Annotated Bibliography - By Author

Book Title & Publisher Disparities in Economic Development since the Industrial Revolution. Hampshire: Macmillan Press, 1981 Author Bairoch, Paul & Levy-Leboyer, Maurice (eds.)

Synopsis

The book is a revision of papers presented to the 7th economic history congress in 1978. With a wide range of contributors (there are 45), the book is a volume that addresses the inequality of economic growth as a collective theme. This is studied in relation to, and between, both regional and national disparities. This book is useful on a number of levels. First, it explores modern industrial development and the early modern period that allows us to understand, contextually, how economies grew and relate this to the industrial revolution. Second, it allows the reader to access a volume that attempts to deal with the topics on a global scope, and the sheer variety of articles are rather clear case studies on inequality in general and regional as well as national circumstances in particular.

Whilst one can appreciate the ambition of the volume, the outcome must be seen as a wide discussion with the purpose of giving a broad range of perspectives to the topic rather than arguing for anything singularly. This gives the impression that each chapter is a resource in itself, and could be utilized by scholars in that way. Each study more or less has a well designated time frame and scope of analysis, and the chapters are well structured. Of certain consideration to readers interested in studies on development and global economic history, especially in the modern, post industrial revolution period.

Scope (Topics covered, Time period)

The book does not limit itself to an analysis post industrial revolution, but also covers topics prior to it to provide a very broad overview of global economic disparities over time. If one is to consult this volume, one can note the division between regional, global and national developments. It is structured into four parts, firstly dealing with economic disparities among nations, second, regional economic disparities, third, relation between regional and national disparities and finally, creating a methodology for the measurement of the disparities. However, within each section are a few sub-sections, which deal with different parts of the world, with specific focus on the third world and nations in Europe.

The volume is accessible and is effective as a resource material. It is able to present many case studies as a large compendium of work on the topic- this should be seen as the success of the work.

Argument (Methodology, Significance)

By giving a large expanse of authors their own space to put forth their own arguments, the methodology of the work can be seen as having a united approach of dealing with the puzzle of inequalities in growth with the tools of economic history.

By focusing on the problem of growth inequality, the volume addresses issues central to the development of nations within what it calls the third world, and without. The book largely relies on quantitative evidence to make the claims, and the various chapters address different problems on their own.

The book is not purely an account of the past, but also emphasizes the role of the explanations to allow for consideration of factors which may occur in the future. Written very much with the concerns of the time in mind, the volume tries to be relevant to the time when it was written- in other words, its arguments consider the implications on the economy both past and present, with aim to understand a plausible future. Though the book may be well organized, the lack of a central thesis does indeed stand out, and readers seeking a straightforward explanation may very well be let down.

Annotated by Sandeep Singh

Book Title & Publisher Imperial Identity in the Mughal Empire: Memory and Dynastic Politics in Early Modern South and Central Asia. New York: I.B. Tauris & Co. Ltd., 2012 Author Balabanlilar, Lisa

Synopsis

Lisa Balabanlilar’s study of the Mughal empire is an effort to redress the traditional neglect of the Central Asian legacy in its foundation and subsequent rule. That the Mughals perceived themselves not as a new dynasty but as a continuation of the Timurids, perpetuating many of the Turco-Mongol and Perso-Islamic political, cultural and religious features that characterised other Muslim empires of the early modern era, is a fact recognised by many scholars but seldom accredited or carried over into common knowledge.

Balabanlilar argues that the Timurid-Mughal exiles in Afghanistan and India fashioned, through manipulation of common cultural practices and a shared imagined history, the markers of a distinct identity based on this Central Asian inheritance that would shape their system of rule and provide them with the unity, continuity and legitimacy upon which their dynastic success rested. This edifice of imperial power, constructed from local Indian and universal Turco-Mongol and Persianate traditions, would outlast the real ability of Mughal emperors to sustain it by effective administration or military power.

Scope (Topics covered, Time period)

The book’s main focus lies in the period in Mughal history from the time of its founder, Babur (1483-1530), through that of Aurangzeb (1618-1707), at its greatest extent. After a short prologue recounting the history of the Chinggisid conquests, the rise of Timur, and the development by his successors of a distinct Turco-Mongol cultural personality and charismatic genealogy, Balabanlilar follows the Timurid-Mughals through the flight from their ancestral homeland in Transoxiana (Mawarannahr) ahead of Uzbek invasion to the eventual transplantation of the dynasty in Afghanistan and India by Babur. Mughal imperial identity would coalesce around this narrative of traumatic displacement and exile, creating in subsequent generations the nostalgia, even after its recovery proved militarily impossible, for a lost Central Asian world which they sought to preserve and recreate, through the valorisation of ancestral virtues and values, the sacralisation of genealogy, and artistic and literary reproduction, in their South Asian territories.

The rest of the chapters are arranged in thematic rather than chronological sequence, each exploring a specific attribute of the Central Asian political and cultural tradition and its influence on the South Asian empire of Babur’s descendants. In these, the author systematically engages such topics as architecture, memory, linguistics and gender, tying them together to demonstrate the numerous linkages between the Mughals and Timurids in the former’s construction and conceptualisation of its collective identity in the new territorial circumstances in which it found itself.

Argument (Methodology, Significance)

Restoring the primacy of the dynasty’s Timurid origins is undoubtedly the most important contribution of Balabanlilar’s work to the study of Mughal history. While the fact itself is not contested, much of the prior historiography has overlooked, disregarded or sought to downplay the debt to their Central Asian roots, painting them as a singularly Indian phenomenon within the longer historical experience of Islam on the subcontinent beginning from the 8th Century. In a similar vein, scholarship of the Middle East and Central Asia tends to marginalise the Mughals, situating them purely on the periphery of the early modern Islamic world. Relying upon a close reading of Chagatai Turkish and Persian sources (the colloquial and court languages of the Mughals respectively), Balabanlilar endeavours to show that they were not only the principal inheritors of the powerful Turco-Persian legacy of Timur but its foremost exponents in the two centuries after the fall of Samarqand. 

Comparisons by the author between the Mughals and their contemporaries are useful in illustrating this point as well as illuminating the differences and commonalities in the historical experience of early modern Islamic empire. Admiration for the Timurid legacy was mutual among the Muslim successor states: the Ottomans and Safavids were also claimants to the Turco-Mongol political legacy and Perso-Islamic culture– expressed through art, literature, Sufism, and monumental architecture– from which Timurid rulers derived their charismatic and moral authority. Only the Mughals, however, could claim direct descent through Babur to the line of Tamerlane and Genghis; consequently they would come to rely more upon the power and legitimacy this association conferred and style their dynastic practice more closely on their Timurid antecedents. Certain Turco-Mongol political traditions– one example cited prominently is the importance of maternal genealogy in establishing royal pedigree– remained of vital importance, both psychological and practical, to the Mughal dynasty and state long after its Ottoman counterpart had discarded them, although a few others, like tanistry and princely appanage, would continue to see use in both empires.

By crafting aesthetic, charismatic and genealogical narratives that tied them not just to the ancestral homeland in Central Asia but the new conquest territories of the subcontinent, the Mughals were not only able to impress their Timurid lineage upon subject peoples and rivals but also amongst themselves, ensuring that intra-dynastic conflict between pretenders over imperial succession– by far the greatest challenge posed to Mughal rule–  would not threaten the overall sovereignty of the ruling family. Similar evocations of Timurid heritage were expressed in the features of Mughal peripatetic court practice, such as the hunt, the travelling imperial camp, and the building of pleasure gardens in the Persian-Timurid tradition, intended both as political theatre as well as an official effort at re-enacting a memorialised, semi-nomadic past. In short, while they maintained a collective identity that was responsive, elastic and flexible, the Mughals ultimately remained, consciously and deliberately, the Timurid kings of India. Loyalty to this imagined past was both the basis of their political legitimacy and the defining trait of their self-image, possibly to the detriment of their ability to accept indigenous custom or derive new understandings from it – an observation on which the author concludes.

The same might conceivably be said of her work as a whole: if it has perhaps one shortcoming, it is that there was not as rigorous or insightful an engagement of Mughal assimilation and adaptation towards their Indian environment as the skilful and impressive study of their Central Asian origins presented. Also potentially helpful would have been an extension of the book’s timeframe to include the Mughals in their period of decline: showing how, in the face of emerging regional rivals and foreign encroachment, their self-declared identity as successors of Timur evolved with or influenced this development.

The questions such an addendum would address are pertinent to our understanding of early modern empire in Asia, concerning not just the Mughals but other conquest dynasties with nomadic origins like the Qing and Ottoman. How did these empires structure or redefine themselves to be able to assert their rule, whether by coercion or compliance, over the subject populations of larger, relatively more sophisticated civilisations, both outnumbering and culturally alien to them in most respects? And how did the conquerors balance the preservation of their distinct cultural identity against the practical considerations of government? Prof. Balabanlilar’s study is a thorough and convincing investigation into the Mughals’ experience without resolving the latter quandary.

Annotated by Daniel Lee

Synopsis

Archaeologist Warwick Ball is the driving force behind the four-book series Asia in Europe and the Making of the West, of which this book is the third. The unifying thesis that shapes the series is one that aligns very closely with our analysis in Empire in Asia: the intermingling, cross-pollination, symbiosis, and overlapping between empire crafting in both “Asia” and “Europe” was so extensive that what must emerge is an understanding of a messy, dynamic, and fluid shared history. There can hardly be a better example of this than the story Ball engages in this extended essay: the transformation of various Turkic peoples emerging from Siberian forest land into an aspiring eclectic world empire, based in a Balkan-Anatolian heartland. Ball develops five principal arguments: Turkic peoples did as much to shape Islam as the other way around; the Ottoman Empire was a European polity before Mehmet II completed that process by conquering Constantinople in 1453; the framing of the Ottoman Empire as an intolerant Muslim Turkish polity determined to destroy Christendom was a simplified caricature composed by Habsburg propaganda, but it “othered” the Empire in Europe for centuries; in fact the Ottomans behaved very much like the European Powers with which they jockeyed for power and position, from 1453 to the Congress of Vienna; 19^th century nationalism did howver essentialize relations and perceptions, and drove lasting wedges between the “Turks” and the Hellenic and Balkan peoples with whom they had engaged, for centuries, in a more nuanced intercourse.

            Ball keeps his theme in front of us from start to finish: identity was always a complicated and contingent thing, and while certain structural facts must be acknowledged they were rarely, if ever, absolute or deterministic. Mehmet II did seek to conquer Constantinople in order to fulfil a Muslim aspiration expressed in the Koran itself, but then turned his conquest into the seat of a project not to erase the Roman Empire but to use it as an inheritance, through which he sought to rebuild a great cosmopolitan unifying imperium. His grandson finally bothered to assume the title of Caliph in 1517 after conquering Egypt, but Ottoman Sultans did not go out of their way to stress or celebrate this title until 1903 – when they did so under pressure from Western Powers whose encouragement of nationalisms, from the Greek Revolt of the 1820s onwards, steadily stripped away from the Empire territories populated by majorities neither Muslim nor Turkic, turning it for the first time into a state in which those latter groups formed the overall majority. Religion mattered. Ottoman conflicts with Venice, Persia, and Hungary, to take but three, were all heavily influenced by considerations of religion. But it did not dictate. Ottomans allied over the years with Christian France, Protestant Britain, and Orthodox Russia, and fought Islamic Persia. Ethnicity mattered, but it did not dictate. The Ottoman Empire was for much of its history much more of a meritocracy, as a state, and more tolerant of difference, as a society, than nearly all the European polities that othered it as “the barbarous Turk.” Ball’s cardinal argument rests on very strong ground: the Ottoman power saw itself as a syncretic European power, and behaved very much, overall, like other major European powers, even into the developments of the nineteenth century that finally really did carve out distinctions between it and the rest of “the public law of Europe”  – even as it was finally acknowledged to be part of that domain.

            Ball’s arguments are, as noted, not unique. Indeed, this general approach to “Europe and Asia and Empire” is becoming a scholarly consensus. They are however, at least to him, making very little headway in wider contemporary public perception. That problem shapes his approach to this book: an attempt to unmask “bad history” that draws distinctions where there were few or none, overlooks synthesis and similarity, and drives every perception, at least in Europe, down the vortex of “national” history. The irony that creates in this story is surely thus not lost on the author: the battle now raging in modern Turkey between the national project to build a “Turkey” launched by Ataturk, a Turkey Muslim yet secular and defined by ethnicity, and apparent efforts by the current President to restore a “neo-Ottoman” focus to modern Turkey – one that, to be sure, is more open to religious influence in the state, but shares the desire to essentialize “Turkic” identity and embrace origin myths. Ball would surely agree that the political future is likely to be as messy as the geopolitical past. While scholars seem ready to accept that there was no meaningful historical “Asia” that was fundamentally different from “Europe,” even the Turkic-Turkish story faces long odds in helping to persuade a much wider audience to both take that point and, especially, apply it to the present.  

