The rule of empires : those who built them, those who endured them, and why they always fall Read Free

Mughal emperors, but the company’s
    shareholders and employees similarly enriched themselves by depicting Indians as distinctly different and exploitable. The gradual development of larger national identities blocked Napoleon from using
    similar tactics in Italy, and the collapse of his brief empire marked the
    end of viable imperial rule in Europe. While empire appeared reborn
    in Africa and Asia during the “new imperialism” of the late nineteenth
    century, the equally short-lived and often brutal British imperial state
    in Kenya exploded the notion that empires could ever be liberal or
    humanitarian. Adolf Hitler’s brief but vicious tenure as the imperial
    ruler of France affi rmed this reality by pushing the inherent logic of
    empire building to its brutal and inevitable limit.
    Of course, these examples are neither defi nitive nor exhaustive.
    There is no shortage of empires to choose from—the Byzantine, Chinese, Persian, Ottoman, Portuguese, Russian, Japanese, and Soviet
    empires also would have furnished examples—but collectively these
    particular examples chart the evolution and demise of empires. They
    are linked, with each empire drawing on the ideologies and practices
    of its predecessors. The Romans conquered the ancestors of the British, the Umayyad Arabs occupied Spain, the Spanish seized the Andes
    from the Inkas, the British built an empire in Mughal India, the
    French turned the Italian descendants of the Romans into subjects,
    modern Britons added Kenya to their empire, and the Nazis ruled
    France as an imperial power.
    Beginning with Rome is essential because imperial enthusiasts
    portray it as the model for future empires. In fact, we know very
    little about what life was like for common people under Roman rule.
    Ancient Britons lived at the edges of the empire, but most were typical “subjects,” meaning slaves, tenants, and peasant farmers. Their
    rulers relied on assimilated, “romanized” local elites to actually govern. Commoners in Britain and indeed the rest of the provinces were
    6 THE RULE OF EMPIRES
    too divided by local customs and habits to band together to resist this
    domination. Roman rule was therefore exploitive but long-lived in
    Britain precisely because its reliance on assimilated local allies made
    it seem less crushing.
    Most modern histories of empire rarely mention medieval Muslim Spain (Al-Andalus), and the Umayyad Arabs never actually
    claimed to be imperial rulers. Nevertheless, Al-Andalus shared many
    of the same characteristics as Rome. Initially a remote and resistive
    province of the larger Umayyad Caliphate, Iberia became an autonomous emirate under a refugee Umayyad prince. At fi rst glance, the
    imperial state he founded, which lasted from the eighth to twelfth
    centuries, appeared to match Rome in its stability and limitations.
    Like the Romans, the Umayyads shared power with assimilated local
    notables, but the Muslim empire builders’ religious obligation to convert conquered populations undermined their status as a ruling elite.
    Even more than in the ancient era, the necessity of recruiting local
    allies allowed large numbers of urban Iberians to escape subjecthood
    by converting to Islam, thereby gradually changing the character of
    the imperial state itself. By the high point of Spanish Umayyad rule
    in the tenth century, intermarriage and conversion had thoroughly
    blurred the distinction between Arab and Iberian ruling elites. Rural
    and common people, however, probably did not convert to Islam in
    large numbers. Their overlords may have shifted from Christianity to
    Islam and then back again during the Reconquista, but the oppressive
    realities of imperial rule led most Iberians to seek protection within
    their local communities.
    In the fi fteenth century, empires gained a greater capacity to place
    more systematic and sustainable demands on their subjects. However,
    these early modern states still bore little resemblance to the empires