ‘Made in usa’ label. The American exchanges soon boomed. Af- overwhelming case for homegrown de- ter World War II, Western Europe dis- mocracy does not mean that each state covered extraordinary prosperity as it and people should simply be allowed to shed colonies. There is a message here sink or swim. Today states are ceaseless- for the United States today. Those who ly, if often ineffectively, coerced into ap- really believe in market forces should proved capitalist behavior, including a conclude that it makes no sense to se- wholesale downsizing of social provi- cure control of oil-producing states at sion. Ferguson believes that public enti- great cost, since, in the end, the oil will tlements should be drastically slashed in

86 Dædalus Spring 2005 the United States as well as in develop- philosophy will make the problem Emancipation & empire, ing countries. He rightly insists that worse. What is required is institutional from the citizens of the United States must innovation and a democratic, new ‘cos- Cromwell to choose between empire and Social Se- mopolitics’ that nourishes the social and Karl Rove curity and Medicare–or, as this option economic capacities of its constituent used to be phrased, between ‘guns’ and states. ‘butter.’ But he is wrong to argue that it is ‘guns’ that should be preferred. A just international order remains to be built. While it, too, would require the more advanced countries to make a con- tribution, it would seek to stimulate sus- tainable growth. It would require a fun- damental reshaping of world institu- tions that function simply as relays for the Washington–Wall Street consen- sus.19 It would also require a willingness to seek out the ways in which transna- tional banks and corporations might be obliged to contribute to badly needed expenditures on education, infrastruc- ture, and social insurance.20 These are problems that do not even appear on the radar screen of the new imperialists– something which sets them apart from their classical Anglo-Saxon forebears, from Joseph Chamberlain to Winston Churchill and from Teddy Roosevelt to fdr. A century or more ago the combi- nation of imperialism and social reform proved to be rather effective. The formu- la of ‘imperialism and social counterrev- olution’ is unlikely to have the same appeal. Ferguson is not unaware of the prob- lem of the ineffectiveness and weakness of too many states in the modern world, but he does not see that ever-larger doses of imperial intervention and free-market

19 For a debate on what this might entail, see Danielle Archibugi, ed., Cosmopolitics (London: Verso, 2004).

20 I have some suggestions as to how that might be done in “The Pension Gap and How to Meet It,” Challenge (July/August 2004): 99–112.

Dædalus Spring 2005 87 Molly Greene

The Ottoman experience

When those states which have been ac- went out of his way to explain the ani- quired are accustomed to live at liberty mal husbandry practices of the peasants under their own laws, there are three ways so that the treasury would understand of holding them. The ½rst is to despoil his calculation of the sheep tax: them; the second is to go and live there in because the climate of the island is tem- person; the third is to allow them to live perate and is not excessively cold, they ap- under their own laws, taking tribute of parently are not accustomed to separating them and creating within the country a their rams from their ewes. For this reason government composed of a few who will their lambs are not particular to one sea- keep it friendly to you. son. Were they to be counted along with –Machiavelli, The Prince, 1532 the sheep it would cause the peasants some distress; because they were desir- ous of and agreed to give 1 akçe per head Toward the end of the ½fteenth centu- of sheep, their lambs were not counted ry, an Ottoman scribe named Bali was with them. It was recorded that only their charged with surveying the newly ac- sheep be counted, and that 1 akçe be given quired island of Limnos in the northern per head of sheep.1 Aegean. The Ottoman treasury needed to know what sorts of revenues the is- It is an arresting image: an Ottoman land could be expected to provide. Bali scribe, pen in hand, listens patiently to the inhabitants’ explanations and then copies their words into the imperial sur- Molly Greene is associate professor of history and vey that will ½nd its way to the palace in Hellenic studies at Princeton University. Her in- Istanbul. But it is more than an image. terests include the social and economic history This detail from the 1490 survey of the of the Ottoman Empire, the experience of Greeks island of Limnos is an early example of under Ottoman rule, Mediterranean piracy, and what would prove to be an enduring the institution of the market. Her book, “A imperial style that had two essential, Shared World: Christians and Muslims in the and closely related, features. Early Modern Mediterranean” (2000), exam- First, the empire possessed an extraor- ines the transition from Venetian to Ottoman rule dinary ability to ½nd those few local resi- on the island of Crete. dents who were willing and able to keep 1 Heath W. Lowry, Fifteenth Century Ottoman © 2005 by the American Academy of Arts Realities: Christian Peasant Life on the Aegean & Sciences Island of Limnos (Istanbul: Eren, 2002), 109.

88 Dædalus Spring 2005 vast territories friendly to the House of North Africa in the west–the last in a The Ottoman Osman. Second, the Ottoman imperial series of incremental gains dating from experience administration had an uncanny knack the earlier part of his reign. for going into a newly conquered area Except for the loss of Hungary at the and ½guring out how things were done end of the seventeenth century, the terri- there. Having read the local landscape,it tory of the empire remained relatively would adjust imperial rule accordingly. stable until the beginning of the nine- In short, the extraordinary sensitivity teenth century. The Serbian (1804) and of the Ottoman elite to local conditions Greek (1821) insurrections were the be- allowed them to build an empire across ginning of what proved to be an unstop- three continents that endured for many pable hemorrhaging of territory in the centuries. empire’s European heartland. A combi- nation of nationalist aspirations and The Ottomans ½rst emerge on the his- Great Power interference led to the end torical stage at the very end of the thir- of the Ottoman Empire in Europe by the teenth century. In the royal myth, the eve of World War I. The Ottoman entry dynasty stretches much further back, of into the war on the German side had course, but it was only under the leader- fatal consequences for the survival of ship of Osman (1299–1326) that this what remained of the empire. The victo- small group of warriors managed to rious British and French armies took move out from its base in northwestern over the Middle East and carved it up in- Anatolia and start conquering territory.2 to colonies, although these were called Their ½rst signi½cant victories occurred ‘mandates’ in deference to rising anti- in the Balkans, and these conquests al- colonialist sentiment. Anatolia, which lowed them to return to western Anato- was all that remained, was also in danger lia flush with men and money. By the of being parceled out to various con- middle of the ½fteenth century they had tenders. It was only the unexpected mili- surrounded the Byzantine capital Con- tary resistance of a group of disaffected stantinople. Their capture of the great Ottoman army of½cers–led by the re- city in 1453 marked the beginning of the markable Mustafa Kemal, later known imperial phase of Ottoman history. as Atatürk–that saved the day. Over the course of the next century But Kemal was not interested in saving they pushed steadily eastward and then the empire. Rather, he wanted to create southward. First they defeated the re- a modern state that would replace a de- maining Turkish principalities in Anato- feated empire whose leaders had proved lia and then, in 1516 and 1517, they con- unable to fashion a response to Euro- quered the heartlands of the Islamic pean imperialism. Thus it was a Turk, world–Syria, Palestine, and Egypt. ironically enough, who brought about With these latter-day conquests they the end of the Ottoman Empire. Under could now claim leadership of the Islam- Atatürk’s leadership, the Grand National ic world. The empire reached its greatest Assembly abolished the sultanate in 1922 territorial extent under Suleyman (1520 and declared the new Republic of Turkey –1566), who conquered Hungary in the in 1923. north (1526), Iraq in the east (1534), and 2 It is Osman who gave the dynasty its name– In 1490, when Bali wrote to Istanbul the Osmanli, or followers of Osman. ‘Osmanli’ about Limniot practices of animal hus- became ‘Ottoman’ to European observers. bandry, the Ottoman army was plowing

Dædalus Spring 2005 89 Molly through the Balkan Peninsula, subduing were the ½rst state to maintain a stand- Greene on one city after another in rapid succes- ing army in Europe since Roman days, imperialism sion. The army would soon do the same and this impressed the Europeans to no in Anatolia and the Arab lands. Natural- end. The Byzantine Chalcocondyle mar- ly enough, then, it is the janissary, and veled that “there is no prince who has not the scribe, who ½gures prominently his armies and camps in better order, in conventional depictions of the empire both in abundance of victuals and in the during the golden age of conquest. beautiful order they use in encamping The janissary, with his crashing cym- without any confusion or embarrass- bals as he marched onto the battle½eld, ment.”4 was the terror of Christendom. Com- But an undue emphasis on the Otto- pared to European military forces, the man war machine has deflected our janissary corps was famously disci- attention from an appreciation of how plined; it was said that when janissaries the Ottomans actually ruled their vast bowed their heads at the same time, they territories for over six hundred years. resembled a ½eld of ripe corn rippling in Military conquest created the empire, the breeze. The janissary seemed to em- but it did not, and could not, sustain it. body everything that was believed–and For that the Ottomans needed scribes, to a great extent is still believed–to ac- not janissaries. Limnos is one of the ear- count for the greatness of the Ottomans liest examples of an imperial style that in their prime in the ½fteenth and six- relied heavily on local people to run teenth centuries. Plucked from his things for Istanbul. This example under- (Christian) mother’s breast at a young mines the view that the empire was age, he proved the sultan’s ability to administered by a central bureaucracy reach down into society and remake in- whose dictates were enforced by mili- dividuals at will. Once trained, the janis- tary power. sary was believed to possess unsurpassed martial virtue. At the same time, he, like Limnos was contested territory on the the rest of the Ottoman bureaucracy, edge of the Ottoman Empire in 1490. gave the sultan absolute obedience. The Over the previous half century, the is- end result has often been described as a land had gone back and forth between perfectly ordered machine. Latin and Ottoman rule; the most recent It is not surprising that war and con- exchange dated back only a decade to quest, rather than the more mundane ac- when the Venetians surrendered the is- tivities of scribes, are still at the center of land to Sultan Beyazit II. Yet a mere our view of the Ottomans. We are the in- nineteen janissaries garrisoned the is- heritors of a long tradition of European land (a number of them, recent converts writings on the empire, and the Euro- to Islam, spoke Greek). The real work peans wrote with their own concerns in of securing the island’s defense was mind. The Ottomans were the threat to done by several hundred local Christian European civilization. “This most pow- troops who enjoyed a reduced tax status erful emperor’s forces are of two kinds, in exchange for their military service, those of the sea and those of the land and who had been recruited by the Otto- and both are terrifying,” wrote a Vene- mans for the very reason that they had tian diplomat in 1573.3 The Ottomans 3 Lucette Valensi, The Birth of the Despot: Venice 4 Jason Goodwin, Lords of the Horizons: A Histo- and the Sublime Porte (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell Uni- ry of the Ottoman Empire (London: Chatto & versity Press, 1993), 28. Windus, 1998), 70. 90 Dædalus Spring 2005 served a similar function under the Byz- called upon local experts to assist him in The Ottoman antines. The local nobility retained their investigating the cases that came before experience holdings, and church and monastic him, such as disputes over taxation. Im- property went undisturbed. pressed by the neat categories in Otto- Even in this brief account we can see man survey registers, we have failed to the Ottomans’ keen attentiveness to the adequately appreciate that taxation was local, in terms not just of accommoda- a complicated business. Palestinian olive tion, but also of an ability to size up the trees, for example, were taxed differently situation and turn it to Ottoman advan- depending on their age, which affected tage. A predilection for co-optation had their fruit-bearing ability. It was unlikely been evident from the very moment the that someone from Istanbul would have Ottomans entered the historical record. been able to determine the age of those In the case of Limnos, they were able to trees.5 discern who had traditionally undertak- Even those who of½cially served in the en the defense of the island and to enlist name of the sultan were a more hetero- them. We do not know who Bali was; geneous group than has commonly been he may have been a Greek by birth who presented. Prior to the seventeenth cen- converted to Islam and joined the bu- tury, the link between the military and reaucracy. Or he could have been accom- provincial administration was an essen- panied by a translator who communicat- tial device of Ottoman governance. In ed his queries to the Limniots. Whichev- return for their work, the sultan’s sol- er the case, the Ottomans were able to diers, known as timariots, were assigned deploy adequately trained individuals one or multiple villages whose revenue who effectively turned conquests into they were entitled to collect. When they tax-producing provinces. were not off on campaign, these soldiers If we turn to newly conquered, mid- resided in or near their holdings. In this sixteenth-century Palestine, the same way the state both supported an army method is on display. By now the Otto- and gained a class of provincial adminis- man bureaucracy was fully developed trators who were charged with tax col- and the Palestinian provinces received a lection and the maintenance of law and full compliment of of½cials, many more order. than Limnos had in 1490. But these of½- But rural administration did not rest in cials were quick to bring village leaders the hands of timariots alone. When the into the hierarchy of government, albeit province of Aintab in southeastern Ana- informally. The of½ce of village leader, tolia was wrested from the Mamluks and known as rais, was already a very old one joined to the empire’s domains in 1517, by the time the Ottomans arrived in the not all the villages were assigned to the Fertile Crescent. They retained the rais as soldiers of the standing army. Some a useful liaison to the tax-paying popula- went to local Turkmen tribal chiefs, tion and rewarded him with robes (the while others stayed in the hands of the traditional gift to of½cials from the earli- urban magnates from Aintab or from est days of Islam), thereby integrating nearby Aleppo who had privately owned local leaders into the symbolic structure them. For example, the village of Ca«d•- of the empire. Local people also ½gured prominent- 5 This account of Ottoman administration in Palestine is drawn from Amy Singer, Palestinian ly in the proceedings of the Ottoman Peasants and Ottoman Of½cials: Rural Administra- court, where many lines of authority tion Around Sixteenth-Century Jerusalem (Cam- converged. The kadi, or judge, routinely bridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994). Dædalus Spring 2005 91 Molly «•n belonged to a very special family in- In a classic article written many years Greene on deed, namely, the heirs of the last pow- ago, Albert Hourani coined the phrase imperialism erful Mamluk sultan, from whom the “the politics of notables” to characterize Ottomans had wrested Egypt and Great- the constellation of forces that governed er Syria.6 The Ghawri family resided in the empire as a whole in the seventeenth Aleppo and employed a local agent to and eighteenth centuries. He described a manage its estates and collect taxes. class of conservative notables who were Over time the family was absorbed into ½rmly entrenched in local society and the Ottoman elite; the governor-general equipped with their own private mili- of Aleppo in 1574 was one Mehmed tias, and who offered themselves as me- Pasha al-Ghawri. diators between the Ottoman authori- ties and provincial society. The Otto- The cases of Palestine and Aintab that I mans were content to rely on these in- have just discussed are particularly sig- formal elites, bestowing tax-gathering ni½cant because they occurred in the privileges and political of½ce on them in middle of the sixteenth century, tradi- exchange for loyalty. tionally seen as the era when the Otto- Rather than framing this development mans were at the very height of their as decline, historians are now asking power. As we have seen, an important more open-ended questions about the part of this power was administrative; experience of provincial life in the the Ottomans recruited, developed, and Ottoman Empire of the seventeenth deployed a class of imperial bureaucrats and eighteenth centuries. In one histori- across the empire. These bureaucrats, an’s felicitous phrase, we would like to who ironed out and smoothed over local know more about “the meaning of au- peculiarities, it is said, gave the empire tonomy.”8 Beshara Doumani’s recent its effectiveness and uniformity. In this study of Nablus and its hinterland– story of the empire, local elites either once again, in Palestine–provides us failed to develop or were bypassed, and with a particularly vivid sense of place. would only become important later on As was true across the Ottoman when the central bureaucracy was less Empire, the Nablusis had a strong sense effective. of local identity that was nurtured by the This description overstates the case imperial style of rule. They were proud and misclassi½es what was a rather fleet- of the beauty of their city, whose twen- ing moment as the classical juncture ty-two gushing springs fed the olive from which all future developments are groves, vineyards, and fruit orchards said to have deviated. After all, the Otto- that surrounded it. Localism was but- mans only assigned a career of½cer to tressed by the fact that the city was Palestine in 1520; by the end of the cen- ruled by local sons, most of whom had tury the entire region was back under descended from the same families for the control of Bedouin chiefs who were generations. Many of the patriarchs of of½cially recognized by the Ottomans as the ruling families had originally come local governors.7 to the city as Ottoman soldiers, but they 6 Leslie P. Peirce, Morality Tales: Law and Gen- quickly melted into the local population, der in the Ottoman Court of Aintab (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2003), 139. 8 Beshara Doumani, Rediscovering Palestine: Merchants and Peasants in Jabal Nablus, 1700– 7 Singer, Palestinian Peasants and Ottoman 1900 (Berkeley: University of California Press, Of½cials, 32. 1995).