Annotated by Brian Farrell

Book Title & Publisher The Perilous Frontier: Nomadic Empires and China. Cambridge, Mass.: B. Blackwell, 1989 Author Barfield, Thomas J.

Synopsis

"The Perilous Frontier: Nomadic Empires and China" is part of a series "Studies in Social Discontinuity", which pursue one or more of four varieties of historical analysis: using evidence from the past to identify regularities in processes and structures that transcend the past, reconstruct critical episodes for the light they shed on that era, tracing the origins of significant social processes that continue into the present, as well as examining the ways that social action lays down residues that limit the possibilities of subsequent social action.

Barfield reanalyzes the interaction between successive Chinese mainland empires and the various nomadic empires that formed in the steppes to their north. He examined the surprising durability of imperial organization in the Eurasian steppe and investigated the possibility that the empires of Mongols and other predatory nomads thrived not because they were able to extract resources from their own people, but because of the tribute that they were able to extract from their neighbors. Hence, rather than examining ceremonies between Mongols and China as a submission to their overlords, it warrants to be seen as occasions of exchanges in which nomad chiefs profited handsomely.

"The Perilous Frontier" challenges the common presumption that empires build their strength on internal hierarchies ultimately dependent on the labor of subjugated peasants in a landlord-dominated agrarian economy.

Scope (Topics covered, Time period)

The scope covered is large enough for a comparative study of the empires across the centuries - from the Hsiung-Nu empire, to that of the Hsien-Pi empire, to the Manchurian invasion of China as well as the relations between the Turkish empires and T'ang China. An entire chapter is dedicated to the conquests and policies of the Mongol empire. A comparative history is also drawn up to illustrate the differences and similarities among the method of rule of the Ming, Mongols and the Manchus. The decline of the Mongols provide an apt epilogue to the book.

Argument (Methodology, Significance)

The book unravels some of the history of Inner Asia by applying anthropological models of tribal and state development to the available historical date on the tribal peoples who bordered China's northern frontier. In this case, the perspective of the steppe was applied to define the sphere of interaction between Inner Asia and China. The work centers largely on the political development of the Nomadic tribes. For example, the study of the Mongol empire allows one to make observations if it represents the culmination of political development on the steppe or a deviation from it. This allows readers to examine the interaction between China and its neighbors from a different perspective, giving insight into alternative forms of empire-building; that of the nomads.

Deviating from current presumptions that the Mongols were the product of a 1,500-year rise, Barfield espouses that it was a progressive internal political development, beginnning from the Hsiung-Nu state that had developed the necessary structure and support for a nomadic empire in 200 B.C.E.

Annotated by Michelle Djong

Book Title & Publisher Empires, Imperialism and Southeast Asia: Essays in Honour of Nicholas Tarling. Clayton, Australia : Monash Asia Institute, 1997 Author Barrington, Brook (ed.)

Synopsis

Essays contained within this book discuss particular characteristics of European power in Southeast Asia before the advent of World War I. By focusing on the actions and motivations of the European powers when they set up their colonial mechanizations in Southeast Asia, the writers hope to contribute to the study of the extent to which British methods of control varied depending on the severity and directness of challenge to British interests. Finally, connected to the period of imperial rule is its consequence. To conclude, the complex relationships between history, national identity and national interests take central stage in this discussion of European empires in Southeast Asia.

Scope (Topics covered, Time period)

The first four chapters consider specific aspects of European power in Southeast Asia prior to the World War I. The very different and yet in some ways complementary chapters by Greg Bankoff and John Legge focus more generally on the nature of pre-twentieth century imperialism, and in so doing usefully enhance a number of points made in the first part of the book. The chapters by Ian Nish and Ching Fatt Yong explore different aspects of British imperial control in the inter-war years, with emphasis on Hong Kong and Malaya. Both reflect to the extent to which British methods of control varied depending on the severity and directness of challenge to British interests. Barrington and McIntyre move into the period following World War II, during which Britain in pursuing the policy of regionalism and via the development of the Commonwealth, attempted to maintain its influence in Southeast Asia during the period of decolonization and beyond. The book ends with two essays which consider the complex relationships between history, national identity and national interests.

Argument (Methodology, Significance)

'Empire' is used in the book to express not only the concepts of sovereignty or possession but to encompass notions of influence and order. The concept of empire may be less (or perhaps more) than simply an expression of formal control. This is in accordance to Tarling's observation that where British interests could be advanced by means short of possession then this was often the option preferred by policymakers in London. Thus, there are several key arguments made by Tarling that becomes part of the central argument of the authors in this collection. A main point illustrated in the essays is that those writing the history of Southeast Asia cannot be blind to the imperial and international, as well as domestic forces which have shaped the region. In this way, the essays encompass a much broader definition of time, as well as an in-depth investigation into the patterns of pre-colonial, colonial and post-colonial rule, creating a wonderful medley of essays describing the various relationships between European and Asian powers across time.

Annotated by Michelle Djong

Book Title & Publisher Rulers, Townsmen and Bazaars: North Indian Society in the Age of British Expansion 1770-1870. Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1992 Author Bayly, C.A.

Synopsis

This book assesses the fate of towns, merchants, and service people from 1770-1870, where the old political order was replaced by a British colonial administration. Comparing traditions of the writing of history in other parts of what Bayly calls the “colonial world”, a coherent explanation of the change in relations between groups such as the rural gentry is largely missing from Indian history. Thus, the book attempts to illustrate the importance of the groups shifting between state and peasantry in the period assessed.

By looking at groups of urban, mercantile and service people, trends in terms of trade, consumption, commercialization of cash crops, are given a new perspective by examining them in relation to the political order. Further, by contextualizing the relationships in a time characterized by the rise of British commerce and rule, the book gives a new perspective to the interactions between the new colonial power and the intermediate classes, and also gives an explanation for the socio-political climate of pre-colonial India.

Examining systems of landlordism, patronage, and communities of merchants, the book explains the vitality of the major trade routes and the growth and development of cities such as Agra. Looking at large trends but also focusing in on the merchant family as an entity with a conservative business practice ideology, Bayly’s study decodes the seemingly complex concept of social forces at this time.

By showing how the period before institutionalized European dominance was a time for growth and change in Asian society, the book relates this to the Mughal polity and its transition to a commercialization of power- the political decentralization led to an increased ability for groups such as the merchant class and a service gentry to emerge.

Scope (Topics covered, Time period)

The book covers the prior historiography on the topic and offers a new perspective in examining Indian history from1770-1870, and limits its scope to a singular part of the Indian subcontinent- thus allowing for specificity. By giving light to power and its relationship to influences, the work draws attention to the growth and transformation of patronage. The acquisition and maintenance of land resources are related to communities- the emergence of pioneer peasant warriors, such as the Jats or Marathas, gives a context to shifting relations around the region.

By covering a wide array of topics, Bayly allows us to have insights into commercialization that emerged at the time, by assessing corporations, merchants, and political stability and instability; all contributing to a bigger picture and a new narrative on the period. Further, the examination of religious trends and the growth of artisan production give an explanation to mass consumption and the organization of society.

With analysis of a large pool of documents, such as revenue records, magistrates’ reports, and pension agency files of Mughal descendants, the book is able to draw from many sources to give a vivid portrayal.

By giving light to complexity without reducing it to simplistic assumptions about the relationships of state and class, the work gives a good account, giving itself a foundation to examine the broad interactions between the heritage of indigenous rule and its transformation into a colonial system.

Argument (Methodology, Significance)

Bayly sets out rather clearly that the book’s argument is structured in three levels. One set of chapters is dedicated to arguing that power decentralization in the eighteenth century gave a big impetus to the rise of a “homogenous merchant class” and “rooted service gentry”. By examining this in relation to the British government, we can see how institutions persisted over time, in the form of societal forces. Secondly, the book looks at the social history of towns, and how unity was problematized by different forms of communal alliances, later made manifest by the rise of nationalism and religious communalism. Third, the book argues that the commercial middle class had a base in religion and credit that was made possible by prior foundations. The economic organization is therefore inseparable from other social forces and phenomena.

By critiquing the “dark ages” stereotype of the period, Bayly puts forth that such existing scholarship rests on a priori assumptions about decline and weakness of the state. Refuting this, the book gives the period covered a broad and well- structured examination.

Annotated by Sandeep Singh

Book Title & Publisher Rulers, Townsmen and Bazaars: North Indian Society in the Age of British Expansion 1770-1870. Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1992 Author Bayly, C.A.

Synopsis

This book assesses the fate of towns, merchants, and service people from 1770-1870, where the old political order was replaced by a British colonial administration. Comparing traditions of the writing of history in other parts of what Bayly calls the “colonial world”, a coherent explanation of the change in relations between groups such as the rural gentry is largely missing from Indian history. Thus, the book attempts to illustrate the importance of the groups shifting between state and peasantry in the period assessed.

By looking at groups of urban, mercantile and service people, trends in terms of trade, consumption, commercialization of cash crops, are given a new perspective by examining them in relation to the political order. Further, by contextualizing the relationships in a time characterized by the rise of British commerce and rule, the book gives a new perspective to the interactions between the new colonial power and the intermediate classes, and also gives an explanation for the socio-political climate of pre-colonial India.

Examining systems of landlordism, patronage, and communities of merchants, the book explains the vitality of the major trade routes and the growth and development of cities such as Agra. Looking at large trends but also focusing in on the merchant family as an entity with a conservative business practice ideology, Bayly’s study decodes the seemingly complex concept of social forces at this time.

By showing how the period before institutionalized European dominance was a time for growth and change in Asian society, the book relates this to the Mughal polity and its transition to a commercialization of power- the political decentralization led to an increased ability for groups such as the merchant class and a service gentry to emerge.

Scope (Topics covered, Time period)

The book covers the prior historiography on the topic and offers a new perspective in examining Indian history from1770-1870, and limits its scope to a singular part of the Indian subcontinent- thus allowing for specificity. By giving light to power and its relationship to influences, the work draws attention to the growth and transformation of patronage. The acquisition and maintenance of land resources are related to communities- the emergence of pioneer peasant warriors, such as the Jats or Marathas, gives a context to shifting relations around the region.

By covering a wide array of topics, Bayly allows us to have insights into commercialization that emerged at the time, by assessing corporations, merchants, and political stability and instability; all contributing to a bigger picture and a new narrative on the period. Further, the examination of religious trends and the growth of artisan production give an explanation to mass consumption and the organization of society.

With analysis of a large pool of documents, such as revenue records, magistrates’ reports, and pension agency files of Mughal descendants, the book is able to draw from many sources to give a vivid portrayal.

By giving light to complexity without reducing it to simplistic assumptions about the relationships of state and class, the work gives a good account, giving itself a foundation to examine the broad interactions between the heritage of indigenous rule and its transformation into a colonial system.

Argument (Methodology, Significance)

Bayly sets out rather clearly that the book’s argument is structured in three levels. One set of chapters is dedicated to arguing that power decentralization in the eighteenth century gave a big impetus to the rise of a “homogenous merchant class” and “rooted service gentry”. By examining this in relation to the British government, we can see how institutions persisted over time, in the form of societal forces. Secondly, the book looks at the social history of towns, and how unity was problematized by different forms of communal alliances, later made manifest by the rise of nationalism and religious communalism. Third, the book argues that the commercial middle class had a base in religion and credit that was made possible by prior foundations. The economic organization is therefore inseparable from other social forces and phenomena.

By critiquing the “dark ages” stereotype of the period, Bayly puts forth that such existing scholarship rests on a priori assumptions about decline and weakness of the state. Refuting this, the book gives the period covered a broad and well- structured examination.

Annotated by Sandeep Singh

Book Title & Publisher Caste, Society and Politics in India from the Eighteenth Century to the Modern Age. New York : Cambridge University Press, 1999 Author Bayly, Susan

Synopsis

Combining historical and anthropological approaches, Bayly frames her analysis within the context of India's dynamic economic and social order. She interprets caste not as the essence of Indian culture and civilization, but rather as a contingent and variable response to the enormous changes that had occurred in the subcontinent's political landscape before and after colonial conquest.

