Imperial Expansion Research Articles

Africa in Du Bois’s Internationalist Thinking

Abstract This article addresses the recent interest in Black Internationalism in the history of political thought and related fields by engaging with a portion of W. E. B. Du Bois’s (1868–1963) work. It examines in particular how Du Bois treats Africa in his published and unpublished writings from the 1910s to the 1940s in light of the challenges of world war and continued imperial expansionism in the global South. I argue that through a rhetorical framing of problems on the continent, and by situating Africa in relation to global economic problems as well as the goal of long-lasting peace, Du Bois comes up with novel approaches to war and empire, as well as solutions to the problems that they pose. I conclude by reflecting on how he can contribute to debates on Black Internationalism today.

Lost in Translation; The Evolution of Spanish Translations and the Black Legend in England from 1578 to 1740

This paper traces the evolution of the Black Legend using Spanish accounts of the colonization of the Americas published in English from 1578 to 1740. The Black Legend, largely spread by English, Dutch, and German Protestants, was an anti-Catholic and anti-Spanish narrative demonizing the Spanish colonization of the Americas. Relying in particular on the English appropriation of Spanish Friar Bartolomé de las Casas’s Short Account of the Destruction of the Indies, originally published in Spanish in 1552, the thesis argues that English editions of the text reflect England's political and religious turmoil in the 16th and 18th centuries. Previous work on the Black Legend centered on how the authors of New World accounts intended to have their work received in Europe. By studying printed paratexts, including dedicatory letters to patrons, letters to the readers, and the translations themselves, I show how English publishers and translators, and the statesmen who sponsored these publications sought to use Bartolomé de Las Casas's accounts as political. The conquest of the New World brought enormous wealth and power to Spain. At the same time, throughout this period, England suffered religious and political conflicts that boiled over into civil war in the mid-17th century. Many in England feared being overrun by a Catholic Empire or overthrown by Catholics from within. Facing various religious and political crises at home English leaders and booksellers used translations of Las Casas's work to advance their own hopes of British imperial expansion in the New World and to encourage the English to unite in the face of the Spanish threats, such as the Netherlands Civil War and Spanish Armada.

From ‘Practical Application of Knowledge’ to ‘Academic Self-Awareness’: A Historical Examination of Knowledge Production in Chinese Middle East Studies

The knowledge production in Chinese Middle East studies boasts a long history. The article traces the evolution of Chinese scholarship on Middle East studies from ancient times to the present. Initially driven by the practical needs for imperial expansion and foreign trade, this scholarship focused on the academic tradition of the ‘practical application of knowledge.’ Over time, it evolved into a phase of academic self-awareness, characterized by a more systematic and independent approach to Middle East studies. This shift reflects broader changes in China’s foreign relations and academic priorities, with contemporary scholars emphasizing the development of an autonomous knowledge production system through various models, such as major-theme research, discipline-driven research, and integrated research. The article suggests that future research should adopt an ‘issue-driven’ model to enhance further the depth and autonomy of Chinese Middle East studies.

A milpa isotopic foodweb in Tlaxcallan: More than just maize

Dietary isotope studies in the New World are rife with the presence of “maize-based societies”, yet a singular focus on maize downplays the plant biodiversity that was key to community resilience during times of political or ecological crisis. Maize was a central crop, and it served as an anchor for the ecologically complex and diverse milpa system used across Mesoamerica in the past and present. The milpa system is both a social and ecological arrangement that relies on the interwoven food management system of several different cultivated plants with phases of fallow and/or secondary growth or foraged plants. Focusing on stable carbon and nitrogen isotopes, this study presents values from a broad range of modern plants traditionally found in milpa contexts, including cacti, wild greens, and fruit trees. By examining the modern plant isotope data through the case study of Tepeticpac, Tlaxcallan—a Late Postclassic site in Central Mexico—this study demonstrates how a milpa-based foodweb allowed Tlaxcallan to adapt during times of potential political conflict. Previous analyses of Tlaxcallan’s resistance to Aztec imperial expansion have focused on political strategies at the state level. This paper argues that analyzing milpa foodwebs demonstrates the importance of household-level economies and ecologies as sites of adaptability during moments of political instability. When analyses expand to include foraged and cultivated foods—what Lopez Corral (2020) calls “subsistence agriculture”—the full breadth and power of the milpa food systems is revealed. As we suggest in this paper, these small-scale food systems worked together with institutional systems to create greater adaptability towards external threats like warfare and economic blockade.

