Customer Reviews

Peoples and Empires: A Short History of European Migration, Exploration, and Conquest, from Greece to the Present (Modern Library Chronicles)

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

The skeptical reader approaches this book with some misgivings: a history of European migration, exploration and conquest from Greece to the present in 169 pages? It can be no more than a highly condensed, oversimplified synopsis! What emerges, however, is a surprisingly rich and thoughtful account not only of the succession of empires from Alexander's time through the Roman and, later, the Holy Roman Empire, to the colonial powers of the 18th and 19th centuries and, finally, the present-day superpowers; but also of the shifting concepts and forces that assisted in their creation and led to their eventual demise.

Viewed through this telescopic lens, some events that seemed earth-shaking at the time are reduced to mere blips.

Readers struggling to come to grips with Western Civilization in all its glory and vanity may do well to start here.

I don't know about the other readers, but my high school world history teacher was the swim coach. Let's just say I know a lot about the fortunes of a certain swim team from Connecticut circa 1967. If PEOPLES AND EMPIRES has achieved little else, it has plugged the gaping holes in my education and pulled three ensuing decades of idiosyncratic, untutored reading into context. For that it gets the 5 stars.

The Modern Library Chronicles are intended to be short works to serve as general introductions or refresher courses. When covering more than two millennia in less than 200 pages (it is 167 pages plus introduction and addenda), choices have to be made in what to keep, what to skip. Pagden's focus is the concept of empire and how it was adapted and revised over time to shape European civilization as it gradually circled the globe, then ebbed. There are entire wars, events and personalities that are left out because they do not directly relate to the conceptual development of empire. You will not find the Crusades in this text (though noted in the chronology) nor the Spanish Armada. You will find a detailed, charged discussion of slavery and its role in empire development. Likewise, you will find an energetic account of the conquistadors. Pagden's prose is always lucid and level, but in those chapters he shines.

This is the second Chronicles volume I've read. The series editor displays a knack for identifying authors who infuse their topics with voice, vision and heart. The books are well documented with indexes, chronologies and bibliographies. While seasoned historians may debate their perspective or find the content too general, it is just what a mainstream reader needs.

A concise, readable account, not just of empires and immigration patterns, but of the sweep of world history in general. I would be hard put to imagine how one could do as much as Mr. Pagden has done in as few pages. It includes a chronology of key events, and a description of central historical figures. This is a great book to read prior to or in conjunction with more in-depth surveys of world history. Pagden notes some watershed transformations including, (1) the empire of Charles V and its maritime reach, (2) the role of the Netherlands both within Europe and in the Asia-Pacific arena, (3) slavery and its long history from 1444 to approximately 1870, (4) the "scientific" justification for colonization and/or indirect rule from mid-18th to early 20th century, and (5) the current view of empires today, which negates the distinction, held somewhere in the West (and in China and Japan as well) since the Greek polis, of citizens and barbarians. Mr. Pagden has given us a fast, smooth and informative trip through a central facet of global, historical evolution.

The book is very good overview of European history from the imperialist point of view. From Alexander the Great to Hitler the imperialistic ambitions of peoples - manifested through their leaders - of the various ages get set into a context so that the reader can see the similarities and differences between them.

However one should keep in mind that the book is not focused so much on events like battles and proclamations of empires but rather on the underlying ideology of the time - why peoples wanted an empire and why they supported "their" heroes and villains seeking to establish them and overlooked how they did it.

Where the book is open to criticism is a) the rather offhanded way it deals with religion as a motivation for Empire - the 1000 years of the middle ages get hardly a mentioning in comparison with others - and b) that it mostly omits non-West-European empires.

But on the other hand some sacrifices had to be made for brevity and clarity. I consider it a toss-up between a 4- and a 5-star book. For a knowledgeable reader well-versed in history it is nothing new, hence 4-stars, but for someone who wants to understand history's great trends and needs an introduction its 5-stars.