92 Dædalus Spring 2005 marrying into wealthy merchant and scholarship also typically hauls in Islam The Ottoman religious families. They vied with one to explain that old saw, the decline of the experience another for appointment to political Ottoman Empire. According to this the- of½ce, a process controlled and shrewdly ory, the decline was brought about in exploited by the Ottoman governor of part by the rise of an intolerant Islamic Damascus. spirit that smothered creativity.9 Their conservative rule endured even It is a mistake to describe the Otto- through the upheavals of the nineteenth mans in terms of some sort of essential century. While they were disinclined to Islamic mission. The impulse to do so is, ½ght for the sultan in faraway places, I think, a reflection of the fact that any they were quick to defend themselves discussion of empire today is very hard when threatened. In the course of Napo- to disentangle from the ideology of im- leon’s invasion of Egypt, it was the Nab- perialism. We must separate the practice lusis who handed the French emperor of empire from the ideology of imperial- his ½rst defeat in Palestine. Moneylend- ism if we wish to understand the Otto- ing and trade networks, rather than mili- man Empire. Empire as governance ex- tary power and tax collection, tied the isted long before imperialism as ideolo- countryside to the city. Long-standing gy. Particularly in the Mediterranean clientage relationships between peasants world, which had been subject to impe- and urban merchants were passed from rial rule from the time of the Romans, father to son, and the rootedness of the Ottomans were able to draw on a these networks allowed trading activity number of rich political and cultural tra- to flourish across a wide area, despite an ditions, only some of which were Islam- often unpredictable political environ- ic. The challenge was not to justify em- ment. Even today, elderly Palestinians pire.10 What other aspiration could a can remember how their grandfathers potential ruler possibly have? The chal- were expected to host their rural clients lenge was to justify themselves as the when they came into the city. The peas- proper leaders of a new empire. It was ants had to be put up and fed well, lest the House of Osman, not empire, that their urban patrons suffer a loss of was on trial as the new state slowly took honor. shape. Ottoman claims of legitimacy drew on Besides stressing militarism, the tradi- several sources, of which the Islamic tra- tion of European writing on the Otto- 9 See, for example, the penultimate chapter in man Empire has also ½rmly ½xed the Halil Inalcik’s book The Ottoman Empire: The empire’s Islamic identity in the mind of Classical Age, 1300–1600 (London: Phoenix, the general reader. The term ‘Muslim 1994). The chapter is entitled “The Triumph of empire’ has been more than simply de- Fanaticism.” scriptive; it has been a sort of shorthand 10 It is perhaps this inability to separate em- for what we think the Ottomans repre- pire from the historical experience of imperial- sented. Their successful military con- ism that led a reviewer in a recent New York quests, it is said, were driven by the reli- Times Book Review devoted to empires to assert gious obligation of holy war against the the “dull uniformity of Asian empires.” The in½del. There is the standard nod to Ottomans, it seems, like the Safavids and the Mughals, did not have an exciting enough proj- Suleyman the Magni½cent, who brought ect. See Paul Kennedy, “Conquerors and Mis- the empire’s legal system into accor- sionaries,” The New York Times Book Review, dance with Islamic precepts. European July 25, 2004, 10.

Dædalus Spring 2005 93 Molly dition was only one. In the words of one ple, a commonly recognized symbol Greene 13 on historian, “the Ottomans were highly of universal sovereignty. Prior sultans imperialism flexible in their use of legitimizing ide- in the former capitals of Bursa, then ologies.”11 One of the earliest tropes to Edirne, had lived simply and prayed emerge was the celebration of the early alongside fellow Muslims in the Ottomans as ghazis, or warriors for Is- mosque. The palace that Mehmet had lam, whose raids and wars were part of a constructed for himself on the ancient divinely imposed obligation.12 This was acropolis of Byzantium was designed to a straightforward enough claim with re- ensure imperial seclusion, as was the gard to the Balkans, where the popula- dynastic law code he drew up toward the tion was Christian. To get around the end of his reign. Among other things, it somewhat awkward fact that many of abolished the practice of eating in the the early wars in Anatolia were fought presence of his courtiers and strictly lim- against other Muslim rulers, two tradi- ited the occasions on which petitions tions developed. First, it was asserted could be presented to him in person. that oftentimes territory was acquired Mehmet was famously inspired by the through peaceful acquisition rather than empires of the past and saw himself as force of arms. Second, rulers who had the heir to the Roman Empire. His iden- been vanquished were charged with hav- ti½cation with Alexander the Great was ing oppressed Muslims, thus justifying so strong that he commissioned a biog- Ottoman intervention. Some historians raphy of himself, in Greek, on the same have gone so far as to wonder whether paper and in the same format as his copy the Ottomans saw themselves as Islamic of Arrian’s The Life of Alexander the Great. warriors or if they adhered to a more The latter was read to him daily.14 general, and religiously nonspeci½c, ideal of heroism and honorable conduct. The beginning of the sixteenth century The Ottomans also asserted a more saw the rise of an enemy more formida- illustrious genealogy than that of the ble than the patchwork of Turkish emi- other Turkish emirs in Anatolia. They rates that the Ottomans had swept away claimed that their sultans descended in Anatolia. In Iran, the Safavid dynasty, from O«uz Khan, a legendary great ruler established by the charismatic mystical and ancestor of the Turks, while their leader Ismail Shah, proclaimed a mili- Turkish neighbors were only distant tant Shiism that was presented as moral- relations. ly, religiously, and politically superior to Once Mehmet the Conqueror took the Sunni form of Islam observed in the Constantinople, the imperial capital par excellence, in 1453, he adopted many im- perial motifs, including the Golden Ap- 13 Legend had it that Alexander the Great pos- sessed an apple made from the gold taken as tribute from the conquered provinces, which 11 Linda T. Darling, Revenue-Raising and Legiti- he held in his hand as if he held the world. macy: Tax Collection and Finance Administration Gülru Necipo«lu, Architecture, Ceremonial, and in the Ottoman Empire, 1560–1660 (Leiden: E. J. Power: The Topkapi Palace in the Fifteenth and Six- Brill, 1996), 294. teenth Centuries (Cambridge, Mass.: mit Press, 1991), 12. 12 There is tremendous debate amongst Otto- man historians about the extent to which the 14 Philip Mansel, Constantinople: City of the earliest Ottomans saw themselves as Muslims World’s Desire, 1453–1924 (New York: St. Mar- ½ghting a holy war. tin’s Press, 1996), 6.

94 Dædalus Spring 2005 Ottoman Empire. The consolidation of more mature stage of security and tran- The Ottoman Spanish Hapsburg rule at the other end quility. experience of the Mediterranean also contributed to Throughout all the permutations of an age of strenuous ideological competi- the imperial image, the provision of jus- tion. tice, to the peasantry in particular, re- In response, the Ottomans increasing- mained absolutely central to sultanic ly portrayed themselves as pious ortho- legitimacy. This was not an empty rheto- dox Muslims. Suleyman, assisted by his ric. It is clear that both the population energetic and long-serving religious ad- and the sultan took the latter’s responsi- visor, sought to reconcile sultanic with bility for justice seriously; the Ottoman Islamic law in an ambitious program of archives are stuffed with thousands of legal reform that included the strength- petitions that were recorded in the regis- ening of Islamic courts and the exten- ters, and responded to, year after year. sion of state purview over matters that The council hall in the palace where had previously been of little of½cial con- petitions were read was built with open cern, such as marriage. In the 1540s, Su- walls to symbolize the free access of the leyman added the Islamic term ‘caliph’ empire’s subjects, Muslim and non- to his list of titles. Muslim, to imperial justice. This duty of A lesser-known image of Suleyman is the ruler to provide justice, to embody that of the Lawgiver as Messiah; the pro- imperial benevolence, was something phetic and messianic currents that were the Ottomans shared with all premodern so strong in Europe and the Mediter- states. In the Near Eastern tradition, it ranean in the sixteenth century had their was expressed through the Circle of Jus- counterpart in the Ottoman Empire. tice, which said that the ruler could not Those around him, and Suleyman him- exist without the military, nor the mili- self, proclaimed him as the Emperor of tary without the sword, nor the sword the Last Age, who would soon establish without money, nor money without the universal dominion. The sultan’s geo- peasants, nor the peasants without jus- mancer wrote that the ultimate victory tice. The Chinese also tied royal legiti- and establishment of the universal rule macy to the provision of justice to the of Islam would be ensured by an army of peasants. The right to petition the king invisible saints ½ghting by the sultan’s was limited in Europe, but there too jus- side. tice was the jewel in the crown of the Yet even before Suleyman’s death in Christian King. 1566 there was a new emphasis on the The Circle of Justice represented a institutional and judicial perfection of consensus on the proper ordering of the sultan. No longer the restless world society that was shared by both rulers conqueror, he was lauded as the creator and ruled. This consensus would come and quiet center of the perfect order; he apart in the nineteenth century, and it was the Refuge of the World. As the Ot- was the state itself that would launch its toman war machine wound down, sev- dismantling. enteenth-century writers would further encourage the idea of consolidation. Cit- Through the skillful co-optation of mil- ing the theories and biological meta- itary and ½nancial leaders, the Ottomans phors of Ibn Khaldun, they stated that had achieved a form of rule that was ex- the empire was no longer in the heroic tremely stable, even though its mainte- phase of expansion, but had entered the nance required constant bargaining. The

Dædalus Spring 2005 95 Molly other side of the coin, however, was that down the essential themes of Ottoman Greene on the government could attract only a low reform. These themes would be modi- imperialism level of commitment from most of its ½ed, diluted, or strengthened over the subjects. Its ability to mobilize manpow- course of the next eighty years or so, but er and money was limited. The residents they remained the basis for state policy of Nablus, for example, were perfectly nevertheless. Tanzimat declared the willing to battle Napoleon, but they un- security of life, honor, and property for dertook this in the defense of local inter- all Ottoman subjects. Tax farming was ests and not on behalf of the sultan. abolished and an elaborate centralized This was suf½cient for a time. The last provincial administration–modeled on quarter of the eighteenth century, how- the French system–was laid down. ever, was marked by war, war, and Equality before the law for all subjects, more war. Russia, whose power had for Muslim and non-Muslim, was de- been growing steadily, managed to wrest creed. the Crimea and the northern shores of These measures, as well as an assort- the Black Sea from the Ottomans. The ment of more minor reforms, were shock of these losses was great, since linked by the wish to mobilize society both were areas of dense Muslim settle- and to effectively direct it through a ment. The Ottomans also fought with newly energized, centralized state. By the Hapsburgs. Then came the French making property rights more secure, it occupation of Egypt in 1798, which sig- was hoped that a new class of private naled the return of Great Power conflict property owners would increase agricul- to the Mediterranean after a long hiatus. ture revenues. The proclamation of reli- Turmoil continued throughout the Na- gious equality before the law sought to poleonic Wars, including an internal up- facilitate the creation of a new, secular rising in Serbia that received external elite–a group of ardent Ottoman citi- support, due to European designs on the zens who would become loyal patriots, Ottoman Empire. not unlike those in France, England, and Faced with these threats, the Ottoman the other ascendant European nation- sultans, beginning with Selim III, initiat- states. ed a series of reforms that, at the most The Ottoman reforms were ambitious basic level, sought to mobilize the peo- and wide-ranging. Not surprisingly, ple and the resources of the empire in some were resisted and many others the service of the state. Military reform, were only imperfectly or partially exe- naturally enough, was the initial priority, cuted. In the Balkans, the Ottomans, but initiatives soon spread to other areas hemmed in by Great Power competition such as education. A medical school was and the territorial ambitions of the new set up in 1827 to train doctors for the new nation-states on the peninsula, were rac- army. In the 1830s, schools proliferated ing against the clock. A bad harvest in as Sultan Mahmud II, sometimes de- Bosnia and Herzegovina in 1874 led to a scribed as the Peter the Great of the peasant revolt the following year. One Ottoman Empire, sought to create not hundred years earlier this would have just an of½cer corps but also a new civil been purely an internal matter, but it service to implement and enforce his quickly turned into an international cri- measures. sis that, through a long and convoluted A famous decree of 1839, which was series of events, ended with the creation henceforth known as Tanzimat, laid of the new state of Bulgaria in 1878. By

96 Dædalus Spring 2005 the eve of World War I, the Ottoman Abdulhamid and his entourage departed The Ottoman Empire had lost almost all its European from the palace and headed for the Y•l- experience territories. d•z Mosque. Albanian house guards in Elsewhere, however, in Anatolia and livery, their spears glinting in the sun, the Arab lands, the Ottoman Empire in escorted the imperial landau while a mil- fact became more powerful, more ra- itary band struck up the Hamidiye, the tional, and more capable of imposing musical salute to the sultan. A sort of its will on society. Faced with European dais was built to accommodate foreign encroachment, it did not disintegrate, visitors who were permitted to watch as did so many other non-Western em- the procession and to salute the mon- pires–for example, in Iran and India. arch. Bureaucrats managed not only to cen- The state also tried to de½ne a new tralize many of the empire’s activities, basis for loyalty to the House of Osman. but also to establish effective rule in The novel concept of Ottoman patriot- places that had always been notoriously ism, which declared the unity and equal- dif½cult to rule, such as the tribal areas ity of all Ottoman subjects, was favored of Arabia and Transjordan. Through at midcentury. As time wore on and the the application of reformist land laws, European provinces dropped away, Is- Transjordan recovered a level of demo- lamic and then Turkish nationalism graphic and economic growth not seen rendered the earlier concept of an Ot- since Byzantine times.15 In the last quar- toman citizenry increasingly problemat- ter of the century, the British, who were ic. Throughout this last century of the busy concluding local agreements with empire, the project of Ottoman subject- Arab sheikhs, were alarmed by the new hood was fraught with tensions and con- influence of the Ottomans in the Arabi- tradictions that undermined formerly an Gulf. stable traditions of rule. Yet the reforms, by launching such a The regime’s use of the Islamic her- determined attack on traditional power- itage was complex and multifaceted. The sharing arrangements, by their radical Ottomans sought to exploit Islam for rethinking of the relationship between imperial advantage in a sort of ‘Islamic ruler and ruled, required the govern- etatism,’ just as Catherine II had used ment to embark on an ambitious project Christian orthodoxy in Russia and Maria of ideological legitimation. Its response Theresa had turned to Catholicism in was very similar to that of other mod- the Hapsburg lands. Among other ernizing empires, such as Austria, Rus- things, Islam was used to try and enlist sia, and Japan, in the pressure cooker of the empire’s Muslim subjects in the the nineteenth century. The ‘invention state’s modernizing goals. After the de- of tradition’ dramatically increased the struction of the janissaries, Mahmud II pomp and circumstance surrounding the turned to the conscription of Ottoman sultan and all activities of state. By the Muslim subjects and dubbed his new end of the nineteenth century, for exam- army the “Trained Victorious Soldiers of ple, curious onlookers lined the road to Muhammad.” This is just one example. watch the Friday prayer ceremony as Again and again over the course of the next century, political leaders turned to 15 Eugene L. Rogan, Frontiers of the State in the Islam as a way of establishing a connec- Late Ottoman Empire: Transjordan, 1850–1921 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, tion between them and their Muslim 1999), 69. subjects.