Beyond Frontiers: ‘Curzonic’ order, frontier expansion and the 1907 Romanes lecture

ABSTRACT George Curzon’s 1907 Romanes lecture, delivered soon after his tenure as Viceroy of India, articulated a vision of geopolitical order at a moment of British imperial decline. Curzon, however, argued that he lived at a historical zenith of frontier competition characterised by British India’s land power and complex frontiers. He invoked ancient precedents to assert the inevitability of modern imperial expansion, obscuring the specific geopolitical and historical material conditions of India’s colonialised frontier spaces. Nonetheless, the lecture illustrates how India’s ‘walling’ proceeded through the projection of the Government of India’s border power and through imperialist ‘protection’, client rule and commerce.

Empire from Another Angle: Queer Pleasures of Art in Statius, Silvae 4.6

Recent work on Statius’s Silvae has emphasized the poet’s efforts to create “intimacy” with his private patrons through espousing a value system based on friendship, connoisseurship, and shared literary interests, a system opposed to the public values of political ambition and the blunt glorification of military power in imperial expansion. This essay, however, argues that we have yet to comprehend the extent to which the dynamics of empire itself inform the creation of such intimacy in the Silvae. Specifically, what Sara Ahmed has described as empire’s “queering” effect on the subject’s relation to objects of desire has a formative role in Statian intimacy. I focus on one of the Silvae that has been central to the formation of the current view of Statius outlined above: Silvae 4.6, on a Hercules statuette owned by Novius Vindex but previously the possession of three empire-builders, Alexander, Hannibal, and Sulla.

Global Monarchy: Royal Encounters in the Age of Empire

AbstractMonarchy is one of the oldest truly global social structures. On the eve of the imperial age, most of the world was governed by monarchs. But as the European empires expanded, this order was radically transformed. During the long nineteenth century, most non-European monarchies were conquered by imperial powers. Often, European imperial powers abolished them, imprisoning, killing, or exiling local rulers; in other cases, the imperial powers incorporated the conquered monarchies into new imperial orders of indirect rule. Yet, there were some monarchies that survived Europe’s imperial expansion. In fact, every country that retained its independence in the era of high imperialism was ruled by a monarch: Ethiopia, China, Japan, the Ottoman empire, Persia (Iran), and Siam (Thailand). To some extent, these monarchs lived in the same social worlds as their European counterparts, forming a global, status-based community. This article offers some observations on the relationship between the world’s monarchs in the age of empire by focusing on encounters between European monarchs and those of the few non-European countries that retained their independence.

Banditry in Global Social History

AbstractEric Hobsbawm argued that banditry was an archaic and pre-political phenomenon that emerged simultaneously and with striking intensity in different regions around the world during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. While it has often been seen as marginal in global histories, banditry provides an essential gateway to the study of modern history from a global perspective. Drawing on different regional case studies, this article approaches the similarities and connections that ran through different instances of banditry in terms of their inclusion within the global dynamics of imperial expansion, capitalism, and the developing notions of territoriality and sovereignty. It argues that the ubiquitous presence of banditry in this period was propelled by the deep-running changes to local relations of class, economy, and power that resulted from these accelerating global dynamics. Bandits emerged as the expression of rural communities in all their complexity and were able to negotiate their place within the rapidly evolving societies of this period. Far from being victims, bandits were key agents who navigated change, adaptation, and resistance in the modern world. In this sense, banditry was a powerful expression of the different ways in which rural communities interacted, negotiated, and clashed with the global.

Raising the Academic Authority of Clinical Experience: The Department of Internal Medicine at Keijo Imperial University and Its Periodical Imsangnaegwahak.