The main idea of the book is that caste has been for many centuries a real and active part of Indian life, and not merely a self-serving orientalist fiction. And yet,
the book will ask why caste has so evidently mattered to many Indians, why it has aroused so much debate from within and outside the continent, and why its norms have influenced people in so many areas of economic, political and religious life.

Unlike accounts that were written before hers, Bayly explores a different angle of caste in Indian history. She argues that the nineteenth and twentieth century critiques of caste has had a powerful impact on colonial policy, and on the ways Indians themselves have come both to understand and experience the phenomenon of caste.

Scope (Topics covered, Time period)

The book accounts for and interprets the phenomenon of caste in the Indian subcontinent. It deals primarily with the period from the mid-eighteenth century to the present-day, though Chapters One and Two explore the spread of caste-like norms and values in the age of the great sixteenth and seventeenth century Indian dynasties.

An important dimension of the book lies in how caste has been the focus of a debate in which the question of whether modernity has modified or undermined caste values.

Argument (Methodology, Significance)

Bayly counters several arguments that India lacked indigenous values which might have inspired the construction of strong states and the achievement of effective political action, either in the distant past or in resistance to colonial conquest. The changes to perceptions of caste and how it is used serves as an important contribution to the understanding of changes that occurred in India.

The book argues that caste has been for many centuries a real and active part of Indian life, though well into the colonial period, much of the subcontinent was still populated by people for whom the formal distinctions of caste were only of limited importance as a source of corporate and individual lifestyles.

The book moves beyond placing value judgments such as seeing the caste as a cause for dehumanizing inequalities, instead attempting to see critiques of caste in the nineteenth and twentieth century as having a powerful impact on colonial policy, and on the ways Indians themselves have come both to understand and experience caste. In addition, the study seeks to illustrate the point that both before and after the end of British colonial rule, the perceptions and writings of both Indian and foreign observers also further contributed directly to the shaping of the 'system' of caste. Hence, the study seeks to prove that caste should be examined as a dynamic force in Indian life and thought and is embodied in what people do and say rather than a mere code of conduct.

Finally, this book has served to show that caste in itself only became a form of 'tradition' underway long after the initial British conquest. However, it would be the state rulers, as well as the responses of the Indians in turn which would have moulded the caste system to what it gradually become, a comparatively recent product of these transformations of Indian life and thought.

Annotated by Michelle Djong

Book Title & Publisher Japanese Imperialism 1894-1945. New York: Oxford University Press, 1987 Author Beasley, W.G.

Synopsis

This book will examine Japanese imperialism from its origins, its motivations as well as its engagement on the international stage, where the framework of empires becomes the main context in which Japan plays an active role in. The emerging parliamentary system developed in a domestic atmosphere that equated empire with patriotism. This in turn leads to imperialism becoming the social norm. After the trading crisis of 1929-30, Japan was seeing itself as threatened economically. Japan had feared that she would be shut out by her rivals from markets for its manufactures, outlets for its surplus population as well as access to the raw materials it required. Unfortunately, Japan returned to military solutions as answers to these severe problems. The product of the discussion was the decision to build a Co-prosperity Sphere, necessitating war against the European colonial powers which had already established hold over territories in Asia.

Economic modernization in the Meiji period was part of a wider program of reform, undertaken by men predominantly of feudal origin - that is ex-samurai - with the objective of defending the country from foreign threat. Brought up as members of a military ruling class, these ex-samurai were inclined to give special attention to Japan's defense perimeter. As a result, securing a foothold in Taiwan, Kwantung and Korea was seen as a vital priority for Japan. Whereas the first phase of Japanese imperialism was one of dependency on a good relationship with Britain and America, the second phase accorded more closely with the patterns of European imperialism where Japan turned towards creating a sphere of influence in Manchuria.

Beasley provides a detailed account of the Japanese empire, which began with the taking of Taiwan in 1895, and ended with the close of World War II in 1945. He discusses a variety of political, economic and cultural factors for the rapid emergence of Japanese imperialism, and argues that, while it was not purely an heir of Western imperialism, it was certainly influenced by Western presences in Asia, most notably in the form of the treaty port system. He also traces the evolution of Japanese imperialist attitudes throughout the years, noting that imperialism is never static and reacts to changing circumstances. Within these broad theoretical frameworks, Beasley also examines each major colony in turn: Korea, Taiwan, the Co-Prosperity Sphere, and so on. China, while never a colony, receives special attention due to its unique relationships with the Japanese Empire. The book thus presents the Japanese empire as a collection of three different categories: treaty port system, a series of colonies, and a special industrial relationship with China.

Scope (Topics covered, Time period)

The book covers a large scope; including the early form of treaty port system of Japan, its responses to the West, its intervention in Korea 1894-95, the peace settlement reached with China 1894-96 and the forms of empire in Northeast Asia between 1905 and 1910. Aspects of the Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere are examined as well. Japanese imperialism is dated from the Sino-Japanese War of 1894-95. It is therefore compared with modern Western imperialism.

Geographically, Beasley discusses each colony in turn, and in roughly chronological order. Discussion however is by no means limited to Asia, as Beasley draws regular and significant connections between Japanese practices and those of the Western powers. Developments in Britain and America also factor into the establishment and maintenance of Japanese colonies, particularly during the two World War periods. The book is thus global in terms of its territorial scope.

Apart from examining colonies and other relationships, Beasley also engages in broader, more theoretical discussions. He begins the book by introducing the treaty port system, which originated from the Opium War between China and Britain, and whose framework shaped the Japanese attitude toward the Western powers. He also discusses theories of economic imperialism from both Western and Japanese scholars in relation to the Japanese model.

Argument (Methodology, Significance)

The author forms an interesting theoretical framework. He concludes with the observation that imperialism is like the blind men's elephant: the nature depends on which part of it one studies.

The writer examines the various possible factors for the origins of Japanese imperialism. For example, Marxist writers of Japanese imperialism maintained that the existence of an international imperialist structure, by which Japan was threatened, provided an external impulse working in the same direction; thus Japan imperialism was borne out of Western imperialism and international rivalry.

The writer asserted that the nature of its origins lent a special character to Japanese imperialism. It had begun in the 1868 as an internal self-strengthening mission. The development of Japanese imperialism however reflected the continued influence in society of a military and a landowning aristocracy, whose traditional ideology, which included elements of protectionism and territorial expansion, had not been wholly replaced by that of the bourgeoisie.

After 1880, statesmen were more inclined to choose 'imperialist' solutions. However, this was not because of the change in the nature of capitalism, but a change in the situation with which the great powers had to deal. The Western powers assumed that they could not find any system of control, short of annexation or protectorate, in areas where indigenous states were unable to provide a satisfactory political and economic environment for European enterprise and where rivalry between European states were excessive.

By 1930, Japanese imperialism comprised of the need to establish a network of colonies and spheres of influence, setting up fortifications in the gateways to the home islands. In addition, Japan desired to secure their food supplies and succeed in becoming a member of an international system based on treaty rights. They also expressed the need to confer trade and investment privileges throughout East Asia, and maintain a special relationship with China.

Beasley argues for a multi-causal approach: he claims that Japanese imperialism was the product of a collection of intertwined push and pull factors, and should not be tied to any single isolated explanation. Of these factors, the existence of the treaty port system, the introduction of Western modernization, and the strong alliance among the bourgeoisie, monarchy and military are particularly significant. For example, modernization was the link between the treaty port system and the emergence of Japanese imperialism: the Japanese elite viewed it as the means by which they could extract themselves from the unequal treaties they were locked in with the Western powers. In turn, the establishment of colonies in Northeast Asia and Southeast Asia would contribute to a large-scale economic plan that would further feed such modernization in order to reach the peak of the social Darwinist triangle. The existence of such a plan makes the Japanese empire unique.

Beasley also emphasizes that Japanese imperialism experienced fundamental changes throughout the years, and that no one model will encapsulate it in its entirety. Generally, Japanese imperialism was “dependent” on Western powers when it began in 1894; became more assertive in 1905 after the Russo-Japanese War; and adopted Western-style imperialist practices after the 1930s. The Great Depression, which began in 1929, was a pivotal moment, as the collapse of international trade made cooperation no longer feasible and monopolistic control over economic relationships grew more attractive as a policy.

Finally, Beasley argues that the consequences of Japanese imperialism did not end in 1945. Rather, it undermined European imperialism sufficiently to encourage successful independence movements after World War II, and resolved internal struggles between Chinese political rivals. The economic prowess of South Korea and Taiwan today can also be linked back to intense industrialization during Japanese rule.

Annotated by Michelle Djong/Jennifer Yip

Book Title & Publisher Old World Encounters: Cross-cultural Contacts and Exchanges in the Pre-Modern Times. New York: Oxford University Press, 1993 Author Bentley, Jerry H.

Synopsis

The imperial context acts as a framework for Bentley's examination of cross-cultural contacts before 1492. The book examines cross-cultural contacts and 'social conversion', a process by which pre-modern peoples adopted or adapted foreign cultural traditions. Unlike the common method of identification of cross-cultural contacts via the experience of Christopher Columbus in 1492, where the notion of the 'barbarian' became a way of differentiating among cultures, Bentley attempts an explanation of cross-cultural exchanges as a two-way street. He explores the reasons for revival of cross-cultural interactions, which arguably depended upon the stability instilled by large imperial states. For example, Tang, Abbasid and Carolingian empires encouraged cross-cultural interaction when they pacified vast stretches of Eurasia and cooperated with nomadic peoples, who provided transportation links between settled regions beginning in the sixth century.

While diseases have ravaged both Asian and European empires, Bentley argues that Europe's technological developments and the lesser degree of diseases prevalent in European empires magnified vastly the European potential to inaugurate processes of conversion induced by political, social, economic pressures. Thus, the book identifies some common factors affecting cross-cultural conversion, such as the ability of political authorities to sustain institutions that perpetuate the particular culture, and elaborates upon three different kinds of cultural conversion depends on specific circumstances and the political or social motivations surrounding the process of cultural conversion.

Scope (Topics covered, Time period)

The book is an attempt to conduct an in-depth examination of the features and motivations for cross-cultural conversions, which has transformed the nature of interacting societies. It promises to analyze the dynamics of cultural effects of encounters in pre-modern times and seeks to identify and understand the patterns of cross-cultural conversion, conflict, and compromise that came about when peoples of different civilizations and cultural traditions interacted over a long period of time. Bentley discusses the idea of cross-cultural conversion in terms of a process of communication of beliefs and negotiations of values across cultural boundary lines.

Bentley purposefully sets the context of his examination to the pre-modern times around 1492, so as to highlight patterns of cross-cultural encounters and their effects before modern times, particularly in making the links between the ideas exchanged along trade routes like the Silk Road and the phenomenon of religious faiths like Buddhism, Christianity and Islam attracting converts far beyond their origins.

Argument (Methodology, Significance)

Bentley argues that religious and cultural traditions rarely won foreign converts except when there is a powerful set of political, social or economic incentives. Cross- cultural conversion and the spread of religious and cultural traditions over long distances also depended heavily on processes of syncretism that established lines of communication and mediated differences between traditions which intersect.

Social conversion signifies a process by which pre-modern peoples adopted or adapted foreign cultural traditions and a process dependent on presupposed existence of thought on which new cultural alternatives can be built upon. Thus, the introduction of Islam into sub-Saharan Africa and its adoption by local ruling elites was attributed to the intrinsic nature of Islam, which seemed to offer a coherent set of beliefs and values widely observed in the outside world, allowing local rulers to widen their worldview.

Bentley approaches the topic of cross-cultural encounters and subsequent conversion in the imperial framework, thus addressing the largely social aspect of empires, shedding light on political element seen in cross-civilization encounters. He points out three possible motivations for cultural conversion: voluntary association, political and socio-economic pressure and assimilation; processes of conversion that reflect the broader political, social and economic contexts. For example, the degree and motivation for cultural conversion depends on the relative strengths of the parties involved in cross-cultural encounters.

Annotated by Michelle Djong

Book Title & Publisher The False Dawn: European Imperialism in the Nineteenth Century (Series: Europe and the World in the Age of Expansion Vol. 4). Minneapolis : University of Minnesota Press , 1975 Author Betts, Raymond F.