Dædalus Spring 2005 97 Molly At the same time, the Ottomans set- of Lawrence of Arabia notwithstanding, Greene on tled on Islam to articulate and proclaim the vast majority of Arabs remained imperialism their fundamental difference from the loyal to the empire till the very end. West in an era of rampant Westerniza- This loyalty left the Arab world sin- tion. It is ironic that the Europeans, too, gularly ill equipped to deal with the saw Islam as the de½ning characteristic changes that were suddenly thrust upon of the East, although the conclusions it in the wake of World War I. Not only they drew from this fact were very dif- was it forcibly cut off from the state that ferent. And yet, as we have seen in the had de½ned its political existence for the Tanzimat reforms, the Ottoman Empire past four hundred years; it also had to relentlessly pursued a policy of secular- contend with an unprecedented level of ization. Great Power involvement in the region How can these seeming oppositions as the British and the French went about be reconciled? We must understand establishing their respective spheres that there was a central tension in Otto- of influence. In the critical days and man reform. The goal was not just to months following the Ottoman defeat strengthen the state; it was to strength- in 1918, the Arabs failed to produce a en it in a certain way, so that the state leader of Atatürk’s caliber. This could looked bureaucratic, tolerant, and, most not have been simply a coincidence. The of all, modern. The Tanzimat was, in political class was, in the end, a provin- this sense, an internalization of Euro- cial elite that did not have the same pean representations of the Orient and habits of leadership the Turks possessed. its problems. But the Ottomans were Even worse, draconian Ottoman policies also duty-bound to resist the West, be- against Arab nationalists during World cause the West denied the possibility of War I had created tremendous polariza- progress for the Muslim world. The em- tion (some of those executed were the brace of Islam was their way of defying relatives of older, more conservative the fate that was predicted for them. politicians who supported the empire), and this made solidarity against Western It is ironic that Arab elites were never imperialism even harder to accomplish. more Ottoman than at the moment of Finally, an effective response was ham- the empire’s dissolution.16 Abandoning pered by the intense localism of Arab the looser style of rule that had been typ- elites. Part of this was due to the oppor- ical of earlier centuries, nineteenth-cen- tunities presented by imperial rivalries tury reforms succeeded in creating sev- in the region. The Syrian leadership, for eral generations of Arab bureaucrats example, was eager to cooperate with who were closely tied to the imperial the British in the hope that they would project. An Arab of½cial in 1900 was pressure the French to leave Syria. But more likely to speak Turkish, and to the Palestinians thought the Syrians send his son to study in Istanbul at one should resolutely confront the British of the new academies, than his predeces- plan to establish a Jewish national home sor would have been one hundred years in Palestine. However, the localism ran prior. This helps explain why, the myth deeper than the dilemmas of the mo- ment. 16 Here I am speaking of Greater Syria and This essay began with an Ottoman of Iraq. Egypt had been under British occupa- tion since 1882 and thus had a rather different scribe explaining the conditions of ani- history. mal husbandry on the island of Limnos

98 Dædalus Spring 2005 to his superiors back in Istanbul. Even The Ottoman during the ambitious nineteenth centu- experience ry, when the state worked to create a more uni½ed society, the Ottomans were always very willing to accommo- date local realities and to work with homegrown elites. This style of rule encouraged a corresponding provincial- ism on the part of the Arabs. The men who directed their societies in the wan- ing decades of the empire knew how to mediate local concerns, but they found it very dif½cult to respond to broader crises, such as the imposition of Euro- pean mandates throughout the Near East. Their inability to resist Western colonialism would have serious and fate- ful consequences that are still with us today.

Dædalus Spring 2005 99 Henk Wesseling

Imperialism & the roots of the Great War

In history textbooks, the period from by 1914, European rule had spread to the 1871 to 1914 is known as the age of impe- entire continent, with the exception of rialism. During this period, the Euro- Liberia and Ethiopia. At the same time, pean powers extended their control over European influence also grew in the Ot- the rest of the world to an extent never toman Empire, Persia, and China. seen before. In 1870, Dutch control over It seems extraordinary that a period the Netherlands Indies was effectively during which the European powers so limited to Java and a few outposts on the obviously conquered the world is also other islands. French rule in Indochina generally considered to have been a pe- was virtually negligible, while the British riod of relative tranquillity, sometimes were only just beginning to reestablish called the age of armed peace. This can control of India after the Mutiny of 1857. be explained by the fact that most his- By 1914, the Europeans ruled over nearly torical texts have been written by Euro- the whole of South and Southeast Asia. peans and that Europe experienced a Similarly, in 1870, Africa was still largely period of prolonged peace between 1871 terra incognita for the Europeans. Settle- and 1914. ments were limited to South Africa and Still, in the imperial hinterlands, wars Algeria, although there were a few scat- were constantly being waged–to colo- tered European possessions on the coast nize new areas and to crush episodic of West Africa, as well as the Portuguese rebellions. The best-known examples territories in Mozambique. However, of such imperialist conflicts are the Boxer Rebellion in China, the German Henk Wesseling is professor emeritus of contem- wars against the Herero people in south- porary history at Leiden University. Rector of the west Africa, the South African War, and Netherlands Institute for Advanced Study from Kitchener’s conquest of the Egyptian 1995 to 2002, he is currently editor in chief of Sudan. There were many other conflicts “European Review,” the journal of the European that received a lot of coverage in the Academy. His books translated into English in- newspapers of the day, but most have clude “Divide and Rule” (1996), “Imperialism long been forgotten. These include the and Colonialism” (1997), and “The European prolonged struggle of the French against Colonial Empires, 1815–1919” (2004). the African resistance leader Samori in West Africa, the Maji-Maji wars in East © 2005 by the American Academy of Arts Africa, the French conquest of Madagas- & Sciences car, and the Dutch wars against Aceh

100 Dædalus Spring 2005 and Lombok in Indonesia. In most cases, the period 1871–1914 provides a colorful Imperialism & the roots annexation preceded war, because resis- list of “troubles,” “irregularities,” “expe- of the tance came only later. In these instances, ditions,” “disturbances,” “actions,” and Great War the military operations were not consid- “uprisings” in which that army was in- ered acts of war, but rather campaigns volved.3 In all, it lists thirty-two opera- against rebels. tions, even when the thirty years of war As a result, it is not easy to quantify in Aceh are considered as a single mili- the military activities that took place tary operation. There has been no com- during this period. Nevertheless, we do parable review of French warfare, but have some statistics at our disposal. In Gabriel Hanotaux and A. Martineau de- their book The Wages of War, 1816–1965, scribe about forty colonial operations the political scientists J. David Singer and campaigns in their 1930 Histoire des and Melvin Small survey all the wars colonies. that occurred during 150 years of mod- Overall, it can be concluded that dur- ern history.1 On the basis of certain cri- ing this period three major colonial pow- teria (most importantly, the number of ers were involved in at least a hundred casualties), they determine that ten larg- colonial military operations. er disputes during the period 1871–1914 qualify as colonial wars. These are four Several case studies on speci½c regions British wars (against the Zulu’s, against offer more detailed insight into what ac- the Mahdists, the Second British-Afghan tually took place. Helge Kjekshus’s study War, and the Boer War in South Africa), of German warfare in Tanganyika is es- two French wars (in Madagascar and pecially illuminating.4 The most impor- Indochina), one Dutch war (the Aceh tant war in Tanganyika was the German War), two wars in the Philippines, and campaign waged to suppress the Maji- one Italian war (in Ethiopia). They also Maji Rebellion. This war, named after specify seven smaller wars. Thus, of all the magic water that Africans in the re- the many military operations during this gion believed changed bullets into water, period, only seventeen could be classed raged from 1905 to 1907. Because tradi- as fully fledged wars. tional military methods were not effec- In his book Colonial Small Wars, 1837– tive in dealing with guerrilla warfare, 1901, Donald Featherstone describes scorched earth tactics were applied on a twenty-two important British wars dur- large scale. By targeting the civilian pop- ing the period 1871–1900, as well as a ulation in the agricultural regions, par- multitude of incidents and skirmishes ticularly during the sowing season, the along the northwest frontier of India.2 Germans broke armed resistance by The period after 1900, which saw the means of starvation. In the fourteen ‘paci½cation’ of Kenya, Nigeria, and the years running up to this major war there Gold Coast, was not much better. A book had already been eighty-four military on the Netherlands Indies Army during 3 The book is H. L. Zwitser and C. A. Heshu- 1 J. David Singer and Melvin Small, The Wages sius, Het Koninklijk Nederlands-Indische leger, of War, 1816–1965: A Statistical Handbook (New 1830–1950 (The Hague: M. Nijhoff, 1977). York: Wiley, 1972). 4 Helge Kjekshus, Ecology Control and Economic 2 Donald Featherstone, Colonial Small Wars, Development in East African History: The Case of 1837–1901 (Newton Abbot: David & Charles, Tanganyika, 1850–1950 (London: Heinemann 1973). Educational, 1977).

Dædalus Spring 2005 101 Henk operations classed as battles according roch, a reasonable estimate is that be- Wesseling to German law. (The law, passed on June tween 1750 and 1913 the lives of 300,000 on imperialism 27, 1871, stipulated that German soldiers European and 100,000 non-European involved in an of½cial battle were enti- soldiers were lost in the process of con- tled to a government pension.) In Tan- quering 34 million square kilometers of ganyika, a ‘quiet’ year thus entailed African and Asian territory and of sub- about six battles as well as many other jecting 534 million people in that con- violent acts, such as burning huts or quered territory to European rule. stealing livestock. Among their opponents, the number of In his article “The Politics of Con- lives lost is estimated to have been some- quest,” John Lonsdale paints a similar where between 800,000 and 1,000,000. picture of British activities in western However, the total number of deaths re- Kenya between 1894 and 1914.5 In this sulting from the wars and subsequent twenty-year period, there were nearly forced migrations and famines was ½fty incidents in the country that were probably more like a staggering 25 mil- so serious that the British thought it nec- lion.6 essary to resort to or at least consider using force. In eleven cases the British Overall, the European armies did refrained from action because they not suffer great losses in battle during lacked the necessary military equip- their campaigns; 80 to 90 percent of ment; in two cases the expedition ended deaths were related to disease and ex- in defeat or retreat; in thirteen cases a haustion rather than to actual combat. display of military power alone was suf- The British colonial war theorist Colonel ½cient; and in twenty cases a punitive C. E. Callwell rightly called the colonial military expedition battle ensued. This wars “campaigns against nature,”7 and, means that on average during this period in the same vein, the British colonial the British military engaged in one of½- secretary Joseph Chamberlain quipped, cial battle per year. “The mosquitoes saved the West Afri- These data clearly indicate that the cans, not the eloquence of the intellec- conquest and paci½cation of Africa by tuals.”8 Britain and Germany was a continual Asians and Africans were more likely process. Not a single year passed with- to die in battle than of disease and ex- out a war; in fact, not one month passed haustion. However, it is dif½cult to as- without some kind of violent incident or sess the loss of life accurately because act of repression. only the Europeans kept records, and Some historians have tried to calculate these typically accounted only for the the total loss of human life that resulted from violent encounters between Euro- peans and the colonized peoples. Up to 6 Paul Bairoch, Victoires et déboires: histoire éco- now, no such calculations have been per- nomique et sociale du monde du xvie siècle à nos formed speci½cally on the period be- jours, 3 vols. (Paris: Gallimard, 1997), vol. 2, tween 1870 and 1914. However, accord- 638. ing to the economic historian Paul Bai- 7 C. E. Callwell, Small Wars: Their Principles and Practice (London: Her Majesty’s Station- ary Of½ce, 1906), 57. 5 John Lonsdale, “The Politics of Conquest: The British in Western Kenya, 1894–1908,” 8 Quoted in George Padmore, The Gold Coast The Historical Journal 20 (1977): 841–870. Revolution (London: Dobson, 1953), 35.

102 Dædalus Spring 2005 deaths of their own troops. In the rare lives lost in battle can be attributed to Imperialism event that they actually quanti½ed en- the superiority of the European ½rearms. & the roots of the emy deaths, the ½gures would ignore This is apparent from Hilaire Belloc’s Great War civilian casualties. famous lines: Nevertheless, there are some ½gures Whatever happens, we have got available, for example, for the Maji-Maji The Maxim gun and they have not. wars. The of½cial German report, which was presented to the Reichstag in 1907, The effectiveness of these weapons was states that 75,000 Africans died. Other a cause for great pride among European estimates, however, suggest that 120,000 of½cers, politicians, and reporters. A to 145,000 died; some even estimate well-known example of that effective- 250,000 to 300,000–a huge number for ness was the Battle of Omdurman, near such a small region within Tanganyika. Khartoum, in the British campaign More than 90 percent of some tribes against the followers of the Sudanese perished. A variation on Tacitus’s fa- religious leader known as the Mahdi. As mous quote–“They left a void and the sun rose on September 2, 1898, battle called it peace”–is applicable here. commenced. At the end of the morning, The ½gures for the British-Zulu War the British commander General Horatio of 1879 are equally staggering. Half of Kitchener put away his binoculars and the 50,000 Zulu warriors who fought remarked that “the enemy has been giv- were either killed (8,000) or wounded en a good dusting.” This was an under- (16,000). On the British side, 1,430 statement: by 11:30 a.m., nearly 11,000 white men and 1,000 ‘Natal Kaf½rs’ Mahdists had been killed and another were killed in this war that lasted only 16,000 wounded. In contrast, the Anglo- six months. Egyptian army counted 48 dead and 382 It was not only Britain and Germany wounded. Winston Churchill, who took that conducted wars on such a scale. part in the campaign as a journalist and The Aceh War waged by the Dutch in as a soldier, called the battle “the most Indonesia was no less devastating. Here signal triumph ever gained by the arms also the European casualties were re- of science over barbarians.”9 The Mah- corded in more detail than those of the di’s tomb was opened, his nails were opposition forces. During the entire con- taken as souvenirs, and the rest of his flict, 2,000 soldiers from the Nether- body was burned. The Madhi’s succes- lands Indies Army were killed in action sor, the Khalifa, escaped and was not and another 10,000 died from disease. seen again until a year later, when he was On the Indonesian side, it is estimated killed in battle on November 24, 1899. that 60,000 to 70,000 Acehnese were killed and 25,000 died from disease and Considering the overwhelming superi- exhaustion in labor camps. In total, ority of European ½rearms, the most suc- about 100,000 men perished and anoth- cessful way for colonized peoples to ½ght er 500,000 people were wounded in the the Europeans was to refuse to engage in war. As mentioned previously, the Neth- conventional battle. In guerrilla warfare, erlands Indies Army was also involved in local skills such as knowledge of the ter- another thirty-one military operations at rain, popular support, and familiarity the time, although these were far less signi½cant. 9 Both quotes are from H. L. Wesseling, Divide The huge discrepancy between the and Rule: The Partition of Africa, 1880–1914 number of European and non-European (Westport, Conn.: Praeger, 1996), 253. Dædalus Spring 2005 103 Henk with the local conditions gave the indig- cases the enemy was indeed dif½cult to Wesseling on enous peoples an advantage. Where this identify. imperialism was the case, as in Madagascar, Indochi- There also was another problem. The na, and Morocco, the ‘paci½cation pro- Europeans not only had to defeat the op- cess’ took much longer and required far position but also had to make sure the more effort from the Europeans. local population subsequently accepted The process was called paci½cation them as the rulers. The French generals because the aim of these military oper- Joseph Gallieni and Hubert Lyautey de- ations was to create a permanent state veloped a general theory of colonial war- of peace by gaining absolute control. fare in which they addressed this issue. In this respect, these conflicts differed They made a distinction between slow from classical European warfare. The action, which was aimed at gradually main characteristic of colonial wars was purging the resistance in a particular that they were instigated not just to de- region while establishing permanent oc- feat an enemy, but also to annex the op- cupation, and quick action, which in- ponent’s territory and to subject the volved military action against the ene- population. my. Gallieni and Lyautey summarized As Clausewitz’s famous formula has it, their strategy as “Fight if necessary, but “war is the continuation of politics by ½ght as little as possible.” Their own two other means.” In other words, political most famous maxims were “To destroy aims determine wars. In the ‘ordinary’ only to reconstruct” and “With paci½ca- European wars, the aims were usually tion a great wave of civilization spreads limited. The peace agreements often in- out like an oil slick.” cluded ceding territory, but usually this Unfortunately, the theory that colonial would only concern a particular region. conquest brought civilization was often In contrast, colonial wars were absolute: not borne out in practice. The famous The colonial conquerors came to stay. British colonial commander General Sir Their aim was the permanent and total Garnet Wolseley maintained that in a subjection of the population. war against an “uncivilized nation [a The nature of the aims driving the co- population without a capital city] . . . lonial wars had consequences for the your ½rst objective should be the capture outcome. Normally a war is said to have of whatever they prize most.” For Call- been won when the opponent is beaten well too this was the crux of the matter: and accepts the victor’s terms. But when “If the enemy cannot be touched in his is a colonial war won? When is an op- patriotism or his honour, he can be ponent defeated? How can victory be touched through his pocket.” This de½ned? meant that the invaders often resorted There were usually no peace condi- to stealing cattle and burning villages tions and often it was not even known and that “the war assume[d] an aspect who the opponent actually was. Colonel which may shock the humanitarian.” Callwell drew attention to this problem Sometimes the goal of paci½cation and in his book Small Wars. He claimed that civilization turned into an operation of in contrast to ‘civilized’ wars, in small elimination and extermination. The wars there were no clear targets such as most notorious example of this occurred a ruler, a seat of government, a capital in 1904 when General Lothar von Trotha city, or any large group of people. Call- issued the so-called Vernichtungsbefehl well exaggerated somewhat, but in many (extermination order) during the Ger-