This paper examines the periodical Clinical Internal Medicine published by the Department of Internal Medicine at Keijo Imperial University in colonial Korea. Previous studies on medical research at Keijo Imperial University have primarily focused on preclinical departments such as anatomy, hygiene, pharmacology, and microbiology which produced knowledge that supported Japan's imperialistic expansion. This approach has overlooked the research contributions of clinical departments, often viewing the roles of preclinical and clinical departments through a dichotomy between research versus clinician training. However, Clinical Internal Medicine demonstrates that the Department of Internal Medicine at Keijo Imperial University was actively engaged in research. By analyzing the purpose and content of Clinical Internal Medicine, this paper reveals that its publication was an effort by the Department of Internal Medicine to address the demand for practical knowledge among clinicians practicing outside the university. At the same time, it reflects a commitment to enhancing the academic value of clinical experience and critiques the blind pursuit of experimental medicine in the Japanese medical community in the 1920s and 1930s. The case of the Department of Internal Medicine at Keijo Imperial University illustrates the transformation of clinical experience into "worthy" academic knowledge in colonial Korea. Based on these findings, this paper provides insights into the role of clinical departments at Keijo Imperial University in research and post-graduation education.

Gorkhas’ Recruitment into British Army: A Historical Overview

This article presents a historical overview and analysis of the Gorkhas’ recruitment into the British Army over more than 200 years. The study examines the evolution of the recruitment process, highlighting key periods and changes: the era of the East India Company before 1886, the World War periods, and the present day. The research investigates how the bravery, dedication, and loyalty of Nepalese youths during the Anglo-Nepal Wars (1814-16) led to British authorities encouraging Gorkhali youths to join the British Army, aiming to leverage their skills for future wars and imperial expansion. Despite their valor, Gorkhas faced numerous challenges, and significant improvements in recruitment conditions did not occur until after 1886. Even then, parental consent was a significant barrier. It was not until the 1970s that Gorkha youths openly expressed a desire to join, but by then, the selection process had become much tougher due to decreased demand for their services. Employing a qualitative research approach, the article utilizes a variety of sources including books on Britain-Nepal military relations, journal articles, periodicals, and war history books from Nepal, Britain, and other relevant regions to provide a comprehensive analysis. The study’s findings indicate that the recruitment process was particularly challenging before 1886 and during the World Wars, despite a high demand for Gorkha soldiers. In the present day, while the recruitment process is more transparent, opportunities for Gorkhas have significantly diminished due to a reduced demand for their services.

The roles of Dutch skippers as partners and principals in colonial endeavours: Lessons from Amsterdam to New Netherland (1639–1664)

While Atlantic skippers were vital to seventeenth-century Dutch imperial expansion, few histories address the roles of skippers in colonial ventures. Drawing on archival records in Amsterdam and New York, this study examines the activities of skippers along roughly 200 voyages between Amsterdam and New Netherland from 1639 to 1664. In Amsterdam, skippers in relationships with voyage outfitters functioned as trusted partners who offered continuity for operations. As principals at sea, skippers navigated hazards and managed contingencies during inherently risky transatlantic passages. In the colony, skippers collaborated with local merchants to facilitate trade, and with colonial authorities to provide maritime support. With an impact on every stage of the endeavour, skippers were key players in the colonial complex, which depended on them for its functioning. Beyond New Netherland, these findings have applications for evaluating other European colonial undertakings, and for understanding the wider mechanisms of imperial expansion into the Atlantic.

A high-precision radiocarbon chronology of Inka rule in the Upper Loa River Region of northern Chile

