History of global empires explored

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This article was published 18/01/2020 (2419 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

From thousands of years BC to the present, world history has been shaped by empires. British academic and author Paul Strathern depicts 10 such empires in a mixed bag of a book that contains some insights, along with factual errors.

Strathern’s narrative ranges widely over time and space, extending back to the Akkadian Empire of ancient history. He then considers the Roman Empire as well as empires in the Middle East, Asia and South America, before bringing his account up to more recent times with a look at British, Russian and American imperialism.

It is difficult to discern what the purpose of this book is, aside from displaying the author’s historical erudition. But Strathern does occasionally identify some themes in the history of empires.

Before the end of the 15th century, he writes, empire-building was motivated by the urge to conquer — a ruler’s desire to expand his sway over ever greater accumulations of territory.

The Ottoman Empire, Strathern says, was probably the last of these old-style empires.

By the end of the 15th century, trade and commerce displaced conquest as the primary motive of empire. The British Empire, for example, reflected and was shaped by this new incentive.

Strathern notes that empires that do not attempt to control every aspect of their subject peoples’ lives tend to be more stable and long-lasting.

He makes an interesting point about religion and science in the Abbassid Caliphate of the ninth century, showing how they were interrelated: “although religion and science were separate, they actually supported one another. Science was a religious quest, inspired by religious belief.”

And Strathern insightfully underscores the difference in intellectual life between the West and the Soviet bloc during the Cold War. While intellectuals in the Soviet empire tended to oppose communism, many Western intellectuals were more or less sympathetic to the ideology. This is one of the great paradoxes of 20th century intellectual history.

Unfortunately, this book is marred by factual errors. Strathern refers to “Thomas Dewey” when he means John Dewey, and “Robert Malthus” when he means Thomas Malthus.

He says the U.S. invaded Mexico in 1836; in fact the Mexican War began 10 years later.

He misrepresents the incident at Amritsar in India in 1919, in which British soldiers under Gen. Reginald Dyer fired on a mob. Strathern describes the mob as a “religious gathering of Sikhs.” In fact, the Sikhs made Dyer an honorary Sikh for his actions, which protected the national shrine of the Sikh religion from the Hindustani mob.

This is a reasonably engaging and competently written book, but it would have been even better if Strathern had devoted more attention to the big picture: themes in the history of the various empires he discusses, and comparing and contrasting their respective experiences.

Graeme Voyer is a Winnipeg writer.