Synopsis

The book provides an introductory study that briefly spans the history of modern French empire and is meant to concentrate on the important problems with regard to French imperialism and their aims in garnering colonies. Betts set the context by referring to the period where a shift in locus of French interest occurred from the New World to older worlds, those of Africa and Asia. The colonial system was seen as hypothetical since even at the end of the nineteenth century there were still no effective colonial administration, and the reality of imperialism was in the singular person of the Frenchman who "happened to be there".

Betts espouses that the French empire was created without a nation-wide inspiration, for it was the military who largely acted as agents of imperialism and the then-existent French colonial world remained crudely defined by the military. Imperialism was thus the end-products of the passion of a small number of dedicated nationalists, ambitious soldiers and as the nineteenth century came to a close, a few ministers of state. The French perspective influenced largely their forms of colonial practice, for the 'assimilation' process was largely driven by the French colonizers, who saw the people they ruled over as the children that they have to control and 'nurture', for only the French was equipped with the know-how to guide and educate the 'natives'. In this framework, decolonization became defined as modification, rather than total abolition of the colonial system.

Ultimately, the focus remains largely on the theories of the French empire, how it came about and who drove it forward. This provides a good introduction book for the empire-reader.

Scope (Topics covered, Time period)

As a history of nineteenth-century European imperialist activity, this book begins with a cursory review of colonial affairs since the Treaty of Paris of 1763 and ends with a final glance toward the Western Front in August 1914. This volume focuses largely on the internal development of empire-building in Europe. Theories of economic imperialism, disjunction of theories and practice of colonialism, the structure and organization of empire as well as native policy and protest sheds light on the various issues faced in the establishment and maintenance of a colonial territory.

Argument (Methodology, Significance)

In exploring the idea of European empires, the editor claims that since the contours of the historical problems of empire are enormous, no single theory will provide a meaningful explanation for the myriad of forms that imperialist activity took; no single model will allow for an integral reconstruction of its history.

Like the steam engine, the most obvious modern artifact of the age, technology and the spirit that informed it provided the dynamic thrust that temporarily created an Eurocentric world and propelled the significant vehicle of global domination - modern imperialism. Overseas expansion was thus a constant factor in nineteenth-century European history.

The atmosphere during the era of the empires bear the influence of geographers such as Halford J. Mackinder. He asserted that the European phase of history was passing away as the Mediterranean had done before it, implying that the European state as a culture and political unit was diminishing with the rapid expansion of the political world. The reality of the fear, as expressed in imperialistic rhetoric, was also evidently seen in the production and population statistics. However, the extent of it was conditioned by the ideologies that enshrined the ideas of competition and conflict.

Imperialists linked expansion to those issues that appealed to the public as questions of "national interest". There was, however, a constant gap between local activity overseas and national policy at home. Issues of "national interest" were made so by the man-on-the-scene, who was fulfilling his personal aspirations by making them suitable to fit national dimensions. Advocators of imperialism saw the impending internal crisis as caused by the effects of industrialization, which was impossible to control and an ever-expanding phenomenon; requiring more raw materials and markets. Thus, only by expanding abroad could they avert such a crisis. Settlement colonies were deemed able to absorb increasing populations, with tropical dependencies to provide raw materials and which might become brisk markets.

In summary, the faces of imperialism were numerous. The imperialism of prestige over which the flag majestically waved was joined by the imperialism of geopolitics in which strategy figured colorfully on large-scaled wall maps. This was enjoined with the imperialism of trade which manipulated and added up statistics to justify colonies as outlets; and by social imperialism through which domestic social problems would be alleviated or diverted by popular glance and a national thrust overseas. Hence, imperialism was like the mohair settee - a convenience of the age.

Annotated by Michelle Djong

Book Title & Publisher Tricouleur: The French Overseas Empire. London; New York: Gordon & Cremonesi, 1978 Author Betts, Raymond F.

Synopsis

The book provides an introductory study that briefly spans the history of modern French empire and is meant to concentrate on the important problems with regard to French imperialism and their aims in garnering colonies. Betts set the context by referring to the period where a shift in locus of French interest occurred from the New World to older worlds, those of Africa and Asia. The colonial system was seen as hypothetical since even at the end of the nineteenth century there were still no effective colonial administration, and the reality of imperialism was in the singular person of the Frenchman who "happened to be there".

Betts espouses that the French empire was created without a nation-wide inspiration, for it was the military who largely acted as agents of imperialism and the then-existent French colonial world remained crudely defined by the military. Imperialism was thus the end-products of the passion of a small number of dedicated nationalists, ambitious soldiers and as the nineteenth century came to a close, a few ministers of state. The French perspective influenced largely their forms of colonial practice, for the 'assimilation' process was largely driven by the French colonizers, who saw the people they ruled over as the children that they have to control and 'nurture', for only the French was equipped with the know-how to guide and educate the 'natives'. In this framework, decolonization became defined as modification, rather than total abolition of the colonial system.

Ultimately, the focus remains largely on the theories of the French empire, how it came about and who drove it forward. This provides a good introduction book for the empire-reader.

Scope (Topics covered, Time period)

The book adopts a largely theoretical approach, since the different facets of French imperial thought and the modes of governing are examined in great detail. Other than merely examining the French context before the 'High Imperialism' period, Betts makes the connections between ideas of economic and political dependence of the present-day Third World. Particularly, according to the argument of neo-imperialism replacing formal colonization, the underlying purpose of imperialism persisted since present-day Third World countries are still largely economically and sometimes politically dependent on their former imperial powers.

Argument (Methodology, Significance)

France's loss of formal empire in Canada and Louisiana becomes the starting point for a qualitative change in the form of French empire. Betts attempt to identify patterns of colonial rule, particularly the reasons for its evolution. Border incident was seen as a frequent provocation for the extension of colonial rule, as witness the British in Punjab: raiding tribes that fought against defending colonial troops became a reason to elicit the support of the British home government.

The roots of the French empire in Indochina was also seen to have been largely been instigated by Frenchmen, but was not deemed a conscious national effort. The governor of Cochinchina had personally sent an explorer on an expedition to open Tonkin to French trade and to establish French influence with the court of the Emperor of Annam through military means.

Betts argued that "imperial thinking , in the new age of technology, was global thinking". And yet, global thinking most often followed well-established patterns of nineteenth century nationalist patterns - especially after defeat to Germany in 1870-71 - French nationalists became imperialists. Thus, a qualitative shift of the form of colonies and changing perceptions of imperialism as tied to national prestige becomes a reality in the nineteenth century. Yet, Betts acknowledges the difficulty of making a critical analysis of the causes of empire at the time, for it is tainted by the idea that the colonial empire was a fact of life rather than a historical development.

Annotated by Michelle Djong

Book Title & Publisher The Scramble for China: Foreign Devils in the Qing Empire, 1832-1914. London: Penguin Books Ltd., 2011 Author Bickers, Robert

Synopsis

Bickers considers the presence of foreigners in Chinese governance in the period between 1832 and 1913, and the legacy such presence has left for the country’s modern foreign relations. He seeks a middle ground between China’s portrayal of the treaty century as an era of national humiliation, and foreign residents’ insistence that they had China’s best interests at heart, and on self-congratulation for altruistically raising up the “sick man of Asia”. He emphasizes interconnection and global context, arguing that any understanding of recent Chinese history, as well as modern Chinese attitudes, is incomplete without consideration for the role of foreign agents. Crucially, he narrates the growth of foreign influence in China as beyond the formal recognition of European empires; he denies that it was ever an imperial project.

That said, the book is still relevant to our study of imperialism and expansion. Even though it was an “unplanned scramble for China”, it still involved the carving out of a frontier zone in a sovereign state and a strong foreign hand in Chinese governance. Territories were seized, sovereignty impaired, and the indigenous people exploited. Similar to former colonies, China’s modern character has a highly foreign heritage.

Scope (Topics covered, Time period)

Bickers focuses on the period of foreign ascendancy in China, beginning in 1832, when British ships entered the forbidden area of the Canton Delta. He discusses the treaties and wars that result in increased foreign clout in China, not just that of the British, but also of the French, Japanese and Russians. The scramble for China unravels after 1913, where Bickers closes off his analysis. However, Bickers is also interested in a meta-historical examination of the various representations of this period, questioning the portrayals of both the British and the Chinese. In particular, he considers the bitter labeling of the period as the era of “national humiliation” through the lens of post-World War I nationalism. He also explains why an understanding of China’s past is crucial to an understanding of its present and future.

Argument (Methodology, Significance)

Crucially, Bickers clarifies in his introduction that the “scramble for China” was never a planned imperial project with specific objectives in mind. He also points out that the nature of foreign presence in China was multinational and not just restricted to the British. This highlights an important theme in Bickers’ narration: all histories are strongly interconnected, and this period of Chinese history was inextricably tied up with global trends, such as British predominance on the world stage and technological innovations like telegraphy and the steamship. Therefore, Bickers concludes, there is nothing uniquely humiliating about the treaty century.

However, he recognizes that the Chinese version of this period has been tinged with strong anti-imperialism. After the Treaty of Versailles led to profound disillusionment with the West, Chinese political legitimacy hinged on the denunciation of imperialism. This involved a recasting of Chinese history: victimizing the Chinese of the 19th century and introducing the term “unequal treaties”. Bickers points out that there are kernels of truth to the arguments of the Chinese nationalist: documentation in Chinese and British archives show that the Chinese did indeed suffer territorial, political and cultural losses at the hands of foreigners. At the same time, as much as the self-congratulatory tone of foreign recounts are misplaced, the point is that they did provide precedents for modern China’s cosmopolitanism and its reintegration into the global economy. Both narratives may be difficult, almost impossible, to reconcile, but they must be studied parallel to each other. In his conclusion, Bickers reiterates why such a study of foreign presences in China is important for the 21st century: “a globalized China is not new, but a powerful global China is unprecedented”. Given China’s leading position on today’s world stage, it is important to understand the instinctive indignation of Chinese youths. The memory of the era of “national humiliation” has not been lost on them due to hard state work.

Annotated by Jennifer Yip

Book Title & Publisher The Mongol Transformation: From the Steppe to Eurasian Empire. Medieval Encounters, Volume 10, Issue 1-3: 2004 Author Biran, Michal

Synopsis

Biran argues that the time of the Mongol Empire was the watershed period of Inner Asian history. In this article, he explains the reasons for its successful founding and maintenance before it crumbled into four separate entities. For instance, the Mongol Empire had its roots in its 10th and 11th century nomadic steppe predecessors, whose experiences ruling over conquered sedentary peoples proved to be invaluable to the Mongol leaders. The Mongols were also willing to accept that their new subjects were superior in some practices, and actively sought to adapt these practices to improve their own systems. Biran also discusses the influence of the Mongol Empire on various parts of the world, including Western Europe, Central Asia and the Middle East, as well as the legacies still visible today.

Scope (Topics covered, Time period)

Even though Biran’s ultimate focus is the Mongol Empire, he reaches frequently back to the 10th-13th century period to show how the earlier steppe empires influenced the Mongols. His discussion also encompasses the present day—for example, when he examines how the Il-khanate raised Iran to replace Egypt as the pivot of the Muslim world, or how Moscow developed as a legacy of the Golden Horde. Geographically, Biran claims that the existence of the Mongol Empire touched almost every major region of the world, including Western Europe, Central Asia, the Middle East, and Russia. Biran’s physical and temporal scopes are thus flexible and liberal as he seeks both to root the Mongol Empire in a historical context and to illuminate its imprints on the present.

Argument (Methodology, Significance)

Biran argues that the Mongol Empire was successfully created and maintained due to its pragmatic openness. He firstly points out that the Mongol Empire had the privilege of learning from the steppe empires that preceded them. These ex-nomads of Central Asia grew closer to sedentary civilization and developed the administrative skills necessary for sedentary rule. By the time Chinggis Khan attempted to conquer bordering sedentary civilizations, thereby expanding beyond the nomadic world, they had already established a coexistence of nomadic and sedentary peoples, effectively laying the foundation for Mongol rule. Secondly, the Mongols were fully willing to learn from their subjects and even allow them to rule and collect taxes in more faraway territories on their behalf. Thirdly, through the intersections facilitated by trade, the Mongols acted as agents of cultural exchange, selecting desirable traits and practices and assimilating them into their own systems. This openness toward and even encouragement of foreign influence was the Mongol Empire’s greatest strength.

