Legacies of Empire
Imperial Roots of the Contemporary Global Order

This book reveals how the structures and practices of past empires interact with and shape contemporary 'national' ones.

Sandra Halperin (Edited by), Ronen Palan (Edited by)

9781107521612, Cambridge University Press

Paperback / softback, published 6 August 2015

268 pages, 3 b/w illus. 4 tables
22.6 x 15.2 x 1.8 cm, 0.36 kg

'Sandra Halperín and Ronen Palan have brought together an impressive group of scholars who have demonstrated, across a vast range of time and space from ancient Mongol to the modern United States, just how much the politics of the modern world has evolved in the shadow of the our collective imperial pasts. 'World history', in the editors' own words, 'is imperial history'. This is a book that no person concerned with the present plight of the international order can afford to ignore.' Anthony Pagden, Distinguished Professor, University of California, Los Angeles

The nation-state is a fairly recent historical phenomenon. Human history over the past two to four millennia has been dominated by empires, and the legacies of these empires continues to shape the contemporary world in ways that are not always recognised or fully understood. Much research and writing about European colonial empires has focused on relations between them and their colonies. This book examines the phenomenon of empire from a different perspective. It explores the imprint that imperial institutions, organisational principles, practices, and logics have left on the modern world. It shows that many features of the contemporary world - modern armies, multiculturalism, globalised finance, modern city-states, the United Nations - have been profoundly shaped by past empires. It also applies insights about the impact of past empires to contemporary politics and considers the long-term institutional legacies of the American 'empire'.

1. Introduction: legacies of empire Sandra Halperin and Ronen Palan
Part I. Incomplete Transitions from Empires to Nation-States: 2. Political military legacies of empire in world politics Tarak Barkawi
3. The second British Empire and the re-emergence of global finance Ronen Palan
4. Imperial city-states, national states, and post-national spatialities Sandra Halperin
Part II. Legacies of Non-European Empires in Today's World: 5. The legacy of Eurasian nomadic empires: remnants of the Mongol imperial tradition Einar Wigen and Iver B. Neumann
6. The modern roots of feudal empires: the donatory captaincies and the legacies of the Portuguese Empire in Brazil Benjamin De Carvalho
7. Imperial legacies in the United Nations development program, and the UN development system Craig N. Murphy
Part III. The Future Legacies of the American Empire: 8. Foreign bases, sovereignty and nation-building after empire: the United States in comparative perspective Alexander Cooley
9. Empire, capital and a legacy of endogenous multiculturalism Herman Schwartz
10. The assemblage of American imperium: hybrid power, world war and world government(ality) in the twenty-first century Ronnie D. Lipschutz
11. Conclusion Sandra Halperin and Ronen Palan.

Subject Areas: International relations [JPS]