This book covers empire in northern Eurasia (Russia and the USSR); in east-central Europe (Habsburgs and Ottomans); the Near East (Ottomans again); Latin America (the Spanish and to a slight extent the Portuguese); and East Asia (China). Though its theme is empire to nation, this is interpreted in a very broad and inclusive way. Some of the pieces are very broad-ranging and comparative, while others (e.g. a fine article by Eric van Young on Mexico during the war of independence) are far narrower and more specific. The editors cannot even resist a chapter on the contemporary USA as empire. Almost inevitably the result is a book whose parts are better – or at least more coherent – than its whole.
The three chapters on Latin America argue that any mass sense of nationhood followed independence and was owed above all to the deliberate inculcation of national loyalties by the post-independence state. Eric van Young’s piece illustrates that Mexican peasant mentalities and identities in 1810–21 were very far removed from those of the revolutionary leadership and rooted still in magical, local and even monarchist ways of thought. Carlos Forment’s piece stresses civic Catholicism as a key element in the emergence of a sense of responsible citizenship in Mexico, and much more slowly in Peru. Victor Uribe-Uran’s interesting piece is on the post-independence emergence of a strong legal distinction between the private and public spheres. No doubt this was an important development in post-imperial Latin America but in a way it is more to do with liberal modernity in general than specifically with the transition from empire to nation. This distinction existed after all not just in the White Dominions of the British Empire but also in British India.
As one might expect, the pieces on the Ottoman and, even more, the Habsburg empires are inclined to deflate the pretensions of nationalist historiography. Given the vicious chaos that resulted during and after the transition from empire to ‘nation-state’ in the former Austrian and Ottoman lands, this is not surprising. Ellen Comisso in particular does an excellent job in showing how weak secessionist nationalism usually was in the Habsburg and Ottoman empires before 1914. My own footnote to the three pieces in this section (with which I am in broad sympathy) is that it was far easier to sustain a civilized acceptance of diversity in a pre-modern empire in which government did not aspire to do much more than fight wars, raise taxes and preserve order. Attempting, as the Austro-Marxists did, to introduce a modernized version of the millet (self-governing religious community) into a twentieth-century polity, that sought to educate, conscript and provide numerous other services to the whole population, was inherently much more problematic.
Of the two pieces on Russo-Soviet empire one is very specific (Cynthia Kaplan on public discourse during the Estonian transition), and one is very broad (Edward Walker on legacies of nation-building in the Soviet successor states). In fact Walker’s piece is wider even than this implies. It has a good deal to say about the nature of tsarist and Soviet empire, most of it to the point. Walker’s view is that we should define as empires only those states which call themselves empires. This isn’t by any means as silly as it sounds because what Walker is driving at is the significance of the manner in which polities seek to legitimize themselves. To my mind there is no correct definition of empire, and no usable definition that usefully encompasses all the polities which are often covered in works on empire. But there are more or less useful and insightful definitions, and Walker’s belongs in the more useful group.
In a way, however, the most unusual aspect of this book is the inclusion of China in a volume dominated by European or (the Ottomans) semi-European empires. This is very welcome since in many ways China is the purest, most perfect and most long-lasting example of an imperial political tradition. For that reason, any general or comparative work on empire that leaves out China and gets too hung up on modern European empire always arouses my suspicions. Both pieces (by Joseph Esherick and Uradyn Bulag) are fascinating. Esherick in particular adds a Chinese angle on perennial questions about dynastic, national, aristocratic and civilizational empire.
Given the richness of the separate pieces it is easy to forgive the slight overall lack of focus of this volume. By looking at the great land empires and reminding us that Spanish America had much in common with them (so indeed did the conquest and governance of British India) this book is performing a useful task. Given the title, it would have been useful to have one more piece looking at the impact of empire on the post-imperial former metropolis. The volume makes the important point that the European model of the mono-ethnic nation rarely exists in Asia. Mayhem would occur if it ever looked like doing so. Instead Asia is dominated by three great polities, two of which (China and Iran) are the heirs of empire, and one of which (India) was conquered by the Mughals before becoming a colony of the British. In a way, what matters about any specific nation are the ingredients which form its specific national identity. To some extent, the Turks, Iranians, Indians and Chinese all share a common experience of having been overtaken and bullied by the West in the last three hundred years. But in three cases they also have a strong sense of their own imperial past. Comparing the impact of this past on the way in which they see themselves and treat their neighbours would be a noble enterprise.