Biran also argues that the Mongol Empire was a revolutionary, not evolutionary success. The theological foundation for the Mongols’ rule was that of the Tengri, or the right of a super-tribal unit to rule over the world. Before the Mongols, “the world” comprised all the nomads in Inner Asia. It was only after Chinggis Khan turned his ambitions toward the bordering sedentary civilizations that the “universal” rule of Tengri expanded to include other groups. Other revolutionary practices include the intentional dismantling of existing nomadic military organizations and Eurasian elites in order to ensure that loyalties extended beyond single tribes and belonged instead to the Chinggisids.

Finally, Biran discusses the impact of the Mongol Empire on other entities. For example, Western Europe benefited intellectually from its interaction with the Mongols, whose efficient statecraft and financial institutions provided much insight. While the Mongol Empire ultimately did not cause major disruptions to Eurasian geopolitics due to its willingness to rule through indigenous leaders rather than impose direct control, it left lasting impacts: for instance, the integration of the steppe peoples into modern-day China.

Annotated by Jennifer Yip

Book Title & Publisher

Military Strategy: A Global History. New Haven. Yale University Press. 2020.

Author

Black, Jeremy

Professor Black has published more than 180 single-authored monographs in his long and incredibly prolific career. That fact alone would suggest that any volume with his name on the cover will rest on a very broad and deep base of reading and reflection, over many years. That lends itself to producing a book that takes on a very wide-ranging subject, defined very broadly – a painting on a very large canvas. Such indeed is the case with this effort, the latest in a series of such publications by which Black is challenging what he sees as the tendency to treat far too many subjects and topics in military and international history through Western lenses, or focus on Western experiences. Consequences of that approach include modernizing things that had longer antecedents, secularizing things that were broader in conception, and failing to globalize things that ranged much more widely than the Euro-Atlantic world. In this latest sortie, Black challenges the long-standing tradition to see the conceptualization and definition of military strategy as a European Enlightenment product, brought to fruition by Clausewitz and emerging as a universal theoretical abstract. Instead, military strategy has been the product of so many different influences and factors, is so deeply embedded within civilizational and cultural milieus, and is so perennially contingent, that it has a genuinely global history which must be engaged as such.

Yet having said all that, Black then presents an extended essay that certainly tilts its attention strongly towards the Euro-Atlantic world, with nine of its eleven chapters focusing on the last three centuries, into the present. Then there is the matter of defining terms and concepts. At one point Black is admirably clear in presenting his main argument, on page 270:

Whether or not repeated strategic circumstances can be seen, with all that that might offer for those who wish to provide laws to analyze strategy, strategy, like war itself, has become a term that is widely defined … Specifically, there are now many alternatives to a distinctly military character to strategy. It is readily apparent that the function of strategy, if understood as the relationship between ends, ways and means in power politics, is not necessarily military. Strategy has been taken to refer to the full range of human activity.

Unfortunately, two things obstruct reader’s efforts to engage this thesis as Black unpacks it. The first is his decision to go so far as to argue that so many things are involved in formulating strategy, at so many levels, that it can neither be defined nor categorized. This raises the question why then pursue any inquiry into something specifically labelled military strategy if it emanates from the same plethora of sources that generate any other agenda and course of action. The second is the unfortunate fact that most of the prose is nowhere near as clear as the example above. Dense, elliptical, repetitive, it makes following the thread of analysis difficult. Both these two problems are combined in another passage on page 254:

The theme of variety and contingency has been extended to suggest that, with strategy understood as a multi-level decision-making continuum, with decisions being made on means and ends, these decisions, and the related behaviour, are not only contextualized and contingent, but are so at every level of an organization and socio-political structure. Thus, for strategy, decision-making can take place down the chain of command.

Despite the difficulties cited above, Black does put together an argument: no one, not even Clausewitz, can be seen as having formulated something that rises above and beyond contingency, context, and culture. He displays a good eye for historiographical laziness, persuasively arguing for example that nineteenth and twentieth century Germany has received too much attention from students of this theme while maritime powers have received too little. He is also right to argue that a large part of this theme must include the close study of strategy as it was applied, in politics and in the field, by practitioners, rather than just concentrating on thoughts and thinkers.

The close attention Black pays to context sharpens his eye for change over time, the attention he plays to individual agency is warranted, and he is certainly right to support those who have argued that strategy stretches back to the beginning of recorded history, avant de la lettre. Conversely, it is hard to disagree with his contention that what is casually labelled “politics” has almost always played a crucial role in shaping and applying strategy. But this is also precisely where and why the prose becomes too dense and the argument too attenuated. If strategy comes from everything and everywhere, at all levels, and is so amorphous it can not be defined in any way at any level, then the very term “military strategy” surely loses any real meaning or utility in analysis. This seems in the end to be fatal to the analytical objective. That leaves the book standing out as perhaps an interesting trace through three centuries of the interplay between conflict and the direction thereof, with occasional glimpses of the “global” which here, really, just means Asian.

Annotated by Brian Farrell

Book Title & Publisher The Colonizer’s Model of the World: Geographical Diffusionism and Eurocentric History. New York: The Guilford Press, 1993 Author Blaut, J.M

Synopsis

Blaut offers the reader a critique of the idea that Europe was historically superior to the rest of the world. This is by showing how the concept of “Eurocentric diffusionism”, which entails the belief that Europe had internally been more progressive and advanced than other regions of the world before 1492 , led the continent, through colonialism, to subsequently spread modernization is false: it is “in a sense folklore”. Thus, the book sets out to show why the concept of diffusionism is historically inaccurate, because it is a by-product of modern European colonialism.

As a product of European thinkers’ conceptions of progress in the sixteenth and seventeenth century, by 1870 it would be clear that the ideology of internally generated progress in Europe would be a firmly accepted proposition. This was a period where Europe had established itself as a colonial power around the globe.
By distinguishing between classical and modern diffusionism, Blaut recognizes two periods of European intervention in the world through colonialism- the latter is marked by the second world war, and eventually, decolonization.

The book is clear to put forth that it cannot demonstrate that its assertions are true, instead, it is able to produce a coherent theory within which the propositions fit. In this way, it uses the evidence to posit a theoretical framework. Thus it raises good questions about the nature of methodology and veracity.

In concluding that diffusionism is a “serious malady of the mind”, the book shows how many fields, including economic history, are still being written in relation to an understanding of diffusionism- especially those dealing with the impact of the Industrial Revolution. The book invites more scholarly contribution to the field, by rejecting scholarship by writers such as Eric L. Jones in the work The European Miracle as containing false claims and being laden with oriental despotism. The book is both well written and intellectually stimulating.

Scope (Topics covered, Time period)

The book is clearly structured, and deals with Eurocentric diffusionism,its spread and prominence in European scholarly thought, and subsequently refutes the idea of a historically superior Europe. The book can be divided into two major periods, before and after 1492. By showing how colonial accumulation led to Europe’s rise as a capitalist society, whilst Asian and African protocapitalist centers declined, this justifies the colonial ideology and subsequent exaltation of a tradition based upon a constructed myth- that Europe was always historically superior to the rest of the world. Blaut manages to use themes such as environment, biology, rationality, technology, religion to dissect claims of European historical superiority. This allows for a well- structured argument and understanding of how he wishes to analyze the phenomena. By rejecting deterministic theories, Blaut is clear to highlight that the rise of capitalism legitimized the shift of European society away from feudalism. By highlighting the rise of industrial development in Europe as a result of colonial processes, the book shows how the topic of European supremacy must be understood as legitimizing itself through a narrative of both racial and historical supremacy: the colonizer’s model is one that can, in the book’s view, be disproved through a greater analysis of longer historical periods and evidence which could lead us to a better and more valid understanding of the past.

Argument (Methodology, Significance)

The clear premise of the book is to displace previous views about European diffusionism and myths about European superiority before 1492. By arguing that the views are a product of mythology, Blaut is essentially arguing that there is a necessity for scholarship to critically assess colonialism and its forms of knowledge; especially in the way we look at the experience of interaction between Europe and the rest of the world. By assessing how subjects such as history and geography would be taught at different periods of time in the past, the book allows the reader to understand the concept of changing fields and development of human knowledge in an accessible way.

The book argues against European historians who place emphasis on events in the past that attest to Europe’s centrality in history, this giving rise to the legitimacy of diffusionism as a ‘super theory’, something that gives credence to many other theories that substantiate it.  

By showing us how history is taught and written about (and thought about), the book offers a good critique of the way we think about the past. It is not just limited to an assessment of the roles of colonizer and colonized, but expands the question to the legitimacy of colonial dominance and how scholarship has legitimized an image of superiority and deserves to not just be challenged, but also refuted.

By taking such a position, we are able to question even the concept of ‘modernity’ and what constitutes it. If progress itself is an idea that is constructed through a colonial self-serving myth, how could we redefine the past, and to what end?

Annotated by Sandeep Singh

Book Title & Publisher Companies and Trade: Essays on Overseas Trading Companies during the Ancien Regime. Leiden: Leiden University Press, 1981 Author Blusse, L. (French) and F. Gaastra (eds.)

Synopsis

This book is a third volume in the series "Comparative Studies in Overseas History" and contains a number of essays regarding the function of the great Companies of trade in the European expansion in Asia and the Atlantic World during the 17th and 18th centuries. The central question of this book concerns how the Companies actually achieved the opening of new markets and the widening of the economic boundaries of the world of the ancien regime. Some themes explored are the organization of the Companies, their relations with the state, their trade-policy, and their ability to make use of the economic potentialities in the overseas world. Though the essays are focused on a specific subject, this study is treated in a comparative way within the broad spectrum of overseas history. The companies were thus institutions designed to be expedient to further trade interests of the European nations during the Ancien Regime.

The maritime joint-stock company with its charter from the national government was a Janus-headed creature. On the European side the features of each company reflected more or less the interest groups, nation and its particular period. Overseas, the company displayed another countenance, owing to the fact that it had to adapt its trading methods and policies to the local institutions and customs of the people with whom it was dealing. Thus, it was the local conditions overseas which eventually dictated the point at which the relations between the Europeans and non-Europeans settled on the scale between dominance and servitude.

Scope (Topics covered, Time period)

The primary form of organization in this book is its division into two major themes. 1) the Companies acting as instruments of trade and expansion, and 2) the adaptation of the Companies to the trading world in Asia. A topic frequently broached is the placement of company history into the framework of expansion history and discussing how trade became the tool of expansion. The book revolves around themes that go beyond the surface questions, exploring the debate surrounding economic benefits of Asian and Western countries. According to liberal economists, Europe may not have profited as much as was possible, but Asia did not profit as much as was reasonable. This conviction has led some historians to discuss the question of whether and from what moment this unequal relationship, in which each step forwards for Europe meant a step backwards for Asia, led irreversibly to the division of the present world into developed and undeveloped countries.

Thus, studying the structures of the trading companies entails the need to examine and analyze the larger framework within which management and trade policy was executed. Themes such as the role of government are discussed, since it had remained limited in terms of the initial expansion of controlled by the Dutch and English East India Companies. The examination of the relationships of merchants and the state in the French Companies also highlight that merchants operating under the Company could make their own private fortunes, such that when in the eighteenth century the government tries to turn the tables on the merchants to acquire financial aid, it found itself deserted. In examining the organization of the Companies, it is important that the variance within the European agency has an effect on the interaction with the local traditional prevailing economic networks in the territories that they claim as their own sphere of influence.

Argument (Methodology, Significance)

The question that was persistently asked was not why the companies did not survive, but under what conditions were the companies able to compete successfully in the market?

Arguments such as those of O. Prakash presents a different outlook to problematize the statement that when Europeans arrive in Asia they either dominate the existing trade networks or interfere with the indigenous economic system. It is perhaps more accurate to assess the situation as localized to different areas depending on the amount of privileges the Companies can obtain: While in Bengal where no special grants or exclusive privileges can be extracted, the Companies had to keep a low profile and exerted little influence. Here the indigenous populations derived decided benefits from the presence of the Europeans. However, in Ceylon and Malabar, the companies interfered with the indigenous economy in order to get a monopolistic hold of the market. Such that by excluding other parties from reaping the fruits of the economy, it introduced a new, negative aspect.

Particularly, the integrative stage of the commercial activities of the companies in the Asian trade pattern is seen in the case of Japan. The Dutch could offer a wide variety of goods obtained throughout their vast trading network and without political implications, leading the Shogunate to believe that trading with the Dutch was to the interest of Japan. Seen from the European perspective, the companies appear to have been dynamic powers establishing a new stage in the international trade: but authors argue that when viewed within the Asian context they were viewed as mere newcomers making uncertain attempts to find their way into existing structures. A contentious point is that the companies' adaptation was not a point of weakness, but on the contrary the basis of their success.