104 Dædalus Spring 2005 man war against the Hereros in south- writings from the decade before World Imperialism west Africa. In this notorious proclama- War I. & the roots of the tion, he declared, “Within the German Great War borders, every Herero, with or without a During the years of the ‘armed peace,’ gun, with or without cattle, shall be shot the armies of the Great Powers, apart down. No woman or child shall be ad- from Russia, did not engage in major mitted: I shall send them back to their warfare in Europe. This meant that the people or have them shot. These are my only way to see action and obtain ½ght- words to the Herero people.” It was ing experience was to join the colonial signed: “The great general of the all- army. Moreover, because the colonial powerful emperor, Von Trotha.”10 of½cer also had to be a good administra- Similarly, when the war in Aceh was tor, there were more skills to learn than going badly for the Dutch, a commenta- ½ghting. Lettres du Tonkin et de Madagas- tor remarked, “Our policy should no car, the collection of letters that Lyautey longer be aimed at their assimilation wrote between 1894 and 1899, gives a but at their elimination.” On July 27, lyrical description of the life of the colo- 1900, in his so-called Hun Speech, the nial of½cer. Lyautey describes with obvi- German Kaiser said as much to the Ger- ous pride the results of the “creative man soldiers being sent to China to quell feats” of the colonial leaders: land rec- the Boxer Rebellion: lamation, paddy ½elds, sleepy valleys transformed into hives of activity. No pardon will be given, and prisoners “What nobler task for a man of action!” will not be made. Anyone who falls into he exclaims. your hands falls to your sword! Just as the But there is at ½rst glance little that Huns . . . created for themselves a thousand is heroic or soldierly in such peaceful years ago a name which men still respect, achievements–in, as Lyautey put it, “la- you should give the name of German such borious, thankless, and lowly jobs which cause to be remembered in China for a are the daily and only productive task of thousand years that no Chinaman . . . will the colonial of½cer.” Anticipating claims dare to look a German in the face.”11 that such work diverted the soldier’s at- All these statements reflected the tention from the real task of defending prevailing political climate in Europe, his native soil, Lyautey wrote that it was which had become harsher under the nonsense to suggest that of½cers serving influence of social Darwinism. Even in the colonies were demilitarized when such a respectable and wise statesman such manly qualities as initiative, re- as the British prime minister Lord Salis- sponsibility, and militancy were con- bury expressed such views: “‘Eat and be stantly required of them. On the con- eaten’ is the great law of political as of trary, “it is the grandeur which colonial animated nature. The nations of the warfare alone, understood in that sense, earth are divided into the sheep and the bestows upon life.” wolves.”12 Similar views appear in many The texts of Lyautey and Gallieni were 10 Quoted in H. L. Wesseling, The European Co- published in distinguished journals and lonial Empires, 1815–1919 (Harlow, Essex: Pear- read by the intellectual elite. French son Education, 2004), 187. newspaper readers, however, were more interested in the spectacular aspects of 11 Ibid., 128. colonial warfare. Never before had the 12 Ibid., 126. printed press reached an audience as

Dædalus Spring 2005 105 Henk large as in those years. In 1910, the Pari- went on. At the same time, disarmament Wesseling on sian daily newspaper Le Petit Journal sold fell into disfavor. The Russian foreign imperialism 835,000 copies a day, and Le Petit Parisien minister Alexandr Izvolsky called disar- even more at 1,400,000. These popular mament “a craze of Jews, socialists and newspapers featured colorful, full-page hysterical women.”13 illustrations of the heroic feats of the Military experts studied the wars that French colonial armies–for example, were being waged, especially the Boer the struggle with the river pirates in War in South Africa (1899–1902) and Indochina, the execution of the rulers of the Russo-Japanese War (1904–1905). Madagascar, the battle against the fe- According to the experts, these wars male soldiers of the King of Dahomey con½rmed the theory that willpower and and the entrance of General Dodds into moral ½ber were the most vital qualities their capital, and the conquest of Mo- in war and that, therefore, an offensive rocco. attitude was all-important. Writing in Novelists also wrote about military Small Wars, Callwell argued that offen- glory and the colonial world–Rudyard sive warfare should be directed toward Kipling is of course the best-known Eng- breaking the morale of the opponent, lish apologist and prophet of Western that this should be achieved by a combi- expansion and the British Empire. A nation of strength and bluff, and that the less well-known but very successful commanding of½cers must continually writer in his day was Ernest Psichari, seek and hold the initiative: “the enemy grandson of the great scholar and writer must not only be beaten. He must be Ernest Renan, who was a colonial sol- beaten thoroughly.” dier. In his novels, Psichari idolized the This view, widespread in Europe at the colonial army, whose deeds in the tropi- time, gave the strong the con½dence that cal forests of Central Africa and the im- they possessed the moral right to subject measurable plains of the North Afri- the weak, who were by de½nition inferi- can desert seemed to embody the great or. Colonial wars were not only exciting French traditions that were absent in ur- –they were justi½ed. More important, ban France. In his work, he merges hero- colonial wars were nearly always suc- ism, exoticism, and nationalism to pro- cessful, and the colonial armies were duce a lyrical hymn praising the colonial therefore almost always triumphant. soldiers who do not indulge in the mate- Of course, there were some exceptions– rialistic and decadent lifestyle of metro- such as the British defeat at Isandlwhana politan France but live an austere life of and the Italian humiliation at Adowa– devotion and self-sacri½ce in the colo- but these incidents were rare. As a rule, nies overseas. the colonial armies came, saw, and con- Colonial warfare also influenced mili- quered. tary thinking. Although there was peace in Europe during these years, there was There are striking similarities between an international arms race. The costs the thinking of the colonial war theorists were so high that in 1899 the Russian tsar and the thinking of the great military convened an international conference in theorists of the pre–World War I period. The Hague to see whether the ongoing increase of armaments could be stopped 13 Quoted in Barbara W. Tuchman, The Proud Tower: A Portrait of the World Before the War, or at least curtailed. Another conference 1890–1914 (New York: Bantam Books, 1967), followed in 1907–but still the arms race 324.

106 Dædalus Spring 2005 Lyautey’s colonial warfare theory that that made it possible, ½fty years after the Imperialism & the roots “passive defense can only lead to being Battle of Solferino, to believe again in of the overrun” differs little from Ferdinand the glory of war. In this way, the small Great War Foch’s claim that “passive defense can- wars in the colonies paved the way for not avert defeat.” Similarly, Colonel the Great War. Callwell’s statement that “moral effect The colonial armies were accustomed ranks almost before material gain” is to continually mounting attacks regard- echoed by Colonel Grandmaison’s re- less of the probability of success, in or- mark that “moral factors are not the der to sustain an image of European su- most important; they are the only ones periority. It is not dif½cult to see the con- that matter in war.” nection between this approach and the There was another important and tan- predominant mentality of the World gible link between the colonial wars and War I generals who valued willpower, the Great War: Colonel Grandmaison moral ½ber, and bold attack. As V. G. had been Gallieni’s adjutant in Tonkin. Kiernan ruefully wrote in The Lords of The British generals Allenby and Wilson Human Kind, “Their generals in the rear, had studied under Miller Maguire, the many of them with minds still farther English theorist of guerrilla warfare. away in the Asian or African campaign- Some of the best-known generals from ing grounds of their youth, could not be the colonial wars, such as Kitchener, got to see the point.”14 Gallieni, and Lyautey, became ministers of war during World War I. Joffre had 14 Victor Kiernan, The Lords of Human Kind been with Gallieni in Madagascar before (Harmondsworth: Pelican Books, 1972), 320. he became the ½rst colonial of½cer to be appointed head of the French General Staff. Within the ½rst months of the war, he nominated many colonial of½cers– Mangin, Franchet d’Esperey, and oth- ers–to high positions. Soon the ideas about moral factors and the offensive spirit were put to the test. World War I was characterized by large- scale offensives accompanied by massive slaughter. This strategy was directly re- lated to the colonial belief that willpow- er and morale were the decisive factors in war. As Foch said, “Victoire égale volonté.” This belief that victory is achieved by breaking the will of the en- emy was supported by expert analyses of imperial conflicts and colonial wars. At the same time, colonial military novels presented a romantic view of mil- itary life: Colonial wars took place in an exotic, heroic world. War was dif½cult and harsh but the rewards were rich. These writings painted an image of war

Dædalus Spring 2005 107 Akira Iriye

Beyond imperialism: the new internationalism

Much has been said about the United So one side of the argument goes. But States having become, or having to be- others dispute this contention, insisting come, an empire. To provide the chaotic that for practical or moral reasons the world, especially in the wake of the Cold United States should never take on an War, with some semblance of law and imperial role. order, it has been asserted, the interna- A historian can only contribute to this tional community needs a new world debate by historicizing it–that is, by order, a global empire, a superpower that noting what empires and imperialism can speak on behalf of all countries and have meant in the past, and by examin- all peoples, a power willing to use its ing what these might mean in today’s military and economic resources to pro- world. This essay seeks to put empires tect all against the forces of violence and and imperialism in the context of mod- anarchy. There is only one nation that ern world affairs and to discuss how they can ful½ll the task: the United States. In contributed, or failed to contribute, to the twenty-½rst century, therefore, hu- stabilizing international order. mankind may be forced to choose be- tween continued disorder and imperial It cannot be denied that there was a governance instituted by the United time when empires provided some sort States. of world order. In the ½rst half of the nineteenth century, the globe was dotted Akira Iriye, Charles Warren Professor of Ameri- by huge territorial empires, including can History at Harvard University, has written the Ottoman, Persian, Mughal (Mogul), widely on the history of international relations Russian, and Chinese (Qing). They pre- and U.S. foreign affairs. His books include “Cul- sided over large, multiethnic popula- tural Internationalism and World Order” (1997), tions and kept (with varying degrees of “Japan and the Wider World: From the Mid- success) local tensions under control. Nineteenth Century to the Present” (1997), and These were traditional imperial states “Global Community: The Role of International under the rule of dynasties whose ori- Organizations in the Making of the Contempo- gins went back several centuries. They rary World” (2002). He has been a Fellow of the governed essentially contiguous territo- American Academy since 1982. ries, thereby establishing some sem- blance of regional order. One might in- © 2005 by the American Academy of Arts clude the United States in this list as & Sciences

108 Dædalus Spring 2005 well: it, too, grew as a territorial empire Likewise signi½cant, in contemporary Beyond imperialism: during the nineteenth century, expand- discussions the ‘imperialism’ that is the new ing northward, westward, and south- most relevant is the ‘new imperialism’ inter- ward, with the central government es- that emerged in the last decades of the nationalism tablishing its authority over all parts nineteenth century and persisted only of its territory, at least after the Civil through the ½rst decades of the twenti- War. eth. A handful of nations whose empires These landed empires were joined by were both territorial and maritime exer- the maritime empires of Britain, France, cised the new imperialism; great mili- Spain, and other European nations that tary powers such as Britain, France, Ger- superimposed a commercial regime over many, Russia, the United States, and the vast, traditional empires of the Mid- Japan incorporated overseas territory dle East, South Asia, and East Asia. The into their respective domains, thereby relationship between the landed and emerging as world powers. Most of Af- maritime empires was sometimes vio- rica, the Middle East, Asia, and the Pa- lent–for example, in India during the ci½c were carved into their colonies and 1850s when Britain displaced the Mu- spheres of influence. Once acquired, ghal Empire with its own colonial re- these lands were governed by cadres of gime. On the whole, however, the tradi- administrators recruited both at home tional empires continued to function, and in the colonies; and these colonial even as merchants, sailors, and mission- regimes were in turn protected by of½- aries from the maritime powers in½ltrat- cers and men sent from the metropoles ed their lands. and by troops and police recruited local- Until the last decades of the nine- ly. The new imperialists vied with one teenth century, these territorial and mar- another for control over land, resources, itime empires constituted an interna- and people, and in the process they tional order. The system of international fought many colonial wars. Instead of law that had originated in Europe in the producing global chaos and anarchy as a seventeenth century steadily spread to consequence, however, these empires at other parts of the world, and all these times managed to establish some sort of empires, as well as other independent world order. They did so both by seeking states, entered into treaty relations with to stabilize their relationships with one one another. This was an age of multiple another and by making sure the people empires. When we talk of empires today, they controlled would not threaten the or of the United States having become system. an empire, we obviously do not have in The Russo-Japanese War (1904–1905) mind such a situation. Rather, many ob- and its aftermath serve as a good illustra- servers draw the analogy between em- tion. Ignited by Russia and Japan’s clash- pire today and the British and other mar- ing ambitions in northeast China (Man- itime empires that emerged at the end of churia) and the Korean peninsula, this the nineteenth century when a handful ½rst major war of the twentieth century of colonial regimes established near- was a typically imperialistic war. When total control over most of the world’s negotiations to de½ne their respective land and people. This distinction is im- spheres of domination failed, the two portant, since much depends on what countries fought on land and at sea, but historical antecedent one is referring to not on Russian or Japanese soil; the Chi- when one talks about an empire. nese and Koreans themselves had no say

Dædalus Spring 2005 109 Akira Iriye in this war that would determine their tions under tight control. The world or- on imperialism nations’ futures. Victorious, Japan won der they established entailed a division control over Korea and southern Man- of humankind between the ruler and the churia, turning the former into its col- ruled, the powerful and the weak, the ony and the latter into its base of opera- ‘civilized’ and the ‘uncivilized.’ tion on the Chinese mainland. The oth- er Great Powers, assuming their own The world of the new empires had its imperial domains would not be directly heyday at the beginning of the twentieth threatened by the conflict or its eventual century, but it disintegrated rapidly fol- outcome, did not intervene, but in the lowing the Great War. The German, end the United States offered mediation Austrian, and Ottoman Empires col- with a view to preventing further blood- lapsed after the four years of ½ghting, shed and regional disorder. Within two while the Russian Empire, on the oppo- years of the war’s end, moreover, Russia site side of the conflict, was undone by and Japan reconciled and agreed to di- the revolutionaries who came to power vide Manchuria (and later, Inner Mon- during the war. The empires of Britain, golia) between them. France, Japan, and the United States did The two empires had fought an impe- not disappear, but they were no longer rialistic war and, just as quickly, had de- capable of providing the globe with sys- cided to preserve their imperial spheres tem and order. They might have tried to through cooperation. Such behavior was cooperate with one another to preserve typical in the age of the new imperial- the new imperialism, but they had nei- ism. The other imperialists essentially ther the will nor the resources to do so. stood by, accepting the new status quo Imperialistic collusion broke down, and in Asia, although the United States, with Japan began challenging the existing em- its empire in the Paci½c, began to view pires in Asia and the Paci½c in the 1930s. Japan’s growing power with alarm. Still, Under Nazi leadership a new German the United States and Japan reached empire emerged, and Japan and Ger- agreement that they would not challenge many in combination collided head-on their respective empires: the United with the remaining empires of Europe States would not dispute Japanese con- and the United States. trol over Korea or southern Manchuria, In that sense, World War II was an im- and Japan would not infringe on U.S. perialistic war, but it was also the begin- sovereignty in the Philippines, Guam, ning of the end of all empires, new and or Hawaii. The Japanese also accepted old. By seeking to destroy each other, the French control over Indochina and empires had committed collective sui- Dutch control over the East Indies, de- cide–but that was only one reason be- spite the movements against colonialism hind the demise of imperialism. More that were developing in those colonies. fundamental was the emergence of anti- Some of these movements’ leaders imperialism as a major force in twenti- looked to Japan, the only non-Western eth-century world affairs. Great Power, for support, but Japan Anti-imperialistic nationalism had chose to identify itself with the other many sources–ideological, political, so- imperialists. cial, and racial–but above all, it was fos- At least for the time being, the imperi- tered by the development of the transna- al powers colluded with one another to tional forces that are usually identi½ed as keep their respective colonial popula- globalization. The age of the new impe-