AbstractThe chronology of the Inka Empire is poorly resolved, with most scholars utilizing a post hoc ethnohistoric reconstruction of imperial expansion as a common reference point. Radiocarbon-based analyses can now accomplish sufficient resolution for meaningful independent estimates of Inka chronology, however, and it is incumbent upon archaeologists to develop such appraisals. Here we produce a Bayesian analysis of radiocarbon data from the Upper Loa River area of northern Chile to estimate the timing of Inka incorporation of this region. In order to accurately associate samples with Inka rule, only radiocarbon dates from Inka sites without prior occupations are used (n = 34), producing a model for the onset of Inka rule of AD 1401–1437 (95% hpd) with a median date of AD 1420. This estimate is further used as a point of comparison for understanding diachronic imperial processes in the region. Site-level models of a variety of site types indicate that the Inka rapidly founded several administrative/mining bases at the onset, followed by the addition of smaller infrastructure components during a second pulse of activity near the middle of the 15th century. Date assemblages at the agricultural sites of Topaín and Paniri also indicate a decline in activity at the former and an increase in activity at the latter from early on in Inka rule. These results provide a high-resolution data point for reconstructing Inka imperial chronology, and expanding such studies will be essential to understanding processes of Inka imperialism at larger scales.

Administrative and Economic Systems of the Mughal Empire: A Historical Analysis of Governance and Revenue Policies

The Mughal Dynasty commenced in 1526, led by the esteemed Babur, who is renowned as the pioneer and founder of Indian civilization through the process of unification. Due to its vast territorial reach from Kabul to Bengal, with natural boundaries such as the Arabian Sea and Himalayas, this dynasty was able to establish sophisticated formal institutions that surpassed those of other empires worldwide at that time. This study examines the complex governance system of The Mughal Empire, with a focus on the reigns of Babur, Humayun, Akbar, and Aurangzeb. Abul-Fazl Ibn Mubarak, a prominent historian during Akbar's reign, elucidated the Mughals' adoption of the dual strategies of 'JahanBani' (state maintenance) and 'Jahangiri' (imperial expansion). The article also examines Akbar's reforms in land revenue systems, which aimed to provide uniformity and economic stability in order to sustain the Empire's prosperity. The inclusion of women in the Mughal court is examined to highlight their cultural, political, and social achievements. This examination thoroughly explores the functioning of the Mughal administration and how it effectively maintained the empire's supremacy.

South African Allegories in Richard Jefferies’s After London; or Wild England (1885)

This paper argues that Richard Jefferies’s After London (1885), often praised as a pioneering work of speculative fiction, has not been sufficiently understood within the context of late-Victorian imperial expansion. While After London is frequently read in tandem with Jefferies’s nature essays and speculative fiction like H. G. Wells’s The Time Machine (1895), I locate the novel within the generic conventions of lost world fiction, a subgenre of the imperial romance associated with masculine adventure tales. Analysing After London’s parallels with, and potential influences on, H. Rider Haggard’s King Solomon’s Mines (1885), published later that same year, I argue that Jefferies’s unflattering portrayal of English ‘Bushmen’, coupled with the geography of Wild England, gesture emphatically to South Africa. In turn, the motif of a ‘relapse into barbarism’ serves to rationalise the fantasies of terra nullius [‘nobody’s land’] and extractive treasure hunting that Felix Aquila, the quixotic hero, enacts. By connecting After London to Haggard’s highly influential fiction and drawing on Jefferies’s writings about British colonialism in South Africa and the conventions of travel literature, cartography, and ethnography, this paper provides a more complete understanding of Jefferies’s contributions to the canon of lost world fiction.

The West in Construction: Texas and Indian Territory at the Vanguard of American Imperial Expansion

Malgré leurs différences essentielles, qu’il s’agisse des raisons de leur création ou de leur peuplement, il apparaît que dans les années 1830 et 1840, la République du Texas et le Territoire Indien (à la suite du Removal Act) se développent selon des dynamiques similaires, faisant d’eux des avant-postes de l’expansion impériale des États-Unis. Alors que les deux populations de migrants s’approprient les territoires du « Grand Désert américain », qui ne sont pas encore organisés par les États-Unis, il semble que la latitude dont ces deux entités « entre-deux » jouissent, aux marges de la république américaine, leur permette de définir les termes de la construction de l’Ouest.

