Empires in World History: Power and the Politics of Difference

Citation

Burbank, J., & Cooper, F. (2011). Empires in World History: Power and the Politics of Difference. Princeton University Press.

Chapter Summary

The book surveys empires from the third century BCE to the present, with the aim of treating imperial history as world history rather than as a story centred on Britain or Europe. Its guiding question, in the publisher's words, is how empires relied on diversity: how they accommodated, created and manipulated differences among the peoples they ruled. The fourteen chapters run roughly in time order, and the main text takes about 460 pages before a list of suggested reading and citations.

Chapter 1: Imperial Trajectories

The opening chapter lays out the book's approach and its central question about how empires governed diverse peoples, and introduces the trajectories that empires followed over more than two thousand years.

Chapter 2: Imperial Rule in Rome and China

The first case studies are Rome and China from the third century BCE, empires that, the publisher notes, sustained state power for centuries. The chapter compares how each governed a large and varied population.

Chapter 3: After Rome: Empire, Christianity, and Islam

The chapter turns to the successors and rivals of Rome. The publisher's description names Byzantium, the Islamic Caliphates and the short-lived Carolingians, and associates them with a "militant monotheism" that gave religion a place in imperial rule.

Chapters 4–5: Eurasian Connections: The Mongol Empires; Beyond the Mediterranean: Ottoman and Spanish Empires

These two chapters cover the Mongols, whom the description presents as pragmatically tolerant, and the Ottoman and Spanish empires. The Mongol chapter is a study of connections across Eurasia, and the Ottoman–Spanish chapter looks beyond the Mediterranean world.

Chapters 6–7: Oceanic Economies and Colonial Societies: Europe, Asia, and the Americas; Beyond the Steppe: Empire-Building in Russia and China

Chapter 6 turns to oceanic economies and the colonial societies of Europe, Asia and the Americas; Chapter 7 returns to land empires, with Russia and China building empire beyond the steppe.

Chapters 8–10: Empire, Nation, and Citizenship in a Revolutionary Age; Empires across Continents: The United States and Russia; Imperial Repertoires and Myths of Modern Colonialism

This middle group deals with a revolutionary age in which empire, nation and citizenship were bound together, and with the continental empires of the United States, the "empire of liberty" of the publisher's description, and Russia. Chapter 10 examines the repertoires of power and the myths surrounding modern colonialism.

Chapters 11–12: Sovereignty and Empire: Nineteenth-Century Europe and Its Near Abroad; War and Revolution in a World of Empires: 1914 to 1945

Chapter 11 considers sovereignty and empire in nineteenth-century Europe and the neighbouring regions, and Chapter 12 follows the two world wars and revolutions within a world still organised by empires.

Chapters 13–14: End of Empire?; Empires, States, and Political Imagination

The last chapters ask whether and how empire ended, and close by considering the relation among empires, states and political imagination.

Key Concepts

Chapters 1–5

• Politics of difference: the way empires accepted, produced and exploited distinctions among their subjects, the book's organising theme.
• Imperial repertoires: the varied strategies of rule an empire could draw on, rather than a single model of imperial government.
• Layered sovereignty: a line quoted from the book in The Australian's review says that sovereignty can be shared, layered and transformed.

Chapters 6–14

• Empires and nations: Kenneth Pomeranz, quoted on the Princeton page, calls it the best book he knows on the relationship of empires and nations.
• Citizenship and empire: the title of Chapter 8 links empire, nation and citizenship in a revolutionary age.
• Empire of liberty: the description's term for the continental expansion devised by American revolutionaries.

Critical Analysis

Strengths

• A world-history frame. Reviewers noted that the book moves imperial history away from Britain. Stephen Matchett wrote in The Australian that for readers who assume imperial history is mostly British, the book "will be something of a shock".
• Clear writing for a large subject. Michael J. Seth, in European Legacy, called it one of the clearest written surveys of empires available, suitable as an introductory university text and as a reference for scholars. Choice described it as clearly laid out and fluently written.
• Recognition. The Princeton University Press page lists the 2011 Book Prize of the World History Association, the Toynbee Prize and a place among Choice's Outstanding Academic Titles for 2010.
• Useful for teaching. Clif Stratton, in World History Bulletin, saw its value for graduate courses and for teachers who want to teach about empire without jumping from one empire to the next.

Limitations

• Breadth over depth. Each empire gets a chapter or less: Rome and China share one chapter of about 40 pages, and the Ottoman and Spanish empires share another. Readers who need depth on any one empire will need a specialist book.
• Length. The text runs to about 460 pages and the book to over 500, a long read for a survey, and Matchett remarks that it will take weeks to get through.
• References at the back. The scholarly apparatus appears in a 20-page "Suggested Reading and Citations" section, so following up a particular claim takes more effort than with footnotes on the page.

Where It Fits in the Course

Within the imperial and colonial history course, this is the comparative and long-range book. Stephen Howe's Empire: A Very Short Introduction is the briefer entry point and can be read first for definitions and debates. John Darwin's The Empire Project complements it by taking one system, the British world-system from 1830 to 1970, and following it in detail, so reading Burbank and Cooper before Darwin gives the wider setting against which Britain's case looks distinctive.

Jansen and Osterhammel's Decolonization: A Short History pairs naturally with Chapters 12–14, as does Frederick Cooper's Africa since 1940, written by one of the same authors, for a regional study of the end of empire. Barbara and Thomas Metcalf's A Concise History of Modern India supplies a regional account of one major colonised society for the modern chapters.

How to Use This Book

Burbank and Cooper suit students who want a map of the whole field of imperial history. Michael Seth's review calls it suitable as an introductory university text, though some earlier acquaintance with empire, colonialism or world history makes the pace easier. The chapters can be read in order as a single argument. Because they are organised by empire or period, a course can also assign Chapters 1, 2, 4 and 13–14 as the frame and add the other chapters to suit.

A practical plan: read Chapter 1 for the vocabulary, then pick the empires that match the course, and finish with Chapters 13–14 for the conclusion about empire and the nation-state. Use the suggested-reading section at the back to choose a specialist monograph on whichever empire a paper concerns, and keep a map and a timeline beside the book, since the narrative moves across continents within a few pages.