110 Dædalus Spring 2005 rialism coincided with the quickening tween these two groups of people, com- Beyond imperialism: tempo of technological change and of pradors acting as middlemen between the new international economic interchanges; colonial administrators and the native inter- more and more quantities of goods and populations, and the education of colo- nationalism capital crossed borders, and distances nial elite in the schools and universities between people of different countries of the European metropoles. Imperial- narrowed dramatically, thanks to the ism would have ceased to function if development of the telegraph, the tele- such blurring continued–and that was phone, the steamship, the automobile, why, even while colonizer and colonized and many other devices. were intermingling at one level, at an- These advances in science and tech- other a system of rigid social and cultur- nology at one level facilitated imperialis- al distinction was maintained. Such dis- tic control over distant lands–and for tinction in turn aroused resistance and this reason most historians tend to claim opposition from the indigenous popula- that imperialism and globalization went tions, reinforcing anticolonialist senti- hand in hand. Without the international ments. order sustained by the imperial powers If globalization, in short, facilitated (in particular, by the British Empire), it the new imperialism, it also provided is often argued, economic globalization favorable conditions for the emergence would have been much more dif½cult, if of anti-imperialism. And in the end, not impossible, to develop. The empire anti-imperialism proved to be a far provided a political and legal frame- stronger imperative than imperialism. work, backed up by military force, for Before the Great War, anti-imperialists the economic transactions and techno- in Tunisia, Egypt, India, China, Korea, logical developments of the day. The im- and elsewhere were already aware that perial administrators built roads, estab- modern transportation and communica- lished schools, and helped eradicate dis- tions technology could serve their inter- eases in their colonies and spheres of in- ests as well as they had served those of fluence, thereby modernizing these ar- their colonial masters. Anti-imperialists eas and incorporating them into an in- could use railways and steamships to creasingly integrated globe. Thus, if one travel long distances and organize resist- accepts such a perspective, it is possible ance movements; they could use the to say that imperialism and globalization mass media and circulate handbills and reinforced one another, even that they newspapers among an increasingly liter- were two sides of the same phenome- ate populace; and they could even estab- non–something like the development of lish transnational connections and con- a stable and interdependent world order. vene international congresses against But it is also clear that globalization imperialism. facilitated the growth of colonial resist- Although some in the metropoles sup- ance to imperialist domination. To the ported the anti-imperialist movement, extent that globalization was an integra- before the Great War it had not signi½- tive force, bringing people of all coun- cantly weakened or altered the structure tries closer together, it undermined one of imperial governance. Yet even as large essential condition of imperialism: the numbers of colonial troops were recruit- rigid separation of colonizer and colo- ed to ½ght for their respective masters, nized. The blurring of the distinction the war experience did nothing but en- took many forms: mixed marriages be- courage the growth of anti-imperialism.

Dædalus Spring 2005 111 Akira Iriye Both the Bolshevik revolutionaries’ anti- phalian system of sovereign states that on imperialism imperialist ideology and Woodrow Wil- had provided the normative framework son’s conception of self-determination for European international affairs since indicated that even among the victori- the seventeenth century would now be ous Allies the ranks of the imperialist applied to the entire globe, as country powers were breaking down. The pro- after country achieved independence in cesses of globalization that had facilitat- Africa, the Middle East, Asia, and else- ed imperialism were now encouraging where. Global governance would no the spread of anticolonial nationalism. If longer be based on a vertical division empires had de½ned the nineteenth cen- of the world into the ruling powers tury, then nationalism would de½ne the and all the rest, but instead established twentieth. through a horizontal system of coop- This became quite evident after the eration among nations of presumably Great War, when economic globaliza- equal status. tion resumed, buttressed by such tech- nological inventions as the airplane, The history of the world in the second the radio, and the cinema. Imperialism, half of the twentieth century was to however, was not reinforced by this pro- show, however, that sovereign states cess but, on the contrary, was eclipsed were no more capable of producing sta- by an ever-more vociferous clamor for ble international order than the empires national liberation all over the world. had been: nearly as many lives were lost When the remaining imperial powers in interstate and civil wars after 1945 as failed to respond in unison to such in World War II. With rare exceptions, voices, or to prevent another calamitous the United Nations proved incapable of war from breaking out between them- preventing such conflict when national selves, anti-imperialist movements grew interests collided, and few countries so strong that by the end of World War were willing to give precedence to the II, nationalism had come to be seen as a principle of international cooperation. plausible alternative to imperialism as It is often argued that the postwar in- the basis for reconstructing world order. ternational system was de½ned by the Instead of a handful of large and pow- cold war in which the United States and erful empires providing law and order the Soviet Union effectively divided the in the world, now, after World War II, globe into two counterbalancing spheres sovereign states were expected to act as of influence. The two countries, which both the constituents and guardians of controlled the domestic affairs of their the international system. The former allies and client states to maintain local empires that were now shorn of colo- order, managed to prevent a third world nies, the newly decolonized countries, war from erupting. If we accept this and the countries that had been inde- view, we are in effect saying the United pendent but noncolonial states–all States and the Soviet Union behaved like would be equal players in the postwar erstwhile empires, as providers and sus- world order. They would ensure domes- tainers of local and international order. tic stability while at the same time coop- But it must be recognized that unlike the erating with one another through the nineteenth-century empires, they did United Nations, an organization whose not discourage nationalism. basic principle is national independence The United States, after all, continued and sovereignty. The so-called West- to espouse the principle of national self-

112 Dædalus Spring 2005 determination, and the Soviet Union, for and independent states continued to Beyond imperialism: its part, preached ideological anti-impe- look after their own parochial interests, the new rialism. Both superpowers supported co- these non-state actors together promot- inter- lonial liberation movements, although ed globalization and a sense of transna- nationalism in practice they did not always ½nd them tional interdependence. compatible with their global strategies. The question, then, was whether the Meanwhile, the independent states of non-state actors would be able to pro- Asia, the Middle East, Africa, and Latin vide global order if this task could not be America often refused to heed the dic- entrusted to the superpowers or the sov- tates of the Cold War antagonists. Na- ereign states. tionalism, once unleashed, could not be contained even by the Cold War’s new This was the key question that had to empires. be addressed in the last three decades of Globalization proceeded apace after the twentieth century–and it remains World War II, but this was not because the key question today. Indeed, it is the of the Cold War or postcolonial nation- question at the heart of the contempo- alism, but rather in spite of them. Eco- rary debate on empire. nomic, social, and cultural bonds of in- During the 1970s and 1980s, as Cold terdependence were strengthened across War tensions abated, fresh national ri- nations by supranational entities (espe- valries were unleashed, fracturing Afri- cially regional communities) and by ca, the Middle East, Central Asia, and non-state actors (such as multinational Southeast Asia. At the same time, forces enterprises and international nongov- for transnational interconnectedness ernmental organizations). Regional were strengthened. The European Eco- communities, most notably the Euro- nomic Community, now joined by Brit- pean Economic Community, sought to ain, steadily effected regional integra- subordinate separate national interests tion, and its success encouraged similar, to considerations of collective well- if smaller-scale, arrangements else- being. The idea had always been there where, such as the Association of South- –after all, it was well recognized that east Asian Nations and the North Ameri- globalization implied some sort of trans- can Free Trade Area. nationally shared interest–but it was Whether such regional entities would, not put into practice until a group of Eu- by themselves, succeed in establishing a ropean countries agreed to put an end to new international order remained to be their history of internecine wars and to seen. If such communities developed as give up part of their respective sovereign exclusionary groupings, pursuing only rights for the sake of regional peace and their internally shared interests, they solidarity. might end up dividing the world. But The number of non-state actors grew other developments in the last decades rapidly after World War II. Whereas in of the century tended to encourage the quarter century after 1945 the num- international and interregional coopera- ber of independent states nearly dou- tion and to generate conditions for the bled, international nongovernmental emergence of a new, stable order. During organizations and multinational enter- the 1970s, for instance, issues such as prises increased even more spectacular- environmental degradation and human ly. While the superpowers worked to rights abuses were becoming so serious advance their own geopolitical agendas, that they would have to be solved

Dædalus Spring 2005 113 Akira Iriye through transnationally coordinated governmental organizations and multi- on imperialism action. The United Nations sponsored national enterprises be able to construct conferences to deal with them, and it a global civil society? How could non- was joined by newly formed nongovern- state bodies establish any sort of govern- mental organizations that were transna- ing structure to provide law and order? tional in character, such as Friends of the How would they de½ne their relation- Earth and Amnesty International. Acts ship to the existing states? of international terrorism also aroused These were serious questions to which global awareness, evoking calls for col- no satisfactory answer was readily avail- lective response. able. It may have been for this reason These issues were no longer con½ned that some began to look back fondly on to speci½c countries or regions. It was no empires as providers of international accident, then, that international organi- order. Two developments at the end of zations of all sorts, but especially of the the twentieth century and the beginning nongovernmental variety, grew spectac- of the twenty-½rst made the question of ularly in the last decades of the century. effective world governance extremely At a time when sovereign states were urgent. One was the frequency and geo- proving incapable of constructing a vi- graphical spread of international terror- able international order, and when the ism, and the other, the proliferation of Cold War was ebbing, regional commu- nuclear, biological, and chemical weap- nities, international organizations, and ons across national boundaries. non-state actors were actively seeking Both were serious challenges to the an alternative–a global community that whole world, requiring an effective re- did not rely for its viability on the exist- sponse from all–states, international ing governments and armed forces, but organizations, regional communities, on the transnational activities of indi- and non-state actors. Such cooperation, viduals and organizations. These were however, would take a long time to de- all aspects of the globalizing trend of in- velop, so in the meantime the United ternational affairs. States took it upon itself to punish ter- Can such transnational forces and ac- rorist groups and the ‘rogue states’ sus- tivities somehow manage to combine pected of harboring weapons of mass to establish a global structure of gover- destruction. For those who believed that nance? That is the major challenge international order must be buttressed today. by a great military power willing to use A hundred years ago, globalization its resources for this purpose, the United had coincided with the new imperial- States provided the ready, and possibly ism. By the late twentieth century, nine- only, answer. The nation would carry teenth-century-style imperialism had out the functions that the earlier em- long since disappeared from the scene, pires had performed. It would be the but the postcolonial states had proved empire for the twenty-½rst century. no more capable of establishing a stable But today there is little tolerance for world order than the older nations that any sort of imperialism anywhere in the had been in existence for a long time. world. Although old-fashioned imperial- Would the regional communities pro- ism is far from dead, it has no legitimacy vide the answer? If not, would transna- in the international community, which tional non-state entities such as non- is, at least in theory, constructed on the

114 Dædalus Spring 2005 principles of national self-determination orously promoted, by governments, pri- Beyond imperialism: and human rights. Moreover, the Atlan- vate organizations, and individuals. The the new tic world, which dominated modern Olympic Games were one example, the inter- international relations and of which the Permanent Court of Arbitration in the nationalism United States was an integral part, can Hague, another. The internationalists no longer claim the same degree of hege- established transnational organizations mony in world affairs. and convened world congresses. They On one hand, European countries have sought an alternative to a world order tended to move within the framework of that was dominated by the imperialists. their regional community, quite inde- Yet the contest for influence between pendently of the transatlantic ties. On imperialism and internationalism ap- the other hand, China, India, and some peared to be decided in the former’s Latin American and Middle Eastern favor when, despite the international- countries are likely to develop as centers ists’ ardent pleas for peace and under- of economic and even military power. To standing among nations, the world the extent that the new imperialism of a powers chose war. hundred years ago was largely a product But the Great War proved to be the of Western civilization, today we must swan song of empires, and their certain reckon with the fact that non-Western demise was implicit in the establishment civilizations have grown in strength and of the League of Nations, an internation- self-con½dence. If a new empire were to alist project par excellence. Although the emerge, therefore, it would not be able League did little about the existing em- to function if it were identi½ed solely pires besides placing Germany’s former with the West. Such an empire would colonies and those of its wartime allies have to accommodate different civiliza- under a system of mandates, and while it tions from all regions of the Earth, and it proved powerless to check the aggressive would need to be mindful of the transna- imperialism of Germany and Japan in tional networks of goods, capital, ideas, the 1930s, its internationalist vision nev- and individuals that constitute global er died. The international body, assisted civil society. by a host of nongovernmental organiza- In other words, a new empire for the tions, kept up the efforts–even during new millennium would not be an empire the dark days of World War II–to de½ne in any traditional sense. norms of behavior for nations and indi- viduals, efforts that laid the ground for What may have worked briefly a hun- conceptions of human rights, crimes dred years ago cannot be expected to re- against humanity, and universal equality appear and function in the same way to- and justice under the law. The United day. There is, however, another nine- States and Great Britain, even as they teenth-century legacy that might, in its fought against the Axis Powers, without twenty-½rst-century incarnation, pro- hesitation embraced this internationalist vide a more relevant solution to today’s legacy that became the basis of the Unit- problems: the legacy of international- ed Nations. ism. Even if somehow a new empire were It is sometimes forgotten that the age to emerge, that empire would have to of the new imperialism was also a time embody principles of human rights and when modern internationalism was vig- justice for all. It would have to be an em-

Dædalus Spring 2005 115 Akira Iriye pire of freedom in support of the emer- on imperialism gent transnational institutions of global civil society. Since such a development is highly un- likely, we would do better to explore the alternative. After all, there actually are other ways of securing international order. And there is no reason why the internationalist legacy, rather than the legacy of the briefly dominant new im- perialism, should not serve humankind today.

116 Dædalus Spring 2005 Poems by Franz Wright

Lesson

Because what is outer is inner there is no outer there is no inner– I am trying to get this straight And what the long sentence assembled by cemetery sparrows said before my presence arrived dispersing them in its brief wake, oh wordless endless.

Dædalus Spring 2005 117 The Choice

When you look at the sky, when you look at the stars, God is not there.

Someone in hell is sitting beside you on the train. Somebody burning unnoticed walks past in the street.

Sailors in snow–

God can do what is impossible, but God can only do what is impossible.

Sad incurable gift.

Franz Wright received the 2004 Pulitzer Prize for his most recent collection of poetry, “Walking to Martha’s Vineyard” (2003). His other books include “Midnight Postscript” (1993), “Ill Lit: New and Selected Poems” (1998), and “The Beforelife” (2001). He has received fellowships from the Guggen- heim and Whiting Foundations and the National Endowment for the Arts, as well as the pen/Voelcker Award for Poetry.