The history of science through the prism of race

Abstract One methodological approach to grasping a ‘big-picture’ history of modern science involves tracing the complex entanglements between scientific knowledge and the development of racism and racialized economic systems. Indeed, no historical account of any scientific field can be complete without acknowledging the role of race as an intellectual, social or economic factor. We substantiate this argument through a synthetic review of three overlapping threads in the historiography of science. First, historical research on ‘race science’ has analysed the formation of disciplines directly involved in constructing scientific concepts of race, including medicine, anthropology, linguistics, phrenology, psychology, archaeology and genetics. Second, historians have demonstrated that connections between race and science are not limited to the domain of race science. Rather, European imperial expansion, colonialism and capitalism created the foundational infrastructures undergirding the emergence of modern professional science. Finally, new research shows how race remains covertly embedded in theoretical frameworks, statistical formulae and technological devices still used by scientists today. Through these examples, we perceive a big-picture history of science in which its co-constitution with race links localized case studies and imperial narratives across space and time.

Studying War in a Time of War: Russian Imperialism in the Seventeenth and Twenty-First Centuries

Abstract In the first two weeks of August, 535 Russian soldiers were seriously wounded in Eastern Ukraine. The year was 1678. 1678 saw some of the heaviest fighting in the Russo-Turkish of 1676–81, as the Ottoman and Russian Empires, alongside their local allies, struggled to gain control of the strategic location of Chyhyryn. In summer 2023, that town on the Dnipro was only around 300km from the front in the Russo-Ukraine war. To read about soldiers being injured and killed in service of imperial expansion three centuries ago as we watch the same empire engage in the same activities in the same location today brings home how history and the present are inescapably connected. Indeed, historians of violence have faced this problem before, as with a group at the University of Pittsburgh working on Gun Violence and Its Histories, who explicitly seek to use histories of violence to think about gun violence in the modern USA. Military histories have long been an established part of the study of Russian history, highlighting the technological, imperial, bureaucratic, and diplomatic aspects of organized state violence. The present moment demands a re-evaluation of histories of Russia at war, one that considers such issues as histories of disability and pain, and also engages with recent calls to decolonize Russian studies. Putting into dialogue these different perspectives on war and violence we can consider if, why, and how we can study the history of war during a time of war.

"Statues Made of Sugar": Martí, Monuments, and Hemispheric Ventriloquism

Abstract: Monuments speak; they shape citizens' political imaginations. Drawing on an essay by the Cuban intellectual José Martí about Confederate commemoration, I argue that his Confederate solidarities were the result of hemispheric ventriloquism. Widely lauded as an anti-imperial and anti-racist thinker, Martí's hemispheric ventriloquism was driven by: 1) fears of US imperial expansion; 2) a need to rebut critiques of republics as inherently unstable forms of government in light of post-independence civil strife in Latin America; and 3) his hopes for Cuban national unity post-independence. Martí's hemispheric ventriloquism illustrates the dangers of downplaying racist commemoration in the name of liberal pluralism or national unity.

Mahmoud Darwish and the Quest for a Postcolonial Utopia: Israel's War on Gaza and Reimagining the Colonial Waste Land

Mahmoud Darwish and the Quest for a Postcolonial Utopia: Israel's War on Gaza and Reimagining the Colonial Waste Land

Racial Ideologies and Imperial Discourses: A New Historicist Reading of Kipling’s “The White Man’s Burden”

Set against the backdrop of the 19th-century apex of European colonial expansion and formation of New Imperialism, Rudyard Kipling's "The White Man's Burden", composed in 1899, emerges as a cultural artefact reflecting and actively participating in the racial and imperialistic discourses prevalent during this epoch. Generally criticized for perpetuating a one-sided narrative, the poem ignores the violence, exploitation, and cultural disruption wrought by colonial powers and presents an idealized vision of the colonizers' mission without acknowledging the harsh realities faced by the colonized. The present article offers a comprehensive New Historicist examination of Kipling's iconic poem by contextualizing it within the racial and exceptionalist socio-political and pseudoscientific milieu of the late 19th century United Kingdom and the complex web of imperial ideologies prevalent in the Victorian era. By engaging critically with Kipling's poem, this study aims to give insights into the intersections between literature, power, and historical context and offer a nuanced understanding of the legacies of imperialistic ideologies and their implications for our present-day understanding of empire and race.