The interest in Company history as a gateway towards knowing the history of non-European countries meant that this should be studied as components in a global process of expansion and reaction; not to be viewed in isolation. The Companies could not dominate the world and the cultures they met, the conquered, traded, adapted themselves or subordinated themselves according to the environment they met, but everywhere they added something to the world they found. Another argument is that the companies were successful in maintaining the balance between the forces of the market and the power of their government. Their unplanned losses became unexpected investments in the process that led from the discoveries to the existence of a modern world market.

Thus, the author concludes with the argument that companies were able to do well in the Asia trade because their specific form of organization was well suited to solve problems in the long distance trade, allowing them to prove their efficiency in the world market.

Annotated by Michelle Djong

Book Title & Publisher A Hundred Horizons. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2006 Author Bose, Sugata

Synopsis

The book underscores the relevance and resilience of the Indian Ocean space in modern times. There are deep and unique bonds that tie together the peoples of this interregional arena of human interaction, particularly a common historical destiny since the ocean was frequently characterized by specialized flows of capital and labor, skills and services, ideas and culture. The idea of the shared historical destiny of communities around the Indian Ocean is thus based on the paradigm that spatial boundaries help historians theorize and place in historical context the Indian Ocean as an interregional arena of political, economic and cultural interaction.

This book has been attentive to the global context and a larger set of global connections throughout. Yet it also has shown that Indian Ocean history in the age of global empire had elements of history of the processes occurring in the ocean.

Bose tells his stories in the form of a series of nonlinear narratives. Hence, the laying out of broad patterns of interregional networks is matched in each chapter by the unraveling of individual tales of proconsuls and pirates, capitalists and laborers.

Scope (Topics covered, Time period)

The cross-cutting Indian Ocean stories have something to say about the historical conceptions of both space and time. In this way, the historical analysis of the areas surrounding the Indian Ocean and trade networks highlight a different way of delineating a space to examine history. They underscore the relevance and resilience of the Indian Ocean space throughout modern times. This book has been attentive to the global context and a larger set of global connections. Yet it also illustrates the point that Indian Ocean history was significant in the age of global empire as its history touched upon a large part of the processes occurring within the development of empire through the sea.

Argument (Methodology, Significance)

A question posed that is extremely relevant is whether the Indian Ocean rim had continued to be a coherently definable interregional arena after the imposition of European economic and political domination by the first half of the nineteenth century. Some historians argue and the author agrees that the Indian and Chinese chain of trade and finance stretching from Zanzibar to Singapore formed "a distinct international system that never lost its identity in the larger dominant world system of the West". However, the changes that had occurred was more within the administrative domain. Most importantly, Bose identified principles of unity that might have sustained the level of economy and culture in an age where it had become part of and in many ways subservient to a global set of interconnection.

Perhaps the most prominent focus of the book is on the way concepts of sovereignty had been altered. Pre-colonial states and polities generally possessed a shared and layered concept of sovereignty, which helped create certain autonomous spaces for the inhabitants of port cities. However, the notion of indivisible and unitary sovereignty imported under colonial conditions from Europe represented a major break from ideas of good governance and legitimacy that had been widespread in the Ottoman, Safavid and Mughal domains and their regional successor states. Another important theme explored is the significant decline in the position of most intermediate groups on whose collaboration colonial rule initially rested.

The topic of flows of capital and labor, specifically migration, is explored in memoirs, travel accounts and letters, such that statistical evidence is offset by textual sources. This merges the quantitative aspects of trade and finance balanced by a range of qualitative source materials that tend to be more evocative. Even at the turn of the twentieth century, the globalism experienced by the colonized was different from the globalization of the territorial nation-state by colonial empires. It may have been in the form and structure of states, but alternative universalistic allegiances were never wholly disavowed.

Annotated by Michelle Djong

Book Title & Publisher The Portuguese Seaborne Empire, 1415-1825. London: Hutchinson and Co. (Publishers) Ltd., 1969 Author Boxer, C.R.

Synopsis

The book aims to give an overview of the Portuguese maritime empire from the 15th to 19th century. It approaches discussion from the perspective of various groups, such as merchants, soldiers, and the Crown, and describes how they determined the characteristics of the Portuguese colonies. Fitted into such discussion is a close tracking of the strength of the Portuguese empire vis-à-vis European rivals—most notably the Dutch—on political, economic and demographic fronts, and how it strove to protect itself from such threats. Boxer also pays close attention to circumstances in Portugal itself, and regularly draws causal connections between the metropolis and how colonies are run.

Scope (Topics covered, Time period)

Instead of using a strictly chronologically or geographically based presentation, Boxer takes two approaches. In the first part of the book, he identifies overarching themes that collectively facilitate a broad, all-encompassing understanding of the Portuguese empire. In the second part, he turns to more detail, categorizing agents of empire according to the nature of their contribution, and approaches his discussion from each of these angles in turn. The book examines Portuguese colonial practices in Africa, America and Asia while always keeping a watchful eye on developments at home in Europe.

Argument (Methodology, Significance)

Because of the emphasis placed on the importance of metropolitan priorities in the making of colonial decisions, Boxer presents colonies around the world as literal extensions of the Portuguese kingdom, and never examines them in isolation. Characteristics of Portugal itself have a clear influence on the determination of the strengths and weaknesses of its far-flung colonies: the chronic lack of labor and the general inadequacy and ill discipline of the military, for instance, or more positively, technological prowess in relation to other colonial rivals.

Boxer also pays considerable attention to Portuguese interaction with other parties, such as the Dutch, the indigenous peoples, and Negro slaves or servants. The Portuguese colonial armies, for example, made extensive use of Negro soldiers, and were in fact dependent on them to defend against Dutch encroachments. Despite significant disadvantages in the areas of manpower and military skill, the Portuguese managed to cling on to their empire, he argues, because they struck deeper roots as colonizers than the Dutch. By the time the Dutch were able to wrest colonies from Portuguese hands, the indigenous peoples had already grown accustomed to the latter, and actively preferred Portuguese rule for a host of social and political reasons.

Ultimately, Boxer presents the Portuguese empire as one which was profoundly commercial despite the traditional Portuguese prejudice against merchants, but which was also deeply ecclesiastical due to its exceptionally strong crusading spirit.

Annotated by Jennifer Yip

Book Title & Publisher Afterthoughts on Material Civilization and Capitalism.  Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1977 Author Braudel, Fernand (translated by Patricia M. Ranum)

Synopsis

Braudel submits an assessment of the writing of economic history in this book. By dealing with this specific field, the author reflects on his own method (primarily in relation, but not limited to, his Civilization and Capitalism trilogy). By dealing with the concept of exchange, Braudel observes that “without exchange, there is no society”- giving economic history a centrality to all history. By using the aid of illustrations as well as conceptually grounding itself in relation to laws (such as the law of reciprocity), the book takes a variety of examples and organizes them into valid observations about a global economy.

The book discusses the rise of capitalism as a global and local force, though preceded by a material life that made the advent of market economy and capitalists (examined through merchants who were able to expand outside national boundaries) possible. By examining factors such as the state, social hierarchies, and the feudal systems of Europe and Japan, Braudel shows us how capitalism destroys social hierarchies in order to create new ones to its own benefit. Capitalism is thus a phenomenon that both assimilates and obliterates.

Braudel, in finding the origins of the modern economy, gives it a shape by creating working definitions of what it comprises. By disagreeing with Immanuel Wallerstein’s approach in his work The Modern World-System in assuming that the only world economy was a European one, Braudel instead posits that the globe was already divided into coherent economic zones, even in times of antiquity. The book puts forth that world economies such as China, the India and “Insulinde” block and others had been prominent members of the world economy up to a certain point. The key point is, however, that capitalism is a global phenomenon that is only triumphant when it defines the state.

Scope (Topics covered, Time period)

Giving a broad overview of themes such as material life, the market economy and capitalism, and capitalism and dividing up the world, Braudel is able to structure this book into a concise account with three chapters. The structure of the work is wide, consisting of a time period before 1450 and ending with modernity. The nature of the work, whilst brief (it is 120 pages), makes general observations with a commanding tone; Braudel here writes in the first person. There are astute points made about the emergence of the market economy and its relationship to power over time.

The book also focuses on the historical method and how one can distinguish between the market economy and capitalism, whilst encouraging more work by young historians, stating that history is a field that is constantly re-inventing itself- questioning this book’s ability and adequacy to explain the origins of the modern global economy.

By examining cities, diseases, trade, currency and methods of transport, Braudel’s work is accessible to the reader by providing a broad picture of social life that underpins his economic analysis. For instance, the knowledge of steam power to Ptolemaic Egypt is relevant insofar as it justifies how the industrial revolution could have occurred before its final realization, but did not. The examples thus give a contextual understanding of how economic development occurred over time and also imply continuity with, rather than a break from, the past. In this sense, the scope of the work is one that invites reflection, but also posits a method of situating global trends within historical continuities.

Argument (Methodology, Significance)

Braudel’s work is significant in relation to his three volumes on civilization and capitalism, being a concise reflection on the general themes that could be derived from such an extensive study of society over time. By characterizing both pre-industrial and industrial economies, the book asserts that both are subject to trends, more specifically, long-term equilibriums and disequilibriums. The book observes the term capitalism to be ambiguous and “loaded with contemporary, and possibly, anachronistic connotations”.
Braudel explains the emergence of the industrial revolution as an event with roots in the past, and questions the idea of a divergence between past and present; assuming that the past contributes in many ways to the present.

By leading us to question the habit and routine nature of human action, the book puts forth that the ways in which we act are grounded in the beginning of mankind. The work thus consciously submits that there are linkages between disparate societies over time- the resultant outcome is a ubiquitous marketplace that transcends difference.
Displacing the idea that we could attribute economic progress primarily to capitalism, the book instead offers the explanation that the expansion of material life gave a pretext to capitalism.

The book distinguishes between the terms capital and capitalist. The former, it posits, is a real tangible series of financial resources whilst the latter is a person who attempts to preside over such resources being inserted into a production process. Capitalism therefore relies on individuals and capital; the former usually “possessed superior knowledge, intelligence, and culture”. Braudel goes further to argue that capitalism is able to flourish through the concept of change, and is monopolistic in nature. Yet, he argues that capitalism has not changed in itself, thus retaining universal properties which enable it to exploit resources globally.

Whilst acknowledging that his method of splitting up time into three stages is “mutilating” complex realities, Braudel’s work is an exercise in contemplating the emergence of a global economy and the trends that contributed to it, to explain how the past is in many ways inseparable from our understanding of the contemporary.

Annotated by Sandeep Singh

Book Title & Publisher The Structures of Everyday Life: Civilization & Capitalism 15th-18th Century, Volume 1. London: Phoenix Press, 2002 Author Braudel, Fernand (translated by Siân Reynolds)

Synopsis

This work is the first volume in a three part series on the subject of material civilization and capitalism. By material civilization, Braudel means the existence of a zone that underpins the market economy (he calls it a “shadowy zone”), that provides a way to understand a system that emerged which contributed to the establishment of social hierarchies and also the emergence of modern economic systems such as capitalism. Critically, the book claims to be a way to understand, by using a schema, the development and existence of present day societies: it is an examination of transnational trends. The past is thus linked invariably to the present: the trends of the present are explained by, and could be compared to, those of the past.

Showing a real and detailed richness of everyday life, the book is a history: being, admittedly, an inexact science. By highlighting the complexity of the past, whilst also using a global scale, the book is aware that the exercise is one of grand proportion, and the author shows this by making the telling claim “how shall I begin?” before undertaking the writing of the work.

Material life is something which encompasses both humanity and objects, but what we are able to produce materially is not a singular way to understand reality. Working without data such as population statistics, instead using images and impressions of the time, Braudel is able to cover themes that are complex, appropriating them into a well -researched narrative, giving us a wealth of information that is structured thematically.

Scope (Topics covered, Time period)

Braudel’s work has an expansive scope, but deftly deals with his subject matter- this work is exemplary of a narrative both constructed as a thematic study of how the world had changed between the 15-18 century, but it must be seen as a contribution that is part of a larger framework, thus the study could not be isolated to this book only. Dealing with things on a global scale is hardly a straightforward task, but the book is able to study society and its processes and existence from the multifarious vantage points: dietary change, the role of wheat, how alcohol and stimulants played a revolutionary role as “the great innovation”, creating new markets but also giving a plausible explanation for development, including nations both within and without Europe.