© 2005 by Franz Wright

118 Dædalus Spring 2005 Fiction by Margaret Atwood

four short pieces: King Log in exile, Post-colonial, Salome was a dancer & Take charge

King Log in exile King Log–ex-King Log–sighed. It was a squelchy sigh, the sigh of a damp After he had been deposed by the frogs, hunk of wood that has been stepped on. King Log lay disconsolately among the What had he done wrong? Nothing. He ferns and dead leaves a short distance himself had not murdered his citizens, from the pond. He’d had only enough as the Stork King was now doing. It was energy to roll that far: he’d been King of true he had done nothing right, either. the Pond for so long that he was heavily He had done–in a word–nothing. waterlogged. In the distance he could But surely his had been a benevolent hear the jubilant croaking and the joyful inertia. As he’d drifted here and there, trilling that signaled the coronation of borne by the sluggish currents of the his celebrated replacement, the experi- pond, tadpoles had sheltered beneath enced and ef½cient King Stork; and then him and nibbled the algae that grew on –it seemed but a mini-second later–the him, and adult frogs had sunbathed on shrieks of terror and the splashes of pan- his back. Why then had he been so igno- ic as King Stork set about spearing and miniously dumped? In a coup d’état gobbling up his new subjects. orchestrated by foreign powers, it went without saying; though certain factions among the frogs–stirred up by outside Margaret Atwood is the author of more than forty agitators–had been denouncing him for books of ½ction, poetry, and critical essays. Her some time. They’d said a strong leader most recent novel, “Oryx and Crake” (2003), was needed. Well, now they had one. was short-listed for the Man Booker Prize and the There’d been that minor trade deal, Giller Prize in Canada. Her other books include of course. He’d signed it under duress, the 2000 Booker Prize–winning “The Blind As- though nobody’d held a gun to his head, sassin” (2000), “Alias Grace” (1996), which or what passed for his head. And hadn’t won the Giller Prize in Canada and the Premio it bene½ted the pond? There had been a Mondello in Italy, “The Robber Bride” (1993), sharp upturn in exports, the chief com- “Cat’s Eye” (1988), and “The Handmaid’s Tale” modity being frogs’ legs. But he himself (1985). Her latest collection of non½ction, “Writ- had never been directly involved. He’d ing with Intent,” will be published this spring. She just been a facilitator. He’d tucked his has been a Foreign Honorary Member of the cut of the pro½ts away in a Swiss bank American Academy since 1988. account, just in case. Now the frogs were blaming him for © 2005 by Margaret Atwood the depredations of the Stork King. If

Dædalus Spring 2005 119 Fiction by King Log had been a better king, they the men in beaver hats, sailor hats, top Margaret were yelling–if he hadn’t let the rot set hats, hats anyway, got out of the ships; Atwood in–none of this would have happened. before the native inhabitants shot the He knew he couldn’t stay in the vicini- men in hats with arrows or befriended ty of the pond much longer. He must not them and saved them from starvation, give in to anomie. Already there were we all had native inhabitants. Arrows or puffballs growing out of him, and under not, it didn’t stop the men in hats, or not his bark the grubs were at work. He for long, and they had flags too, we all trundled away through the woods, the had flags, flags that were not the same cries of amphibian anguish receding flags as the flags we have now. The na- behind him. Served them right, he tive inhabitants did not have hats or thought, sadly and a little bitterly. flags, or not as such, and so something King Log has retired to a villa in the had to be done. There are the pictures Alps, where he is at present sprouting a of the things being done, the before and ½ne crop of shitake mushrooms and after pictures you might say, painted by working on his memoirs, one word at a the painters who turned up right on cue, time. Logs write slowly, and log kings we all had painters. They painted the na- more slowly than most. He has engaged tive inhabitants in their colorful, hatless a meditation guru who encourages him attire, they painted the men in hats, they to visualize himself as a large pencil, but painted the wives and children of the he can only get as far as the eraser. man in hats, once they had wives and He misses the old days. He misses the children, once they had three-story brick lapping of the water in the breeze, the houses to put them in. They painted the rustling of the bulrushes. He misses the brave new animals and birds, plentiful choruses of praise sung to him by the then, they painted the landscapes, before frogs in the pink light of evening. No- and after, and sometimes during, with body sings to him now. axes and ½re busily at work, you can see Meanwhile the Stork King has eaten some of these paintings in the Historic all the frogs and sold the tadpoles into houses and some of them in the muse- sexual slavery. Now he is draining the ums. pond. Soon it will be turned into desir- We go into the museums, where we able residential estates. muse. We muse about the time before, we muse about the something that was done, we muse about the native inhabi- tants, who had a bad time of it at our Post-colonial hands despite arrows, or, conversely, de- spite helpfulness. They were ravaged by We all have them: the building with the disease: nobody painted that. Also hunt- dome, late Victorian, solid masonry, ed down, shot, clubbed over the head, stone lions in front of it; the brick hous- robbed, and so forth. We muse about es, three-story, with or without fretwork, these things and we feel terrible. We did wood or painted iron, which now bear that, we think, to them. We say the word the word Historic on tasteful enameled them, believing we know what we mean or bronze plaques and can be visited by it; we say the word we, even though most days except Monday; the roses, we were not born at the time, even big ones, of a variety that were not here though our parents were not born, even before. Before what? Before the ships though the ancestors of our ancestors landed, we all had ships landing; before may have come from somewhere else 120 Dædalus Spring 2005 entirely, some place with dubious hats droning on about morality and so forth Four short and with a flag quite different from the but he’d ½nger the grapefruits in the pieces one that was wafted ashore here, on the supermarket in this creepy way, a grape- wind, on the ill wind that (we also muse) fruit in each hand, he’d stand there prac- has blown us quite a lot of good. We eat tically drooling, one of those gaunt- well, the lights go on most of the time, looking men who’d fall on his knees if a the roof on the whole does not leak, the woman ever looked at him seriously, but wheels turn round. so far none of them had. As I say, it was As for them, our capital cities have really mean of her, but he’d failed her on names made from their names, and so her midterm and she was under pressure do our brands of beer, and some but not at home, they wanted her to perform, as all of the items we fob off on tourists. they put it, so I guess she thought this We make free with the word authentic. would be a shortcut. We are enamoured of hyphens as well: Anyway, with a mother like hers what our word, their word, joined at the hip. could you expect? Divorced, remarried, Sometimes they turn up in our muse- bracelets all up her arms and fake eye- ums, without hats, in their colorful lashes out to here, and pushy as hell. clothing from before, singing authentic Started entering Salome in those frilly- songs, pretending to be themselves. It’s panty beauty contests when she was ½ve, a paying job. But at moments, from tap dance lessons, the lot, they’d slather time to time, at dusk perhaps, when the the makeup on those poor tots and teach moths and the night-blooming flowers them to wiggle their little behinds, what come out, our hands smell of blood. Just can you expect. And then her stepdad the odd whiff. We did that, to them. ran the biggest bank in town so I guess But who are we now, apart from the she thought she could get away with question Who are we now? We all share anything. I wouldn’t be surprised if that question. Who are we, now, inside there wasn’t some hanky-panky going the we corral, the we palisade, the we on in that direction too, the way she’d fortress, and who are they? Is that them, bat her baby blues at him and wheedle, landing in their illicit boats, at night? Is sickening to watch her rubbing up that them, sneaking in here with out- against him and cooing, he’d promised landish hats, with flags we can’t even her a Porsche when she turned sixteen. imagine? Should we befriend them or She was Tinker Bell in the school play shoot them with arrows? What are their when she was twelve, I certainly remem- plans, immediate, long-term, and will ber that. Seven layers of cheesecloth was these plans of theirs serve us right? It’s all she wore, there was supposed to be a a constant worry, this we, this them. body stocking underneath but whether And there you have it, in one word, or there was or not, your guess is as good as possibly two: post-colonial. mine. And all those middle-aged dads sitting with their legs crossed. Oh, she knew what she was doing! Anyway, when she got the rotten mark Salome was a dancer in religious studies she went to work on the guy, who knows how it started but Salome went after the religious studies when they were caught together in the teacher. It was really mean of her, he stockroom she had her shirt off. The wasn’t up to her at all, no more sense of teacher was growling away at her bra, self-protection than a zucchini, always having trouble with the hooks, or so the Dædalus Spring 2005 121 Fiction by story goes, you have to laugh. If you Margaret Take charge Atwood want what’s in the package you should at least know how to get the string off, i is what I say. Anyway, big scandal, and then he started badmouthing her, said –Sir, their cannons have blown a hole in she was a little slut and she’d led him the ship. It’s below the waterline. Water on, did some innuendo on the mother is pouring into the hold, Sir. just for good measure. Everyone believed –Don’t just stand there, you blockhead! him of course, but you always knew with Cut a piece of canvas, dive down, patch Salome that if anyone’s head was going it! to roll it wouldn’t be hers. She accused –Sir, I can’t swim. the poor jerk of sexual assault, and since –Bloody hell and damn your eyes, what she was technically a minor, and of wet nurse let you go to sea? No help for course her banker stepdad threw his it, I’ll have to do it myself. Hold my jack- weight around, she made it stick. Last et. Put out that ½re. Clear away those seen, the guy was panhandling in the spars. subway stations, down there in Toronto; –Sir, my leg’s been shot off. grown a beard, looks like Jesus, crazy as –Well do the best you can. a bedbug. Lost his head completely. Salome didn’t come to a good end either. Tried out for ballet school, mod- ii ern dance was what she thought would suit her, show a lot of skin, center your –Sir, their antitank missiles have shred- thoughts on the pelvis, bare feet, fling ded the left tread on our tank. yourself around, but she didn’t get in. –Don’t just sit there, you nitwit! Take a Left home after some sort of blowup be- wrench, crawl underneath the tank, ½x tween the mom and the stepdad, mid- it! night yelling about Miss Princess and –Sir, I’m a gunner, not a mechanic. Any- her goings-on, furniture was thrown. way that wouldn’t work. After that she took to stripping in bars, –Why in hell do they send me useless just to annoy them I bet. Got whacked twits like you? No help for it, I’ll have in her dressing room one night, right to do it myself. Cover me with your ma- before the show, too bad for manage- chine gun. Stand by with grenades. Hand ment, clobbered her over the head with me that spanner. a vase, nothing on but her black leather –Sir, my arm’s been burnt off. macramé bikini and that steel-studded –Well do the best you can. choke collar, used to get the clients all worked up, not that I’d know personally. Saw two guys running out the stage door iii in bicycle courier out½ts, some sort of uniform anyway, never caught them though. Hit men set on by the stepdad is –Sir, their diabolical worm virus has in- one rumor, wild with jealousy. Guys get fected our missile command system. It’s like that when their hair falls out. It was eating the software like candy. all the mother’s fault, if you ask me. –Don’t just lounge there, you dickhead! Get going with the ½rewalls, or whatever you use.

122 Dædalus Spring 2005 –Sir, I’m a screen monitor, not a trou- –Don’t just squat there, you layabout! Four short bleshooter. Pick up your stone axe and bash them on pieces –Shit in a bucket, what do they think the head! we’re running here, a beauty parlor? If –Sir, these are not ordinary wild dogs. you can’t do it, where’s the nerdy spot- They are red-eyed demon-spirit dogs, faced geek who can? sent by the angry ancestors. Anyway my –Sir, it was him wrote the virus. He was stone axe has a curse on it. not a team player, Sir. The missiles have –By my mother’s bones, what did I do already launched and they’re heading to deserve such a useless duck-turd straight for us. brother’s nephew’s son as you? No help –No help for it, I’ll have to do it myself. for it, I’ll have to do it myself. Recite the Hand me that sledgehammer. red-eyed-demon-spirit-dog-killing –Sir, we’ve got sixty seconds. charm and hand me my consecrated –Well do the best you can. sacred-½re-hardened spear. –Sir, they’ve torn my throat out. –Well do the best you can. iv

–Sir, the makorin has malfunctioned and set off the pizzlewhistle. That has saddammed the glopzoid plapoodle. It may be the work of hostile nanobacons. –Don’t just hover there, you clone- drone! Dopple the magmatron, reboot the fragebender, and insert the hi-speed crockblade with the pessimal-point attachment! That’ll captcha the nasty little biobots! –Sir, the magmatron is not within my area of expertise. –What pixelwit deployed you? No help for it, I’ll have to do it myself. Hand me the mutesuck blandplaster! –Sir, I have been brain-napped. My brain is in a jar in Uzbekistan, guarded by a phalanx of virtual gonkwarriors. I am speaking to you via simulation holo- gram. –Well do the best you can. v

–Sir, the wild dogs have dug their way into the food cache and they’re eating the winter supplies.

Dædalus Spring 2005 123 Dialogue between Barry Mazur & Peter Pesic

On mathematics, imagination & the beauty of numbers

peter pesic: Many intelligent people larly the square root of minus ½fteen). This only see in mathematics a wasteland of raises a hard question: How–if at all– dreary formalism, a mind-numbing ex- can this living world of mathematics panse of theorems and proofs expressed become accessible? in very abstract language. Doubtless this is partly due to the way it is taught, but barry mazur: I can’t answer that such teaching is widespread, the product question, but I can offer some com- of good intentions and much effort. The ments. A person’s ½rst steps in his or disconnection between the inner, lived her mathematical development are ex- world of mathematicians and the main- ceedingly important. Early education stream of intelligent people is very deep, deserves our efforts and ingenuity. But despite the sensual character of mathe- also here is a message to any older per- matics that you describe so well in your son who has never given a thought to recent book, Imagining Numbers: (particu- mathematics or science during their school days or afterwards: You may be Barry Mazur, a Fellow of the American Academy ready to start. Starting can be intellectu- since 1978, is the Gerhard Gade University Profes- ally thrilling, and there are quite a few sor at Harvard University, where he has taught for old classics written in just the right style over four decades. He has done research in many to accompany you as you begin to take aspects of pure mathematics and is the author of your ½rst steps in mathematics. I’m “Imagining Numbers: (particularly the square thinking, for example, of the old T. C. root of minus ½fteen)” (2003). Mits series, or Tobias Dantizg’s wonder- ful Number: The Language of Science, or Peter Pesic is a tutor and musician-in-residence at Lancelot Hogben’s Mathematics for the St. John’s College in Santa Fe, New Mexico. He is Millions. Moreover, one should not be the author of “Labyrinth: A Search for the Hid- dismayed that there are many steps– den Meaning of Science” (2000), “Seeing Dou- there is no need to take them all. Just ble: Shared Identities in Physics, Philosophy, and enjoy each one you do take. Literature” (2001), “Abel’s Proof: An Essay on Bill Thurston, a great geometer, uses the Sources and Meaning of Mathematical Un- the word ‘tall’ to describe mathematics: solvability” (2003), and “Sky in a Bottle” math is a tall subject in the sense that (2005). skyscrapers are tall. That is, one piece of mathematics lies on top of a prior piece © 2005 by the American Academy of Arts of mathematics and lies under the next & Sciences piece of mathematics, etc. To get to the

124 Dædalus Spring 2005 ½ftieth story you must traverse all the be family secret recipes for particular Mathematics, prior forty-nine, and in the right order. I dishes. I remember being stunned a few imagination & the beauty like this image, but would want to insist years later in a math class, for somehow of numbers that it may be more of a Gaudi-esque the teacher had gotten wind of this se- structure, with a wide choice of alternate cret and seemed to be in the process of staircases joining and crossing so if you explaining it to the entire class. are ever uncomfortable with one route –if the risers are too high, or not high pp: As you confronted this secret, how enough–there are other, more accom- did it act on you, and especially on your modating stairwells. And besides, even imagination? the view from the ½rst story is a marvel. bm: I think it acted more on my sense of pp: What is your earliest memory of wonder than on any concrete imagin- mathematics? ings. To work out those simple queries (e.g., bm: The very earliest was when I was What is that number which when you seven or eight years old. My father, who double it and add one you get eleven?) is was always fascinated with numbers, rather like seeing a concrete visual image would shower me with arithmetical develop out of a blank nothing on photo- queries like, What is the number that graphic paper in a darkroom tray. You when you double it and add one gives start with something you deemed X, and you eleven? I don’t think I was particu- at the end of the process you discover X larly adept at ½nding the answers to to be concrete, some particular number. these problems, but I did love them. My There is a sense of power in this (as you method was, of course, trial and error. and I know, the early algebraists were Then, after an especially long barrage of very aware of this unexpected power). such queries, my father smiled at me and What could be more enticing than hav- said, “I’ll tell you a secret. Here is how ing this power be ‘secret’ as well? When you can do these problems more quick- I realized this was part of a much larger ly.” The “secret” he imparted to me was common heritage, I wasn’t sad: it made to invoke the magical X of algebra, re- it that much larger a clubhouse. My early state the problem in the language of al- fascination was that out of pure thought, gebra, and then to simplify the algebraic starting with nothing, something con- sentence, where by simplify he meant crete emerges. I remember, a good deal solve for X. That X became, after sim- later, being still struck by the equation pli½cation, an actual number, which as- nothing + thought = something. tonished me. My father also insisted on About a year before high school, I be- the ritual palindrome of analysis and came an avid reader of popular books synthesis, in the sense that once the val- about electronics and math. When I was ue of X was found, I was to redo the steps building radio receivers (maladroitly, for of the derivation in reverse order to the most part) I had the idea of deriving check that the number I came up with Maxwell’s equations by pure thought. for X really worked. How this was going to be accomplished I suppose that I had an especially liter- was not so clear, for it is too simple- al mind, for I actually did think that this minded to imagine that some Saint information was some sort of secret. A Anselmian strategy (making the sole family secret, perhaps, as there might assumption, for example, that the laws

