Page 292 - Encyclopedia Of World History

642 berkshire encyclopedia of world history

It is yet another Civilized Power, with its banner of the Prince of Peace in one hand
and its loot-basket and its butcher-knife in the other. • Mark Twain (1835–1910)

insistence on hierarchy and hereditary privilege were fall of these land-based empires was the sometimes com-
common to both types of polities.As David Armitage has plementary, sometimes adversarial relationship between
stated, “Empires gave birth to states, and states stood at the sedentary agricultural societies that gave rise to states
the heart of empires” (2000, 15). and the pastoralists and other mobile peoples who oper-
The distinction most often drawn between empires ated outside the boundaries of those states. The two
and other states can be characterized as functions of groups usually kept their distance from one another, com-
intent and degree: Empires are those states that seemed ing together mainly to trade goods, but environmental
especially aggressive in their expansionist ambitions and changes, demographic pressures, and other forces pro-
especially accomplished at extending their sway over voked periodic clashes between them. States and their
other peoples.Yet the same state could fluctuate quite dra- agrarian populations enjoyed the advantages of concen-
matically in terms of the policies it pursued and the ter- tration, central direction, and sheer numbers over their
ritories it controlled, thus exhibiting more or fewer of the widely dispersed, frequently fissiparous adversaries, and
characteristics of an empire as its aims and fortunes var- their demand for land, labor, and tribute gave them
ied. It is impossible, for example, to know how to clas- motive to encroach on the domains of the latter.
sify Pharaonic Egypt, which expanded and contracted Even when states merely sought to secure their fron-
repeatedly over the course of its long history, conquering tiers against raids by nomads, their efforts often sucked
others and being conquered in turn. Part of the problem them further and further into the hinterland in an unend-
derives from the fact that we tend to look at the intentions ing quest for security. Given the right circumstances, these
and actions of individual states to determine whether or dynamics could lead them to absorb an immense amount
when they were empires, whereas it was their “spheres of of territory: Two classic examples are the Roman and
interaction” with neighboring peoples that often deter- Han empires.The significance that these empires attached
mined this outcome (Barfield in Alcock et al. 2001, 40). to their troubled relations with pastoralists and other
In modern times, the rise of the nation-state presents unpacified peoples is evident in the way they represented
what seems at first sight a much clearer typological con- themselves and their actions as advancing the cause of
trast to empire, since its reliance on linguistic and/or eth- “civilization” against the “barbarians” on their borders.
nic homogeneity and the claim of popular sovereignty One of the standard tropes of empire would become this
stand at odds with the foundational premises of empire. dichotomy between civilization and barbarism.
Yet archetypal nation-states like Britain and France estab- Pastoralists were by no means the mere victims of
lished huge empires that stretched around the globe.They empires, however. A perennial theme of world history is
resolved the apparent contradiction between their dual the sudden breakout by nomadic invaders whose mobil-
roles as nation-states and empires by maintaining strict ity, weaponry, and warrior ethos overwhelmed sedentary
institutional and ideological boundaries between the agricultural societies. These events had several quite dif-
metropolitan sphere, where the principles of the nation- ferent outcomes. One was the destruction of the con-
state applied, and the overseas possessions, where they quered state and the fragmentation of political authority.
did not. Examples include Western Europe after the fall of Rome
in the fifth century CE and West Africa after the invasion
Land-Based Empires of Songhai in 1591 CE. In other instances, the “barbarian”
The vast majority of empires until the last four or five invaders preserved the lineaments of the state, but placed
hundred years consisted of states that extended their themselves at its head. Although they ran the risk of cul-
power into contiguous territory, either through conquest tural absorption by the host society, they also gained
or composite monarchy. A key dynamic in the rise and access to its immense resources, which they were able to