This book is a fantastic introduction to the topic of European empire, granting readers a valuable global scope to the concept of empire. I would especially recommend this to any undergraduate student undertaking courses related to this topic (a good many). However, the books is not without its drawbacks or omissions, and these are not related simply due to the unnecessarily limited scope of considering such a broad topic in so few pages. Rather, they seem motivated by a) an unwillingness to consider the spread of European empire to polities based outside the continent of Europe itself and b) an odd and unjustifiably benign omission of the United States. However, although I discuss these points more fully below, this is not to detract from the value of this book. These points simply complement and broaden (for the modern period) Pagden's compact and generally excellent tract on the history of empire.

1) Pagden's omission of any detailed reference to 19th and 20th century Imperial Japan is unfortunate. The author neglects to make the valuable point that European concepts of empire were so thoroughly disseminated in this period that a distant Asian nation attempted "modernisation" through a blantant mediation of European imperialism, from architecture to government.

2) Even more surprising is Pagden's apparent unwillingness to consider the United States as an empire. He facetiously notes that Britain now refers to its fourteen remaining "colonies" as "dependant territories," and that Spain and France continue to retain vestiges of their former empires in the form of islands and enclaves, but neglects to include the US's retention of Puerto Rico, Guam, Hawaii, American Samoa, and the US Virgin Islands. Of course, these islands are ruled generally with the support of the current indigenous population, but so too are most of those of the existing European "colonies." Of course, Pagden is originally a South American, and perhaps this explains his need to designate the Falkland Islands as the "Malvinas Islands." In a "story" that concludes on "the end of empire" it seems a petty, and one could say hypocritical, act to implicitly buttress the Argentine claim on a chain of barren rocks inhabited by a small population that defines itself as "British."

3) Pagden also makes a glaring faux pas in his conclusion by asserting that "unlike any of the previous empires, those that had grown up after the beginning of the nineteenth century had rarely, except in southern Africa, exported many of their own peoples or created substantial Creole elites." Apparently Australia and New Zealand do not exist, except in the end of his conclusions to serve, especially the former, as evidence of national guilt for the excesses of its imperial foundations. Whilst this may seem sensitive, Pagden seems to be unduly critical of Britain, and to spare the United States of the same treatment by simply omitting it. More importantly Pagden, surprisingly for an intellectual and cultural historian, seems to fail to note that a global history (or one at the very least about the European concept of America) must consider America as a "European" society, at least in the nineteenth century. Conceiving of "manifest destiny", and later America's mini-empire in the Pacific and Carribean, as not part of the greater experience of nineteenth century European empire seems an unfounded semi-nationalistic, and inward looking, defence for his new home country.

I just finished Pagden's little gem. Tired of the neo-con's oversimplification and the post-modern's blather? Treat yourself to an 180 page antidote. His coverage of such a vast field is beautifully conceived and his his prose is a joy. He is justly critical of the way the West violated its core values and its own best instincts along with the rights of the people it dominated during the colonial era. But he is much more interested in analysis than judgment - a virtue fast becoming extinct in today's "academy".

Pagden is one of a vanishing breed, a serious scholar who knows that truth and fairness are the key virtues of the historian.

His critique of Islamic reactionaries in the Epilogue is worth the price for the book. Clearly stated, immanently fair, and devastatingly true.

Pagden is a professor at UCLA, and this is a sort book from the Modern Library Chronicles series, meant for the general reader or undergraduate class. The book covers the entire history of European conquest and empire, and the concomitant migration of peoples, from Greece to the 20th century. He shows the great continuity of thought and practice over these thousands of years regarding the motives for empire in Europe. One such concept is the idea of the civilizing mission of the European powers, "which relied upon a widely accepted vision of a universal human nature and a universal law of human evolution." (138) Another continuity was the belief that commerce led to peace and would bring an end to international conflict. His epilogue, written after 9-11, deals with the 'clash of civilizations' between Islam and the 'West' and look briefly at Islamic political theory and Muslim empires. This section is not as strong as the rest of the book, for here he seems to be charting ground he doesn't know as well, and though he does show some differences between Islamic Empires and Western, Christian Empires, it is obviously an afterthought that doesn't really fit in with his general argument. But on the whole I found this book greatly illuminating and well written, and plan on using it in my dissertation when I discuss whether the Soviet Union was an empire or not. I believe this book will help me substantiate my argument that yes, it was.

