Reviewed by: European Small States and the Role of Consuls in the Age of Empire by Aryo Makko Heather Streets-Salter European Small States and the Role of Consuls in the Age of Empire By Aryo Makko. Leiden and Boston: Brill Nijhoff, 2020. In European Small States and the Role of Consuls in the Age of Empire, Aryo Makko explores the role of the consular service in the foreign policy of Sweden-Norway, and how the institution was critical to understanding the way the state participated in the global system of imperialism between 1875 and 1914. Makko argues that although small European states like Sweden-Norway did not have the military and economic capacity of the great European powers, they nevertheless shared their exploitative worldview and were anxious to benefit from the spoils of empire. According to Makko, small states “employed their own strategies of imperialism and colonialism” by extending their shipping-related commercial interests to the rapidly-growing territories of the European empires (2). In this enterprise, consuls—whose job it was to facilitate and regulate these interests—played a central role. The book is divided into four chapters plus an introduction and conclusion. Its structure is both chronological and geographical: the first chapter begins in about 1815 and the last ends in 1914, while chapters 2–4 each cover what was happening with the consular service in Africa, Eastern and Southern Asia and the West Indies respectively between 1875 and 1914. Chapter one is based mainly on secondary sources and functions to outline the history of the consular service in Sweden-Norway until about 1870. But it is also here where Makko argues that—given the fact that the merchant fleet of Sweden-Norway was the world’s fifth largest in the late nineteenth century—government officials were hopeful that the European expansion of empire would enhance the prestige of the state via the power of economics. As part of this aspiration for prestige, by the end of the century, Sweden-Norway maintained a network of 100 consulates and 800 consular officials worldwide. Chapters two and three provide the meat of the argument and reflect extensive work in the state consular archives. In chapter two, which explores the years 1875–84, Makko argues that state officials in Sweden-Norway were sympathetic to the assumptions and expansionist actions of imperialist states, and sought to adapt to the new reality by expanding both its trade networks and its consular network into newly-colonized regions. These efforts were hampered, however, by the inefficiencies of the consular service: chiefly, that most consuls for Sweden-Norway were neither Swedish nor Norwegian, and that most knew very little about the state or its shipping and business interests. In this Sweden-Norway was not alone: many other European states also suffered from a lack of professionalism in their consular services at this time, and many sought reforms in the last half of the nineteenth century. Officials in Sweden-Norway followed this trend, and set up a committee to reform the consular service in 1875. However, in part because of complications arising from the relationship between the two kingdoms of Sweden and Norway, it took a full decade—until 1885—for the committee to produce new regulations for a reformed consular service. This did not stop the consular service of Sweden-Norway from expanding into new territories as European empires grew, but it did mean that the system did not function very well. Chapter three covers the period between 1884–1905, when Makko argues that the consular service of Sweden-Norway reached “the height of its political and diplomatic function” (188). It also marked the high-water of Sweden-Norway’s involvement with the European imperial system. Indeed, Sweden-Norway ratified the General Act in the Berlin Conference of 1884–85, which divided sub-Saharan Africa between European powers, in the hopes that participation would translate into a more powerful voice in European politics. In the years that followed, consuls representing Sweden-Norway generally supported imperial endeavors. At the same time, the state tried to implement the new consular regulations that had finally been approved in 1885, but professionalization proved elusive when budgetary constraints meant there...