Braudel is clear at the outset to provide a schema which he works with in his volumes, and this is that there is a triple division between the upper, lower and observable limits of material life, where the lower is that of informal economic activity that evaded documentation (basic activities such as barter), upper being that which includes the individuals who, through being merchants, could create “zones of turbulence” thus having power to create new social hierarchies.

Taking Pierre Chaunu’s description of “weighing up the world”, the book examines the limits of what was possible in what is termed the pre-industrial world. Giving revealing insights into habits, Braudel is able to make use of even a potato to give a reflection of social change and market forces.

Argument (Methodology, Significance)

The book is essentially taking a historical approach to give light to forms and ways in which the international economy operated and changed at the point, and in its pursuit of being a comprehensive account, it demonstrates the ability to reference extensively and give light to complexity by employing what Braudel terms “parahistoric languages”, excavating the records of demography, food, dress, money and other such technologies to give a coherence to the past.

Where records do not exist, Braudel reads from inference of other sources and attempts to persuade the reader that he is constructing a well- informed narrative: the example of decrease in birth rate is thus juxtaposed to an increase in use of contraceptives, statements such as “husbands…take care in their raptures to keep from adding a child to the household”, are utilized to make the points in the book.

The book is careful to qualify that it is only attempting to provide one plausible view of the past and, by taking a dialectical approach, it could explore the world through a new lens. Giving a commonality to the structure of everyday life and thus lending credence to homogeneity, Braudel provides the idea that there is more in daily practices that peoples have shared in the past.

With a detailed examination of the time, he is illuminating the past and its contribution to the present, and this is generally the proposition that drives the work- the book justifies how revolutionary events are based upon, and build upon past developments, thus historicizing civilization and capitalism as developments that must be seen in a chronological trajectory: these developments, if deprived from their social milieu are bereft of an adequate explanation.

Annotated by Sandeep Singh

Book Title & Publisher The Wheels of Commerce: Civilization & Capitalism 15th-18th Century, Volume 2. London: Phoenix Press, 2002 Author Braudel, Fernand (translated by Siân Reynolds)

Synopsis

This book builds upon the first volume in this trilogy, expanding upon the issues explored but also considering, importantly, the subject of economic life and the relationship to the action of capitalism. By examining a totality of the workings of exchange, Braudel links together processes that underpin the global capitalist system, giving a good explanation for why things had developed without restricting the approach to being theoretical.

The book credits and employs Marc Bloch’s proposed method of the long term or in French “La Longue durée”- thus the writing does not highlight chance development, instead emphasizing continuity and comparison. By opening the space for the examination of an artificial, superior economy, Braudel finds that the world of trade has its own hierarchy, and observes the rules that he believes regulates and contours the social action he examines.

The book is written in clear language that Braudel developed over the course of delivering the chapters prior to their eventual publication at locations such at the Ecole des Hautes Etudes in France. Thus, in an accessible way, the book approaches the complexity of the topic. Albeit a monumental task, clear thematic considerations and the sub-division of topics allow the reader to navigate this expansive study with ease. By making the study grounded in social aspects, the work is both a historical study whilst also situating it in the larger contextual frame of societal forces and studies.

Much like the prior volume, this study is a contribution to the field by extensively researching and developing on studies and sources that give a very good insight into the topic. By rigorously employing documents such as the letters of merchants, the book engages the reader on a global scale, whilst not compromising its own ability to delve in depth on a wide range of topics.

Scope (Topics covered, Time period)

Braudel writes that the “word capitalist probably dates from the mid seventeenth century. The Hollandische Mercurius uses it once in 1633, and again in 1654.” Although being a single example, the book covers the topic of trade, civilization and capitalism as traceable and explicable through its use of a distinct historical method. Being neatly divided, the scope which seems extremely broad at the outset becomes a collection of clearly written observations on different facets of the topic that the book examines. This does not mean however, that the book is a collection of aphorisms. Far from it, each section uses laborious research and illustrations to cover topics ranging from the boom in shopkeeping to political structures and capitalism. This book delves into capitalism as a central theme but also explains its rootedness in pre-existing market conditions, which then allows for the analysis of the global economy to be understood through multifarious dimensions.

Whilst tracing a historical development, it does not approach the topic in a chronological fashion, and thus the work is more focused on its own observations of what is important- the function of money, for instance, is examined in relationship to its ability to empower an individual to acquire social stature, and with it a set of possibilities, such as patronage. In this sense, the book offers the reader the ability to appreciate topics in a contextual way, fleshing out the broader themes they link to.

Argument (Methodology, Significance)

The book must be situated in the three volumes as a part of the whole, but on its own it is still a significant contribution to our understanding of the emergence of a global, integrated economy. If we are able to appreciate the commonalities drawn out by Braudel’s analysis, they suggest that the past is not too discordant from the present, and the book’s ability to expand themes to a global scale is a contribution to history writing. Whilst admitting the imprecise nature of the study, the method of approaching the topic limits the universal nature of its focus to very specific situations in the past.

Braudel tells the reader at the outset that he understands that he may be engaging in an anachronism by examining capitalism, a concept which only emerged fully in the twentieth century in periods prior to it, but that it does not worry him much- the word to him is not as important as the trends that make up the foundation for which we seem to situate it semantically.

Between Braudel’s observation and the construction of models of zones that constitute the world of economic interaction in the past, there emerges an analysis of social forces that also are distinct and are in conflict with one another-thus the work remains as an exercise in analysis without succumbing to a determination to separate the past into separable categories. Whilst one may question the viability of an approach to explicate these trends on a global level, and that it may be asserted with some merit that cultural particularity deserves attention; the work is able to put across some good observations that form a coherent argument for understanding the international system of capitalism.

Annotated by Sandeep Singh

Book Title & Publisher The Perspective of the World: Civilization & Capitalism 15th-18th Century, Volume 3. London: Phoenix Press, 2002 Author Braudel, Fernand (translated by Siân Reynolds)

Synopsis

This book is the final volume of Fernand Braudel’s trilogy on civilization and capitalism. Building on the observations of the first two volumes, the work finds commonalities in global developments and relates it to the present. This particular volume focuses directly on the economic history of the world in the time period, employing and expanding upon the literature of Josef Kulischer and Werner Sombart- eventually breaking away because this book takes global, not just a European context.

The economic history of the world is the whole history of the world, seen from the vantage point of an economic history study. Braudel’s ability to use the model of time and construct his analysis around the concept of world-time is testament to his belief in the primacy of history in giving us insights into the present.

The book examines economies through trade, secular trends, and the appropriation and accumulation of specific resources (such as grain). Braudel’s claim “let us simplify without feeling too guilty about it” shows the conscious appropriation of the book’s topics into a structured model, but also admits the limitations of this approach. It is therefore a meditation on the origins of the economic system, and the nature about writing about the past. The latter work Afterthoughts on Material Civilization and Capitalism is a broader introduction into the thoughts of the author into his work: the volumes show a historian unafraid to question his own methodology, especially dealing with a global scale of history over three centuries.
The book contributes to our understanding of mercantilism and roots the development and supremacy of colonial power and trade in broader contexts which allow both an internal and external examination of societies.

This book both highlights the ability for us to situate analysis in particular and also universal scales and thus gives critical insights into geography, and many other relevant fields.

Scope (Topics covered, Time period)

As with the other two volumes, the topics in the book are selected thematically. From the rise and decline of cities in Europe to the creation of national markets (and with it, national debt and productivity), the book is able to take a large course of the past and navigate through it by examining sources and reading the meaning of them on a scale of historical development. Essentially, the premise of capitalism and processes underpinning it keep the analysis grounded in explaining the ability of finance, or economy, to be a central part of history.

Whilst Europe forms a large part of the analysis, its relation to developments in the other parts of the world is examined, a “European world-economy” emerges as a part of the study –the bill of exchange and other such facets suggest the development of global exchange with a new world economy. The breadth of the study allows the reader to look at developments and their meanings in terms of human relations, for instance, in the case of warfare and the new meanings created by relating it to a world economy.

Argument (Methodology, Significance)

The book introduces capitalism as a barometer to understand long term aspects of the economic landscape. The book concludes the civilization and capitalism trilogy by opening up the volume to reflection and accepting that the past had contributed to a present that “lies before us in all its richness and confusion”.

Braudel makes it clear that the different forms of capitalism did not develop in a series of stages, with specialized forms developing over time. He posits that the merchants had simultaneously invested in trade, finance etc. Our concept of “monopoly” has to be understood as something which has developed in new ways through taking new forms, and the ability to choose is part of the way in which capitalism could change, it gives it vibrancy. By dislocating capitalism from the social reality, as most of this three part volume argues, is a fatal error, and the way in which Braudel has vivified the past is telling; the social systems and the development of a global market have to be seen as inter-related phenomena.

Reviewing the work of thinkers , and also reading the pace of capitalism’s development over different periods of time, the book is a contribution to the work in the field of economic history and also can help us have more insights into the presence of capital and its relation to our lives.

Annotated by Sandeep Singh

Book Title & Publisher Consumption and the World of Goods. London: Routledge, 1993 Author Brewer, John and Porter, Roy (eds.)

Synopsis

The book addresses the need for a historical study of the ‘world of goods’ or the ability of material objects to affect human life and society over time. Combining different forms of historical study, economic, social and cultural, whilst building upon work such as The Birth of a Consumer Society , the work establishes a necessity for a historical approach to the field. The apparent “discomfort” at the thought of a history of consumerism fuels the necessity to confront the need to write a history of the sort that addresses the centrality of goods and services, as the study claims that it is an important aspect of western societies and their development.

Whilst understanding the ideological critiques of such an approach, alongside its ‘historiographical immaturity’- the work sets itself up as a new approach that should be considered as part of important, critical work in the field of history. Being a large volume with a wide array of contributors from Peter Burke to Simon Schama, the work is generally comprised of (largely) historians and individuals who work on topics related to consumerism and society.

Commenting that “we are all semiologists now”, the volume confronts the advent of the rise in studies on material culture and societies, and situates itself in the field of reading signs and their signifiers. It does this by examining goods in the shaping of the modern western society.

Scope (Topics covered, Time period)

The book is structured in six sections, with each part addressing problems found suitable to understand western society (Europe and North America) and the relationship to consumption. Chapters covering themes such as the problem of situating and defining the term “consume” form the opening section which is largely a methodological assessment.
Subsequently, the work addresses the contextualized relevance of consumption in society. It goes on to deal with provision of goods and their usage by buyers. This is followed by studies on the meaning of consumption and the visual and tangible properties of objects, as well as the communication technologies in the ways objects are distributed. The volume is divided into chapters which deal with the subject matter thematically, relating to issues in and around consumption.

Whilst unable to cover themes on a global scale, several studies in this chapter do merit comparison to other regions- as the volume makes many valid observations that are indeed well written and illuminate many subjects that link together to a desire to write history with the lens of consumption; which may provide a new way of looking at the world.

Argument (Methodology, Significance)

The work is largely historical, creating the impetus for a more developed historiography in the field of reading commodities in historical development. As with any other large volume, it is segmented, giving enough breadth for its contributors to provide individual arguments- both impacting the context of their study but having repercussions for studying the vast mass of ‘western society’ as a whole.

Accepting the critical discourse that comes from political ends ie. Left, Right points of view that such work could be a veiled attempt at ideological promotion (the teleological structure of reading the present into the past, or on the other hand, the promotion of a history of market capitalism which also glorifies it); it rejects these claims to assert that there is an important value in reading the past and its relationship to consumerism, if only to deepen the historiography of the approach. By taking a cross-disciplinary approach to the volume, it allows the contributors to approach themes with a larger scope to understand human society.

Considering the impact of semantics, the ostentation of possessions, suspicion towards consumerism due to religious and other moral inclinations, the volume systematically unravels the issues that concern commodities and historical development. In this sense, it is important not just for the wealth of information, but with a clear and developed approach, gives readers the ability to navigate through the book easily.