Anthropologists seem to have debated and for now settled that the human race originated somewhere in the interiors of Africa and over the next few millions of years trekked their way to the farthest inhabitable corners of earth, successfully transitioning from nomadic hunter-gatherers to civilized settlers. These initial migrations delivered the firm broad base for human race to thrive upon spawning off diverse civilizations and cultures in their wake, without which all of us would still be hanging around in the African wilderness and arguable picking berries and shrubs for a living.

However, in this rather long and protracted development, it's the proceedings over the last 3000 years or so that has dictated for better or for worse the transformation of the human society from relatively small and local settlements to large nation states and empires. Never before had we humans thought of ourselves in terms of an overriding racial, religious or national identity, or found it important to have a common and binding rules and regulations to govern such monolithic entities. With the notion of race and religion came theories of supremacy and the need for bringing more and more of the non-conformers into the benevolent folds of civilization. One recurring theme of these 3000 years has been the European White man's quest to explore and wherever possible subjugate other geographies. And this is the theme of Anthony Pagden's book tiled "Peoples and Empires".

The author sets forth the leitmotif succinctly in the introduction and proceeds to discuss the subject over 10 masterfully crafted chapters, each one dedicated to deliberations on one pivotal event in human history. Beginning with Alexander's conquests and successive Greeko-Roman efforts at empire building, Pagden examines the raison detre for European nation states and empires, explorations into the orient and the unknown world and the purported justifications offered for these enterprises by those who fuelled them and the indelible effect these had on the current world order. With due consideration perhaps to the massive scope of the subject matter and in view of the fact his primary audience would be the educated non-expert, the author (wisely) glosses over large tracts of the intervening years. Those pages thus saved are however effectively devoted to debate the socio-political aspects of these events. Pagden's is by far the best "Independent third party perspective" that was ever presented to me on tricky subjects such as racial supremacy theories, colonial excursions, and the strife between the worlds dominant religions. His arguments are convincing, pithy and supported by well-researched and documented references. He is nothing short of magisterial while dealing with the shameful scourge of slavery. The only shortcomings of the book seems to be the total eclipse of the eastern hemisphere in the narrative, the eastern hemisphere being broached upon just as a backdrop for the colonial enterprises. However, the author seems partly justified in this, considering that the Chinese, Indian and Far-eastern societies remained largely self-contained, inert and did little to significantly alter the political landscape beyond their own domestic boundaries. More so, since this is a book dedicated to the study of European migration exploration and conquest.

If you have been reasonably well initiated into world history and would appreciate someone presenting the whole conundrum in perspective, look no further and dig in for a rewarding time.

For such a difficult subject, Pagden does a good job of creating a readable book detailing the rise and fall of European Empires. From Alexander the Great, and the Roman Empire to the decline of the British Empire, Pagden details the rise of these empires and why they fell. In the end, it was the weakness of the colonizers along with the rise of nationalism which spurred the end of all empires. Pagden also details that some of the early empires were not racially divided, but with the rise of science and some of the new European nation states, racism along with slavery reared its ugly head. Commerce and the search for raw materials spurred on the exploitation of these colonies, and reduced the natives to subject status.

This is a nice theory book about why empires came about. It gives a lot of information in a few short pages.

after reading Pagden's "Lords of All the World" this book sounded like a good idea. but after reading this book, it seems strange that the same person could have written them both. where the former was articulate and interesting, this book goes through a narrative that blends myth, history, and politics and ends up not doing justice to the blend or the parts. i read this book in a reading group along with several others- most of who had read "Lords...", and no one found much to like about it. if your goal is to compress european imperialism into a very short form, perhaps for an undergraduate or high school course, then it might work for you, so long as you make sure to comment on the strange discrepancies Pagden gives rise to. if you're looking to increase your understanding of the subject, however, read something else.