Dædalus Spring 2005 125 Dialogue governing radio transmission were the the verb aphairein, which indeed means between Barry “most perfect laws”) would lead to laws to ‘abstract,’ to ‘take away.’ But at times, Mazur & none other than Maxwell’s. But when I as in Book 13 of the Metaphysics, he em- Peter Pesic was in high school I had complete faith ploys the more explanatory phrase “to that such a derivation was possible. take that which does not exist in separa- tion and consider it separately”–a de- pp: In those early days, to what extent scription that has, to my mind, a less was your access to mathematics mediat- scary aspect. But once the concept has ed through physical devices like radios been, as people say, abstracted, or once or through visualization, as in electronic it is, as Aristotle would say, taken sepa- schematics? I am thinking of Einstein’s rately, if one is to deal effectively with it, insistence that he was always primarily one must floodlight it with intuitions of a visual thinker, not an abstract one. some sort or other. If one is really think- ing about this ‘abstracted’ concept and bm: Let me respond to this question go- working with it seriously, it will become ing from the back to the front. I don’t utterly as concrete as any other concept. think I ever deal with things that are ab- Of course, one may have to homegrow stract. To be more explicit, I don’t like the appropriate intuitions to deal seri- the word ‘abstract’ except as a compar- ously with it. ative term, even though lots of mathe- Electronics, or at least circuitry at the maticians use it in a way that reminds primitive level that I used as a kid, was me of the dangling comparatives that saturated with concretizing analogies. sometimes show up in ordinary speech. As I’m sure you know, Kirchhoff’s law Texts and courses have titles like Abstract and Ohm’s law are made vivid by a sim- Algebra, etc.; my impulse when I see ple analogy to hydraulics–plumbing, if these is to wonder, “Abstract compared you wish. And Maxwell, when he sought to what?” To put it another way, think to give vocabulary for the energy in elec- of the tactic of taking a concept that has tromagnetic ½elds, went surprisingly arisen in one context and then stripping further with this analogy: the somewhat it from that particular context. For in- mysterious displacement current that he stance, start with Euclidean geometry in denoted j (and that seemed so wonder- the full expression of its geometric intu- ful to me when I ½rst encountered it)–a ition and with all its axioms, then strip a marvelous concretization of ‘action at a few axioms from the list and consider distance.’ the structure that ensues, with either no concrete realization in mind, or at least pp: What you are saying here is consis- as an entity of thought separate from any tent with what you write in Imagining geometric realization. This is a situation Numbers, where you seek felt correlates where I believe it is helpful to say that for an ‘abstract’ concept like i = √-1. But one has abstracted a structure, separat- now you are extending this view in a dar- ing it from its habitual concrete and vi- ing way. What happens then in ‘abstract’ sualizable context. thinking on the level that you and other Even so, I’m hesitant to use such a Lat- mathematicians pursue it, in which (at inate word as ‘abstract’ for this mode of least for many intelligent people) there thought. Aristotle, for example, has at seems to be no trace of any sensual, con- least two different ways of referring to crete content? the activity of abstraction: He employs

126 Dædalus Spring 2005 bm: I think that analogy is a powerful pp: In your view, is there, then, any part Mathematics, tool, and it can extend, inde½nitely, the of mathematics that is radically divorced imagination & the beauty range of what we are happy to call con- from sensual intuition? What about of numbers crete, or sensual. Let us start with the number theory, where there is no geo- truism that the stock-in-trade of poets metric, hence visual, ½eld, at least at ½rst is to concretize things by analogy. Any glance? snatch of poetry offers some illustration of this. Consider, for example, these bm: I don’t think there is any mathe- lines of Yeats: “Like a long-legged fly matics radically divorced from some upon the stream / His mind moves upon kind of vivid intuition that illuminates silence.” Here the equation is between it and ties it to the sensual. something that is concrete/sensual and You say that number theory has no external (the “long-legged fly upon the geometric, hence visual, ½eld at ½rst stream”) and something that might ac- glance–but that is only at ½rst glance. tually be even more intimately connect- For most practitioners of number theory ed to us, but much harder to catch and these days, number theory is intensely hold still: a curious interior state. geometric. In the late 1950s and early Mathematicians are constantly using 1960s I was a geometer, a topologist, and analogy to expand the realm of what the hook that got me fascinated with they hold to be concrete. The ubiquitous number theory was to understand that activity of generalizing, which is one of the set of integers the staples of mathematical and scien- . . . -3, -2, -1, 0, +1, +2, +3 . . . ti½c progress, is a way of analogizing. We start with a structure or concept we feel has properties closely analogous to the at home with (say, multiplication of or- three-dimensional sphere. Strange as it dinary numbers), and we see a broader may seem, the prime numbers are analo- realm for which the same or at least an gous to knots (closed non-self-intersect- analogous structure or concept may pos- ing loops) in the three-dimensional sibly make sense (say, think of composi- sphere. Once you see this analogy you tion of transformations as a kind of mul- begin to see deeply instructive parallels tiplication operation). We make our- between geometry and number theory. selves at home with this more general For example, the skew symmetry of concept, initially at least, by depending the linking number of one knot relative heavily on the analogy it has with the to another is somehow formally related more familiar, less general concept. to what is known in number theory as One genre of analogizing in mathe- quadratic reciprocity (a deep reciprocal matics is to deal with a problem that at relationship, initially discovered by ½rst does not seem to be geometric by Gauss, that holds between any two recasting it in geometric language. For prime numbers). This is hardly the only example, consider Fredholm’s idea for analogy that ties number theory to ge- ½nding the (unique) function that is the ometry–there are so many that very solution of a certain type of equation by often it is hard to classify a theorem as translating the problem to that of ½nd- being in the one ½eld or the other. ing a ½xed point of a certain distance- The connections here began as far shrinking transformation on a geometric back as in the works of Abel, in that space. Galois theory itself sits–ambiguous- ly–between geometry (the study of

Dædalus Spring 2005 127 Dialogue ½nite coverings of spaces) on the one bm: But I think we are squashing them, between Barry hand, and algebra (the study of solutions and slicing them, to ½t our limited sens- Mazur & of polynomial equations). This relation- es–or at least to ½t the limits that our Peter Pesic ship was thoroughly understood by Kro- senses are constrained to at present. And necker and Weber over a hundred years squashing them is a prelude to under- ago. The mathematical discipline of al- standing them. Without some real in- gebraic geometry already expresses the novation, real insight, and exercise of ineluctable joining of these ½elds. imagination, you don’t even know how Sixty years ago, André Weil dreamt up to begin any squashing procedure. a striking way of very tightly controlling Squash how? Any act of squashing and counting the number of solutions of takes work, and the work itself is what systems of polynomial equations over expands one’s intuition–expands the ½nite ½elds (this being a quintessentially limits of our senses. Let me remind you number-theoretic problem) by surmis- of some standard examples. The most ing that there must be a tool for number immediate source of examples does not theory closely analogous to the basic to- come from high dimensions, but is al- pological theory that ef½ciently counts ready in our three-dimensional space of the numbers of intersections that one common experience. To visualize things geometric subspace has with another well in three dimensions takes some ar- subspace when both are contained with- ti½ce. Think of the repertoire: the top in a larger ambient space. All this appa- view, side view, front view, etc., of archi- ratus has now been set up and establish- tectural drawings; the Mercator and es a vivid geometric mode of under- other projections to render the globe standing polynomials and systems of flat; the cat scans and mris that make polynomials in any algebraic context; pictures of slices of three-dimensional indeed, much of number theory is now bodies, these slice pictures being taken very comfortably viewed as a piece of a in various moving and rotating planes smooth-working synthesis, usually re- and then cleverly put together to render ferred to as arithmetic algebraic geom- a more faithful understanding of the full etry. three-dimensionality of the examined This long-winded answer, then, is sim- body. Or think, if you wish, about that ply to say that to many current research- chair you are looking at, which you have ers, number theory is inseparable from only one view of (give or take a bit of the geometry, and much mathematical work parallax of your two eyes and your mov- occurs in a realm that is–marvelously– ing head), and whose utter three-dimen- a synthesis of the two. sionality you are so at home with. In a way, all the arti½ces, as I called pp: But what about considerations in- them, which work so well for us to sub- volving higher dimensions than the stantiate our common three-dimension- three of common spatial experience? al experience, are there to be employed Must we rely on analogies to that com- to bring higher dimensions into our ken mon world? To what extent would that as well. The special theory of relativity be possible without, perhaps, deluding deals with four coordinates (x,y,z,t) ourselves that we are really understand- usually referred to as ‘space-time,’ and ing those more complex spaces, not the usual way of thinking graphically just squashing them to ½t our limited about anything happening in this four- senses? dimensional geometry is as a movie of

128 Dædalus Spring 2005 three-dimensional slices changing in is still open, although a Russian mathe- Mathematics, time. matician, Perelman, has recently an- imagination & the beauty But there are other modes of squash- nounced that he has a proof. The short of numbers ing the thing down to our limited senses, answer here is that one will always try to thereby, in effect, extending those reach out as far as one can with whatever senses. For example, one might envision intuition one has and squash as much the four-dimensional space as a planar as one can into it. Doing this squashing (i.e., two-parameter) family of planes has the effect of extending and improv- that, taken all together, ½ll out four- ing our intuition. dimensional space: every point in four- dimensional space will lie on exactly one pp: Are there no spaces that are utterly of these two-dimensional slices. The fun alien to our intuition, only available here is that you need a two-dimensional through a kind of reasoning that is not collection of these two-dimensional accessible to our senses? slices to sweep out the entirety of four- dimensional space: 2 + 2 = 4, after all. bm: I want to think of our intuition as You then have the option of thinking of not an inert, unchanging resource, but (or visualizing, if you wish) any geomet- rather as something that can expand ric object in four-dimensional space in when challenged, when exercised. And terms of how it is diced by this proce- the mechanism that forces this expan- dure. This type of intuition is very well sion is analogy. So, are there spaces ut- developed in people who do complex terly alien to our intuition? All I can say analysis. is that I don’t think utterly. Even this list understates the issue. One isn’t quite ½nished if I just give you pp: But the very struggle of human a ½nite repertoire–a bag of tricks, so to imagination to extend itself so far past speak, in the art of squashing–because its common limits indicates that these at a point in one’s development of these spaces really may transcend our sensibil- intuitions, one actually sees more than ity. We struggle to grasp new mathemat- the mere sum of tricks. One realizes that ical truths not just because it is hard to there is a certain unexpected pliability of visualize them, but also because they de- spatial intuitions that makes spaces of fy our most deeply held presumptions. any dimension equally accessible– For instance, we try to visualize the equally accessible, and in certain re- in½nite-dimensional Hilbert space of spects (and here’s a surprise) more eas- quantum theory using visual analogues, ily accessible than lower-dimensional but a spinning ball is utterly unlike an spaces. Topologists understand very well electron with spin. At a certain point, that for certain important work, higher- doesn’t the visual and anthropomorphic dimensional spaces are simply easier fail just because we have gone beyond than lower-dimensional spaces–there’s what we can visualize? And doesn’t more room to move around! symbolic mathematics then save us by For example, the Poincaré conjecture allowing us to reason securely even was ½rst proved by Steve Smale in the when we can no longer see? mid-1960s in dimensions equal to ½ve or more. It took well over a decade after bm: What you say is unassailable. But that for it to be proved by Michael Fried- the full panoply of our mathematical man in dimension four. Dimension three intuitions–the intuitions that mathe-

Dædalus Spring 2005 129 Dialogue matics helps strengthen, and re½nes–is try–the Euclidean geometry of our high between not limited to pure visualization or pure school days–become magically avail- Barry Mazur & symbolic combinatorial processes or, for able even in contexts where we would Peter Pesic that matter, pure any one thing. hardly have dared to imagine that visual- I would say that the most powerful of ization would have any relevance. our intuitions are combinations: a po- The example you offer of electrons tent blending of visualization and artful with spin modeled in terms of Hilbert algebra, of intrinsic canniness of estima- space is a great testimonial, precisely, to tion, and of all the intuitions that are the the manner in which visualization as an children of sheer experience–knowing intuition can be ampli½ed and made when to approximate, when to insist on more powerful by mathematical analo- exact calculations, when to neglect some gies. Our comprehension of Euclidean terms, when to pay the closest attention geometry is ampli½ed, thanks to Hilbert, to them, when to rely upon an analogy, to be a useful thing in understanding when to distrust it, and . . . well, I would even the most seemingly unvisual as- not want to limit this list. pects of atomic particles. But there are two things I would like to emphasize about the ingredients of the pp: Here you point to new possibilities brew I just described. The ½rst is that that would surprise many people who these intuitions tend to amplify, to mag- consider themselves mathematically nify, each other. The second is that these hopeless. Perhaps they think themselves intuitions show up and are, in some incapable of abstraction or manipulating form, perfectly available to anyone who formalism. You are telling them that, on tries their hand at understanding any the contrary, it is the sensual side they piece of mathematics, however elemen- are missing. tary. Now let’s return to your example of bm: Living mathematics is in no way the in½nite-dimensional Hilbert space abstract, at least to the people who live that provides a model for quantum it. Intuitions can tie mathematics to the mechanical considerations. I think the most concrete pictures, sensual experi- notion of in½nite-dimensional Hilbert ences, and things that are immediate to space is a wonderful example of how all of us. There are always loads of alter- algebra ampli½es the range of visualiz- nate routes. If you are blocked at one ability of geometry. A Hilbert space is, route, no problem–try another. I believe almost by formal de½nition, a space, of this is the common understanding of never mind how many dimensions, such just about everyone who practices math- that any two-dimensional plane in it has ematics. Mathematics is often taught all the properties of the Euclidean plane. without such connections, but there is You can think of it as being very, very no reason that it can’t be taught so that visualizable in two-dimensional slices a student’s intuitions are fully engaged despite its immensity, along with a and exercised every step of the way. guarantee from Hilbert that this very feature of it–visualizability in slices– is what is going to be most relevant. Now once we (or initially, I suppose, Hilbert) hit upon this idea, our basic intuitions regarding Euclidean geome-

130 Dædalus Spring 2005 loom large. Many pundits characterized red and blue states as homogeneous ter- ritories advocating distinctive–and opposing–moral values. Somehow, issues like gay marriage, abortion, and Michael Hechter religion trumped naked economic inter- ests in many voters’ eyes. on the 2004 This was a surprise, because political presidential election analysts have long viewed elections as a democratic expression of class struggle: The extension of universal male suffrage in mid-nineteenth-century Britain was damned by conservatives–and praised by radicals–for empowering the work- ing classes. The rise of socialist parties in Western Europe seemed consistent with the view that workers voted with their economic interests very much in mind. To many observers, the outcome of the Likewise, conservative parties like the recent American election was a shock. British Tories received disproportionate Prior to the election, unemployment had support from the upper classes. been stubbornly high, economic growth The rationale for the primacy of class was faltering, the chief justi½cation for voting owes to more than historical evi- invading Iraq had been discredited, the dence, however. The spatial models used occupation itself was increasingly trou- by many postwar political scientists have bled, and the president’s approval rat- flowed from a very similar assump- ings were consistently low. Under these tion–that voters’ preferences for poli- conditions the prospects for defeating cies like government intervention in the the incumbent seemed good. economy can be arrayed from left to Instead, as we all know, George W. right on a single dimension. Presumably Bush was returned to of½ce by a narrow the poorer that voters are, the more they margin. will prefer government intervention in In the postmortems that followed, the the economy (especially transfers and role of cultural differences seemed to entitlements), and vice versa. Since monetary resources are fungible and can be put to any number of discrete ends, Michael Hechter, a Fellow of the American Acad- voters should be inclined to vote on the emy since 2004, is professor of sociology at the basis of their economic interests. University of Washington. An expert on the rise of Although the cultural interpretation of the modern nation-state, his books include “Inter- the 2004 election is simplistic, like many nal Colonialism” (1975) and “Containing Na- clichés it contains more than a grain of tionalism” (2000). The research cited in this note truth. Over a decade ago scholars began is drawn from his article “From Class to Culture,” to observe that since about 1965, voters’ which appeared in the September 2004 issue of preferences in the advanced democracies the “American Journal of Sociology.” could not be adequately modeled as © 2005 by the American Academy of Arts emanating from a single left-right & Sciences dimension (ostensibly associated with