Annotated by Sandeep Singh

Book Title & Publisher Indochina: An Ambiguous Colonization 1858-1954. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2011 Author Brocheux, Pierre and Daniel Hemery (translated by Ly Lan Dill-Klein)

Synopsis

Hemery and Brocheux emphasized on the 'ambiguous' nature of the colonial experience. They rejected nationalist readings of the colonial past on both sides of the divide. Until the 1950s, interest in French Indochina was confined to the discipline of colonial history, with its narrow Eurocentric or an apologetic stance. However, now there was an increasing need to counter these perceptions as societies objectified by colonialism needed to be more aware of their own social and political history at a time when they were asserting themselves as major actors on the international stage.

Indochina is presented as a historical construct where not only is the control imposed and improvised from without, but it is also rooted within the social and anthropological space of the Peninsula. The impact of colonial rule is examined thus within this framework, thus lending the balance in focus and distance needed to provide a more wholesome examination of the period of colonization in Indochina.
Indochina acted as the site of an intermingling which had brought colonizers and the colonized into confrontation, yet leading also to cohabitation. The relationship was thus complex in that the relationship of the victor to the vanquished was intersected by the equally significant relation of the colonized to the colonizer. The book sought to approach Indochina through its multiple dimensions - political and military, economic, social and cultural - and various temporalities, encompassing the long colonial period as well as the brief, violent ruptures of decolonization.

Scope (Topics covered, Time period)

This book covers Indochina's entire history from her inception in Cochinchina in 1858 to the crumbling at Dien Bien Phu in 1954 and her progress toward decolonization. The impact of colonial rule represented one of the broader topics approached in this book. However, the writer also specified the examination of the relationship of both colonizers and the colonized, whether they were collaborating, in the process of cohabitation or in conflict. The book provides the uncovering of French Indochina multiple dimensions - political and military, economic, social and cultural - and various temporalities, encompassing the long colonial period as well as the brief, violent ruptures of decolonization.

Argument (Methodology, Significance)

Indochina was approached as a historical construct, not only imposed and improvised from without, but also rooted within the tensions and dynamics of the social and anthropological space of the Peninsula. While Indochina was in fact a colonial space - the complexity that it entails would require more attention to the way the colonizers and the colonized are portrayed. Thus, the approach retains a perspective that is neither Eurocentric nor nationalistic but that carefully considers the positions of both the colonizers and the colonized. In doing so, the writers go beyond descriptive history, providing for a more substantial exploration of the various ambiguities and complexities of the French colonial period in Indochina. This helps to shed new light on the national histories of the emerging nation-states of Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia.

Promoters of Indochinese colonization ensured its initial great success: plantations and mines, banks and trading firms. Yet, the authors emphasized the fact that a colonial regime would not be able to operate without first securing a partnership, however subtle or fragile, with the dominant native classes and the colonized elites, who hoped to use modernization to secure their own aims. The concept of "French Indochina" was thus built upon the gradual convergence of solidarities and antagonisms between the dominant and the dominated. Up till the 1930s, this configuration of a "French Indochina" acted as a provisional compromise, strongly unequal yet very real such that some Vietnamese defined themselves as French Indochinese. Yet, authors also argue that in the end, modernity was seen as a tool for resisting colonization and promoting political democracy, particularly by Vietnamese intellectuals.

Annotated by Michelle Djong

Book Title & Publisher Praying for Power: Buddhism and the Formation of Gentry Society in Late-Ming China. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1993 Author Brook, Timothy

Synopsis

The book is a developed version of a doctoral dissertation by the author. By examining steles that are from the late-Ming period, the book attempts to uncover the system of patronage at the time, and the social structure that is able to be understood through the gentry or elites. Whilst it is assumed that Buddhist practices were despised by orthodox Confucians, this provides the motive for the book: why were the gentry in this period supporting religious institutions they were taught to be antagonistic towards?

The complexity of everyday life contributes to the existence of religious institutions- for they are the expression of a cultural significance. By studying patronage, we see how the gentry in the late- Ming period had invested wealth into physical structures such as monasteries- also indicating a growth of commercialization and social change. The book does not study religion in particular, but looks at the social implications of the revival of religion in the period- the gentry had contributed the context for such a revival.

By rejecting Communist historiography for portraying the West as responsible for China’s inability to adapt in the 19th and 20th centuries, the book assesses economic and social thought, as well as how gentry studies had developed over time. This contributes to the understanding of status and hierarchy, through understanding monastic patronage as “a unique cultural signification”.

The book contributes to a cultural but also economic perspective to the late-Ming period that gives us an insight into power, its forms and shifts from the national to local level, and what this power meant in the context of the time.

Scope (Topics covered, Time period)

By focusing on the prestigious Si or monasteries, the book explores the different ends to which patronage was extended. By focusing on how Buddhism featured in the culture of the time, more specifically to the gentry, the book gives a good introduction to the systems of cultural significance in the late- Ming period (answering questions about the how and why of gentry patronage). By reading sources and terminology that emerged in the period, especially during the Wanli era, the book shows how the gentry had become localized- through terms such as “county gentry”, it is able to coherently display how cultural mechanisms worked at the time.

The topic is apt because, as the author puts forth, gentry society is particular to the late- Ming. Paralleling Habermas’ concept of the public sphere in Europe, (whilst also modifying it) the book looks at how the growth of commerce can be related to the emergence of a local social elite, but must be differentiated from Europe due to the particular cultural systems and nature of the state. The book can be read as a critical examination of the aspects of late-Ming China through the lens of patronage.

Argument (Methodology, Significance)

The availability of sources provide a context for Brook to examine monasteries singularly- they allow him to examine the patronage as an important indicator of the orientation of the society in the late-Ming period “toward autonomy”. Thus, the gentry are presented as the social elite that could mobilize resources on a local level, and the ability to manipulate cultural commodities showed and legitimized the gentry’s social dominance.

By understanding the gentry’s position to be at once both encompassing the sphere of the state and outside it, the gentry could be seen as distinct from the European public sphere as it excluded non-elites. Whilst the gentry was comprised of private individuals, they were shifting towards a public realm that symbolized a growing autonomy from the state.
Before the Ming, power was a concept that did not really relate to monastic patronage- but the shift to significance is a context for the study. The study is significant in that this was not about isolated and disparate cases but a substantial growth of gentry support for such institutions can be read as a social phenomenon. Being indeed a very specific and detailed study, it is a rich account of the period, showing how both philosophically and also materially, gentry society must be seen in relation to their patronage- as this defines them as a group.

Annotated by Sandeep Singh

Book Title & Publisher The Confusions of Pleasure: Commerce and Culture in Ming China. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1998 Author Brook, Timothy

Synopsis

This book is a cultural history of Ming China, more specifically about the role of commerce in remaking society during the period. Showing us how in the early period, there was self- sufficiency, and later, a culture of urban based commerce, where agriculture was made inferior to enriching oneself through trade. Whilst this led to moral decay, it also meant that power was now able to be purchased by capital. Trends such as population growth, the creation of regional and national commercial networks, and the appearance of silver from foreign lands in the Chinese market give context to our understanding of sources produced at this time.

By studying commerce through the experience of being Chinese, the book investigates records left from the period- it takes them and incorporates them into a structured account of the centuries of Ming China. By using the text of a minor official at the time, Zhang Tao, the book is structured in an arc of four seasons. Whilst acknowledging that this structure is cyclical and that of a rise and decline, has an understanding that the elite structure, whilst facing dynastic collapse at the end of the Ming era, was still in control and had a broader base of social power.

Being an expansion from the author’s work in a chapter of The Cambridge History of China (vol. 8), the work is about both the pleasures and confusions created by wealth, this being the result of commercialization as a whole.

Scope (Topics covered, Time period)

The book covers the Ming China period. The presence of a genealogy of Ming emperors at the beginning, alongside a chronology of events that the author deems important to the period, allow for a clear understanding despite the breadth of the material. By exploring the main topic of commoditization, the book relates to parallels of the past to the present, post Mao era. By neatly dividing the book into seasons (Winter, Spring, Summer, Fall) and following a chronology of centuries from 1368-1644, the book is able to address topics in each period such as the state’s involvement in the economy, the luxury trade, commerce and connoisseurship among others.

By putting forth that this period is not necessarily unique, and that the “confusions of pleasure” had been present within a broader time period due to the tenuous relationship between economic progress and social structures, the study situates itself as a presentation of the period and factors involved in shaping it, without assuming any larger centrality to Chinese history. The book examines sources in detail to reconstruct the period, and in doing so, gives a human texture to the study of the time: sources range from essays to epitaphs.

By using illustrations and even drawings of evidence of superstitious beliefs, Brook takes historical developments (such as epidemics) and gives them a cultural significance. This is further supported by stories of people at the time.

The book is overall a good account of the Ming period in Chinese history, especially as an assessment of indigenous development at the time.

Argument (Methodology, Significance)

The book situates its study to the particular aspects of development during the Ming. However, it looks specifically at the social and cultural effects of commerce, arguing that an economic history is unable, at the time of the book’s publication, to be written due to limitations of knowledge. Brook puts forth that commerce dominated both due to and despite of the agrarian order instituted by the Hongwu Emperor at the beginning of the dynasty.

Critically, Brook submits the argument that China had a global economic significance in the period, further, that it was the lucrative economic prospects during this time in China that encouraged Atlantic trade. Thus, the study is relevant to understanding a facet of global commercial power during the period of 1368-1644, whilst also demonstrating that the past cannot be seen as simply contributing to the present, but must be understood to have developments that contradict and conflate- giving the impetus to study a historical period for its own merit.

Examining social change and the ability of social distinctions to dissipate but also be reinforced, the study reflects, thematically, the ways with which we could read change in the period. By using a diatribe against commerce as the guide for the study, it is written as a history of the period in order to understand the story of decline presented in the diatribe- this way, we see the world of the Ming from and in relation to, the characters that make up this part of Chinese history.

Annotated by Sandeep Singh

Book Title & Publisher Administrators of Empire (Series: An Expanding World Vol. 22) Brookfield, Vt.: Ashgate, 1998 Author Burkholder, Mark A. (ed.) and John Leddy Phelan

Synopsis

The book is part of a series which covers a specific aspect of the European initiative and reaction across time and space. It is a reference for the study of European presence beyond Europe in the early modern period, interaction with non-Europeans, and experiences of peoples of other continents, religions and races in relation to Europe and Europeans. The series highlights revisionist interpretations and new approaches to what has been called 'the expansion of Europe' and whose historiography traditionally bore the hallmarks of a narrowly Eurocentric perspective, while focusing on widening the scope of this European role to more than those characterized by dominance, conquest and control.

This volume is a collection of articles which illustrate the assortment of imperial administrators, the methods they had used to secure office, some of the pressures they experienced, and the opportunities they had enjoyed as office holders. While Despite variations in the physical size and populations of the conquered and settled territories, they still demanded significant differences in the complexity and extent of the colonial bureaucracies. As such, all drew on institutions and personnel from the mother country and provided for executive, judicial, legislative and taxation responsibilities. The book allows for the comparison between the colonial powers, as well as the criteria for the employment of the colonial administrators.

While the first administrators were men born in Europe, the maturation of both the colonies and the descendants of the first settlers brought up the issue of the colonists' participation in administration. Imperial administrators' exploitation of, or integration into the local population was related to the length of their service.

Scope (Topics covered, Time period)

The essays selected for this volume emphasize the imperial administrators and their working environments rather than colonial administration in general. For example, John Leddy Phelan's "Authority and Flexibility in the Spanish Imperial Bureaucracy" provides a broad overview of the pressures on administrators within the colonial context. Although focused on colonial Spanish America, the article possesses several insights which help in understanding the behavior of administrators in other colonies as well. "Army and Empire: English Garrison Government in Britain and America, 1569-1763" also gives information on the governor-general within a broader argument concerning the nature of colonial administration. Chapters such as these are hoped to provide a wider dimension for students of empire to consider how the British colonial power was influenced by their administrative structure in America, before they begun their colonial conquest in Asia.

Argument (Methodology, Significance)

It is argued that the imperial administrators' exploitation of, or integration into the local population was related to the length of their service. Those who were promised a longer term of service in the colonies showed greater tendency to settle into the urban centre where they served and became permanent members of the community. Thus, the degree of exploitation was lesser than those of provincial administrators who were limited to 3-5 years' term, hence using their position to enrich themselves by serving as conduits for merchant houses, in the case of Spanish colonial administration.

Colonial chief executives were men from their home country, nobles and professional soldiers who had previously served their monarchy elsewhere. Later, men of European descent born in the colonies began to secure government positions and in some cases rose to offices just below the chief executive within decades after colonization officially began. Aside from such generalizations, however, the differences were more striking than similarities.

Annotated by Michelle Djong