Empires and Bureaucracy in World History
From Late Antiquity to the Twentieth Century

A comparative study of the power and limits of bureaucracy in historical empires from ancient Rome to the twentieth century.

Peter Crooks (Edited by), Timothy H. Parsons (Edited by)

9781107166035, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 11 August 2016

494 pages, 8 b/w illus. 17 maps 4 tables
23.5 x 15.8 x 2.5 cm, 0.89 kg

'In this rich collection of essays edited by Peter Crooks and Timothy H. Parsons, historians working on diverse regions and eras examine the relationship between the establishment and running of empires and bureaucracy.' Prachi Deshpande, H-Asia

How did empires rule different peoples across vast expanses of space and time? And how did small numbers of imperial bureaucrats govern large numbers of subordinated peoples? Empires and Bureaucracy in World History seeks answers to these fundamental problems in imperial studies by exploring the power and limits of bureaucracy. The book is pioneering in bringing together historians of antiquity and the Middle Ages with scholars of post-medieval European empires, while a genuinely world-historical perspective is provided by chapters on China, the Incas and the Ottomans. The editors identify a paradox in how bureaucracy operated on the scale of empires and so help explain why some empires endured for centuries while, in the contemporary world, empires fail almost before they begin. By adopting a cross-chronological and world-historical approach, the book challenges the abiding association of bureaucratic rationality with 'modernity' and the so-called 'Rise of the West'.

Part I. Introduction: 1. Empires, bureaucracy and the paradox of power Peter Crooks and Timothy H. Parsons
Part II. Empires and Bureaucracy in World-Historical Perspective: 2. China as a contrasting case: bureaucracy and empire in Song China Patricia Ebrey
3. Conflict and cooperation between Arab rulers and Persian administrators in the formative period of Islamdom, c.600–950 CE I. T. Kristó-Nagy
4. Bureaucracy without alphabetic writing: governing the Inca empire, c.1438–1532 Chris Given-Wilson
5. The Ottoman empire (1299–1923): the bureaucratization of patrimonial authority Karen Barkey
Part III. From Late Antiquity to the Middle Ages: 6. 'The late Roman empire was before all things a bureaucratic state.' Michael Whitby
7. Bureaucracies, elites and clans: the case of Byzantium, c.600–1100 John Haldon
8. Charlemagne and Carolingian military administration Bernard S. Bachrach
9. Bureaucracy, the English state and the crisis of the Angevin empire, 1199–1205 John Gillingham
10. The parchment imperialists: texts, scribes, and the medieval western Empire, c.1250–c.1440 Len Scales
11. Before Humpty Dumpty: the first English empire and the brittleness of bureaucracy, 1259–1453 Peter Crooks
Part IV. From the Age of European Expansion to the End of Empires: 12. Magistrates to administrators, composite monarchy to fiscal-military empire: empire and bureaucracy in the Spanish monarchy, c.1492–1825 Christopher Storrs
13. Britain's overseas empire before 1780: overwhelmingly successful and bureaucratically challenged Jack P. Greene
14. 'Les enfants du siècle': an empire of young professionals and the creation of bureaucratic, imperial ethos in Napoleonic Europe Michael Broers
15. Bureaucracy, power and violence in colonial India: the role of Indian subalterns Deana Heath
16. From chief to technocrat: labour and colonial authority in post-World War II Africa Frederick Cooper
17. The unintended consequences of bureaucratic 'modernization' in post-World War II British Africa Timothy H. Parsons
Part V. Afterword: 18. Empires and bureaucracy: means of appropriation and media of communication Sam Whimster.

Subject Areas: Colonialism & imperialism [HBTQ], General & world history [HBG]