Dædalus Spring 2005 131 Note by social class); at least two distinct dimen- class position, a gender, an ethnicity, and Michael sions were now needed to model accu- a religious orientation. Which of these Hechter rately the behavior of voters. The new various attributes has the greatest sa- dimension of political cleavage was vari- lience for their voting behavior? On ably named by different writers: Ingle- the one hand, voting intentions are influ- hart described a materialist/postmateri- enced by the ideas that are promulgated alist divide, Kitschelt a libertarian/au- in key social groups. Whereas the talk thoritarian divide, Miller and Scho½eld in unions is likely to revolve around is- a socially liberal/socially conservative sues of class, no doubt the emphasis in divide, and Fiorina a moral/amoral di- churches is more spiritual. On the other vide. Despite this difference in terminol- hand, voter turnout is affected by these ogy, in each case the new dimension of groups’ capability to mobilize their political cleavage represented cultural memberships. Indeed, the day after the interests that were at least partially or- election, one leading Democrat, Richard thogonal to economic interests. Gephardt, argued that the Republican Why has cultural voting gained at the victory grew out of religious and pro- expense of class voting? One explana- gun groups’ ability to get their members tion is that such trends ultimately flow to vote. In a society with effective trade from shifting moral attitudes in the ad- unions and class-based political parties, vanced democracies. According to this class voting will tend to come to the fore. view, the historically unprecedented lev- The converse will tend to occur in a soci- els of prosperity that have arisen since ety where trade unions are relatively the end of World War II made voting for weak and cultural groups are relatively one’s economic interest less important strong. than it once had been. Prosperity en- The prevalence of class and cultural couraged people to put aside traditional groups, in turn, is decisively affected by concerns for their material welfare in fa- the directness of a state’s rule. In states vor of ‘postmaterial’ concerns for moral characterized by direct rule, the central values and cultural issues. The evidence government takes principal responsibili- for this explanation, however, is vanish- ty for the provision of public goods. In ingly thin. In the United States, for in- the wake of the French Revolution, stance, there has been no signi½cant which marked the ½rst important in- change in attitudes about abortion, ho- stance of direct rule in modern history, mosexuality, and other hot-button moral direct rule spread throughout Western issues from the early 1970s to the present Europe, with Bismarck in Germany as day. a key innovator. Industrial workers in If changing moral attitudes cannot ex- these countries left behind the agrarian plain the shift from class to cultural poli- institutions that had supplied them with tics, what can? In recently published re- insurance and welfare bene½ts. To estab- search I suggest that changes in the na- lish a new source for these bene½ts, the ture of governance in the advanced soci- urban workers formed mutual bene½t eties–especially the growth of direct societies, fraternal organizations, and rule–play an important role. trade unions. Individuals in advanced societies have Direct rule was established, in part, to multiple social attributes, each of which control the emergent class-based organi- may influence their vote in a given elec- zations of the proletariat. In this respect, tion: everyone simultaneously has a direct rule’s most fundamental institu-

132 Dædalus Spring 2005 tion was the welfare state, which devel- women in the 1960s to gays and lesbians The 2004 oped in one form or another in all the more recently. presidential election industrial societies. By weaning industri- When it is responsive to the demands al workers from their dependence on pressed by such new social movements, trade unions and left-wing political par- the direct rule state may inadvertently ties, the welfare state and its subsequent- spur cultural conflict. Thus the provision ly enacted entitlements sharply reduced of bilingual education may be resisted by the incentives for membership in work- the linguistic majority; the enforcement ing-class organizations. of federal civil rights may spawn racist Not surprisingly, the proportion of resistance; and the legalization of abor- workers in unions is at an all-time low tion may raise the political salience of in most of the advanced democracies. religious and moral values. Much as Re- Since membership in class-based orga- construction fractured the Republican nizations promotes class voting, the de- Party after the Civil War, these by-prod- cline of unions has undercut the political ucts of postwar direct rule in the United salience of class in the United States and States split the Democratic Party, allow- elsewhere. ing the Republicans to consolidate their At the same time, the growth of direct strategy for the South. rule makes ever more politically salient a From this perspective, the outcome of variety of moral values and cultural con- the 2004 election is not so much an ex- cerns. The direct rule state is relentlessly ample of American exceptionalism or– activist; it penetrates into previously as the London Daily Mirror famously sovereign realms of private life. It has claimed on November 3–the stupidity the power to set educational and legal of 59 million voters. Rather, the increas- standards for all within its boundaries, ing influence of moral values and cul- to take children away from parents it tural politics is part of a secular trend deems abusive, and to charge husbands sweeping all the advanced democracies. with spousal rape. The extension of direct rule provides Even in the United States, which has individuals with a greater incentive to a federal constitution that delegates the form and sustain cultural groups as primary power to regulate morality to against those based on class. This en- the individual states, direct rule has sures the continued salience of cultural played a growing role. Thus President voting. By contrast, the politics of class Truman desegregated the military in is only likely to regain its former impor- 1948, and the Supreme Court subse- tance if direct rule–and the safety net quently struck down state laws that had provided by its various welfare regimes regulated school segregation, abortion, –is dismantled. and pornography. In the United States, But in the United States, this, too, may direct rule since World War II has ex- yet come to pass. tended its largesse in novel ways. A strik- ing increase in national legislative enact- ments began in the 1950s, and the in- creased power of the federal government led to the formation of a host of new organizations representing the national interests of previously marginalized groups–from blacks in the 1950s to

Dædalus Spring 2005 133 chanical properties, and materials pro- cessing were also found in a wide range of university departments. During the following ten to ½fteen years, many universities initiated educa- Morris E. Fine tional programs in materials science and engineering. In 1955, for instance, the & Peter W. Voorhees metallurgy department at Northwestern University broadened its coverage to in- on the evolving clude several sub½elds of materials sci- curriculum in materials ence and engineering–polymers, met- science & engineering als, electronic materials, and ceramics. The university’s board of trustees changed the name of the department to materials science in January of 1959. Some time earlier the concept of a uni- ½ed materials course based on principles that applied to a broad range of materi- In 1950, materials science and engineer- als, rather than on the cataloging of ing did not exist as a university depart- materials and their properties, began ment. Instead, there were separate de- to take form. partments for metallurgical engineering It has long been recognized that inter- and ceramic engineering. Polymers were disciplinarity is at the core of materials taught in chemistry and chemical engi- science. In his Ten Books on Architecture neering departments. Solid-state physics more than two thousand years ago, Vit- was a well-established branch of phys- ruvius cited wood, steel, bronze, rope, ics, but introductory solid-state physics and stone as the materia that constitute was taught in metallurgy departments. machines. In recent times, electrical en- Speci½c areas of electronic materials gineers, ceramists, physicists, and chem- were taught in many different depart- ists worked together at Arthur Von Hip- ments. Subjects such as corrosion, me- pel’s laboratory for insulator research at the Massachusetts Institute of Technolo- gy, one of the ½rst interdisciplinary ma- Morris E. Fine is Walter P. Murphy and Techno- terials science laboratories at a universi- logical Institute Professor Emeritus of Materials ty. During World War II at the Metallur- Science and Engineering in Service and Member gical Laboratory at the University of of the Graduate Faculty at Northwestern Univer- Chicago, researchers from almost every sity, where he was chair of the ½rst materials sci- branch of the physical sciences and engi- ence department at a university. He has been a neering collaborated on designing and Fellow of the American Academy since 2003. building nuclear reactors. The develop- ment of the transistor at the Bell Tele- Peter W. Voorhees is Frank C. Engelhart Professor phone Laboratories was achieved of Materials Science and Engineering and chair through a collaboration of researchers of the department of materials science and engi- in many materials sub½elds. neering at Northwestern University. After World War II, the engineering sciences became an increasingly large © 2005 by the American Academy of Arts component of engineering education. & Sciences The U.S. government and many indus- 134 Dædalus Spring 2005 trial companies put pressure on the uni- provides the intellectual framework for The evolving curriculum versities to provide a broader education choosing the scienti½c base and experi- in materials in materials, fundamental for developing mental methods that are discussed in the science & new products and improving existing curricula. It is more ef½cient to teach ba- engineering ones. In 1952, the American Society of sic information in solid-state physics, Engineering Education appointed the thermodynamics, kinetics, molecular Committee on Evaluation of Engineer- and crystalline structure, mechanical ing Education. The committee’s report properties, etc. for all materials than to recommended thirty-six semester hours teach these subjects separately for each of engineering sciences in the curricu- class of materials. lum. It listed engineering materials as Biological materials are now being in- well as physical metallurgy as engineer- tegrated into the materials science and ing sciences. In 1956, the ½rst report of engineering curricula at many universi- the Atomic Energy Commission’s Metal- ties. Of course, wood and cellulose prod- lurgy and Materials Branch recommend- ucts have been among man’s most im- ed new buildings and facilities for educa- portant materials from the beginning of tion and research in materials. The Of- civilization, but the current major push ½ce of Naval Research’s Solid States Sci- has come from the biomedical ½eld. The ences Advisory Panel issued a report on resurgence of interest in biomaterials the opportunities for solid-state sciences since the 1970s is largely a result of the research after examining the U.S. Navy’s revolution that has taken place in molec- materials problems. A study by the Na- ular biology. Given the exquisite molec- tional Academy of Sciences chaired by J. ular control afforded by the techniques Herbert Hollomon (who had assembled that have been developed by molecular a materials department at the ge Re- biologists and biochemists, it is now search Laboratory) recommended the possible to control the biological re- creation of a national materials laborato- sponse of materials and to use biological ry. These and other considerations such routes to create new materials. Incorpo- as Sputnik led the Advanced Research rating such approaches into materials Projects Agency of the Department of curricula will require broadening the Defense to issue an invitation to all ma- scope of the basic courses to include jor universities in the United States to molecular biology and biochemistry. submit pre-proposals for funding to es- Nerves carry electrical impulses from tablish interdisciplinary materials re- one region of the body to another, a sub- search laboratories, with education of ject that could be taught in a course on doctoral students to be a major compo- electronic materials. Similarly, the basics nent. The program still exists and is of molecular biology can be developed sponsored by the National Science under the rubric of a course on soft or Foundation. biological materials. By keeping the The emergence of materials science focus on the processing-structure-prop- and engineering as an academic disci- erties-performance paradigm of materi- pline was a logical pedagogical develop- als science, folding this new area into ment. The ability to incorporate such a existing materials science curricula will wide range of materials into a single cur- be straightforward. Subjects such as X- riculum stems from the focus of materi- ray diffraction and electron microscopy als science: the study of the relation- and diffraction currently include biolog- ships among processing, structure, and ical materials. properties of materials. This paradigm Dædalus Spring 2005 135 Note by Of course, the discovery of the double Morris E. X Fine & helix was based on -ray diffraction Peter W. observations, and electron microscopy Voorhees has long been a tool of the biological scientist. The theories of the bonding between atoms and how atoms are ar- ranged in a material are general to all materials. Self-assembly is a phase trans- formation and must follow the same thermodynamic and kinetic principles as solidi½cation, crystallization, and pre- cipitation. Bones require a set of me- chanical properties not too dissimilar from those required of other structural materials. Functionalized molecular scaffolds are used to promote the growth of a wide range of tissues. The process- ing-structure-properties-performance paradigm of materials science and engi- neering is illustrated by the strong rela- tionship between the structure of the molecular scaffolds and the ability of these scaffolds to promote cell growth. The materials science and engineering curriculum has evolved considerably over the past ½fty years. Biological ma- terials will be the next major addition to the curriculum. The result will be a broader and yet more intellectually vi- brant ½eld of study.

136 Dædalus Spring 2005 President Patricia Meyer Spacks Executive Of½cer Leslie Cohen Berlowitz Vice President Louis W. Cabot Secretary Emilio Bizzi Deputy Secretary Jerrold Meinwald Treasurer John S. Reed Editor Steven Marcus Vice President, Midwest Center Martin Dworkin Vice President, Western Center Jesse H. Choper

Dædalus Board of Editors Committee Steven Marcus, Chair, Joyce Appleby, Russell Banks, Stanley Hoffmann, Donald Kennedy, Martha C. Nussbaum, Neil J. Smelser, Rosanna Warren, Steven Weinberg; ex of½cio: Patricia Meyer Spacks, Leslie C. Berlowitz

Committee on Publications & Public Relations Jerome Kagan, Chair, Emilio Bizzi, Jesse H. Choper, Denis Donoghue, Jerrold Meinwald; ex of½cio: Patricia Meyer Spacks, Steven Marcus, Leslie C. Berlowitz

Inside back cover: Britannia chastising Egypt in a 1924 Punch cartoon over the caption, “i gave you liberty. see to it that the things done by you in her name do not make me repent my gift.” See Jack Snyder on Empire: a blunt tool for democratiza- tion, pages 58–71: “Democratization by impe- rial ½at sounds paradoxical, and it is. The im- perial power insists not only that the society it rules should become democratic, but also that the outcome of democratization should be one that it approves.” Cartoon reproduced with permission of Punch Ltd.

Dædalus coming up in Dædalus: Dædalus on professions Howard Gardner, Lee Shulman, William Sullivan, Geoffrey Galt & professionals Harpham, Jeanne Nakamura & Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, William Journal of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences Damon, Anne Colby, Kendall Bronk & Thomas Ehrlich, and Harvey Goldman Spring 2005 on body in mind Antonio & Hanna Damasio, A. S. Byatt, Carol Gilligan, Gerald Edelman, Jorie Graham, Richard Davidson, Raymond Dolan & Spring 2005: on imperialism comment Jonathan R. Cole Academic freedom under ½re 5 Arne Öhman, and Mark Johnson

on aging Henry J. Aaron, Paul Baltes, Frank Kermode, Linda Partridge, on imperialism Niall Ferguson America, unconscious colossus 18 Dennis J. Selkoe, Caleb E. Finch, Sarah Harper, Chris Wilson, Kenneth Pomeranz ‘Civilizing’ missions, past & present 34 Jagadeesh Gokhale & Kent Smetters, Hillard Kaplan, and Lisa Anthony Pagden Empire, liberalism & the quest for perpetual peace 46 Berkman Jack Snyder A paradoxical tool for democratization 58 on identity Akeel Bilgrami, Wendy Doniger, Amartya Sen, Stephen Greenblatt, Robin Blackburn Emancipation & empire, from Cromwell Kwame Anthony Appiah, Sidney Shoemaker, Susan Green½eld, to Karl Rove 72 David A. Hollinger, Claudio Lomnitz, Carol Rovane, Todd E. Molly Greene The Ottoman experience 88 Feinberg, and Courtney Jung Henk Wesseling Imperial roots of the Great War 100

on nonviolence William H. McNeill, Adam Michnik, Jonathan Schell, James Akira Iriye Beyond empire: the new internationalism 108 & violence Carroll, Breyten Breytenbach, Mark Juergensmeyer, Steven LeBlanc, James Blight, Cindy Ness, and others poetry Franz Wright Lesson & The Choice 117

plus poetry by W. S. Merwin, Charles Wright, Peg Boyers, Jorie ½ction Margaret Atwood Four short pieces 119 Graham &c.; ½ction by Robert Coover, Ree Davis &c.; and notes by Donald Green, Robert F. Nagel, Jeri Laber, Dipesh Chakrabarty, dialogue Barry Mazur Alvin Goldman, Edward D. Lazowska, Norbert Schwarz, Rodolfo & Peter Pesic on mathematics & imagination 124 Dirzo, Joel Handler, Joan Bresnan, Lyman A. Page, Robert J. Sharer, Gustavo Perez Firmat, Lisa Randall &c. notes Michael Hechter on the 2004 presidential election 131 Morris E. Fine & Peter W. Voorhees on the education of engineers 134

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