Empire, nationalism and christianity

This paper studies in parallel the history of empire and the development of universals. It uses as its preliminary orientation the work of Eric Voegelin who argued that universals develop in history alongside and through universalising empires. We find this basic contention highly credible as it is empires that force us to develop cognitive approaches that encompass both colonised and coloniser in any subsequent social structure. So conceived, the paper then argues that empires are synonymous with human history as such and that even those entities (such a Greek city states) which are eulogised for escaping this logic are on examination no less imperial than the empires they oppose. The paper then argues that the development of universals is not a byproduct of empire but rather that it drives imperial expansion in the first place. It seeks to argue that ideation is the casual factor in human history, social structures and behaviour. It argues contra thinkers like Francis Fukuyama, there is no biological foundation for the qualitative distinctions of civilisation, rather the paper contends that the origin of civilisation lies in human conceptuality not human biology, locality or indeed any other material force impinging on life. So configured, the paper then concludes that the primary political question lies in bringing together the question of the good with empire – a process most advanced in human history by Christianity.

The Innocence of Pontius Pilate

The gospels and ancient historians agree: Jesus was sentenced to death by Pontius Pilate, the Roman imperial prefect in Jerusalem. To this day, Christians of all churches confess that Jesus died 'under Pontius Pilate'. But what exactly does that mean? Within decades of Jesus' death, Christians began suggesting that it was the Judaean authorities who had crucified Jesus—a notion later echoed in the Qur'an. In the third century, one philosopher raised the notion that, although Pilate had condemned Jesus, he'd done so justly; this idea survives in one of the main strands of modern New Testament criticism. So what is the truth of the matter? And what is the history of that truth? David Lloyd Dusenbury reveals Pilate's 'innocence' as not only a neglected theological question, but a recurring theme in the history of European political thought. He argues that Jesus' interrogation by Pilate, and Augustine of Hippo's African sermon on that trial, led to the concept of secularity and the logic of tolerance emerging in early modern Europe. Without the Roman trial of Jesus, and the arguments over Pilate's innocence, the history of empire—from the first century to the twenty-first—would have been radically different.

“There Are Two”

This chapter introduces a letter written in Rome in the 490s CE by an African pope, Gelasius I. This papal letter is addressed to a Roman augustus at the imperial court in Constantinople. And in this letter, there is a world-historical idea. Gelasius formulates a claim without which the political history of Rome—and thus, of Europe (and many of its former colonies)—cannot be reconstructed. And this form of words could not be simpler. For, this African pope merely writes in Latin: duo sunt. This means in English: “there are two”. If roughly a century of historiography can be trusted, the history of empire is altered by this late antique pope’s cool insistence that “there are two”. How could such a minimal claim ignite centuries of legal reflection and political contestation in Europe? This chapter begins to answer that question.

Britain’s Western Indian Ocean Island-Scape

The British Empire had a significant influence on the history of the islands in the western Indian Ocean. In turn, the location, size, culture, and environment of these islands shaped the history of empire. This chapter investigates these islands’ strategic significance, their role in trade and commerce, and their diverse colonial cultures. It also considers these islands as sites of confinement and scientific research. Taken together, this chapter highlights the pivotal role played by western Indian Ocean islands—and their distinctive cultures, environments, and geographies—in the expansion and maintenance of Britain’s maritime empire in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.

Book Reviews

Federico Etro of University of Florence and Elena Stepanova of St. Anna School, Pisa reviews “Painting by Numbers: Data-Driven Histories of Nineteenth-Century Art” by Diana Seave Greenwald. The Econlit abstract of this book begins: “Presents case studies that combine the macroscopic examination typical of economic history with the tightly focused analyses common in art history, exploring industrialization, gender, and the history of empire in nineteenth-century art through a computational approach to exhibition documentation.”

Colony and Empire, Colonialism and Imperialism: A Meaningful Distinction?

Colony and empire, colonialism and imperialism, are often treated as synonyms.This can be acceptable for many purposes. But there may be also good reasons to distinguish between them. This article considers in detail one important attempt in that direction by the classicist Moses Finley. It argues that there is considerable strength in that approach, putting the stress as it does on the distinctiveness of the settler community. It is also valuable in suggesting that early-modern Western colonialism marked a new departure in an older history of imperialism, thus once again suggesting the need for a conceptual separation of the two. But the article concludes that ultimately more may be lost than gained by insisting on the distinction. In particular, it inhibits wide-ranging comparisons between ancient and modern, and Western and non-Western, empires, which can often suggest illuminating connections and parallels. The field of empire studies gains by drawing on the rich store of examples provided by the whole history of empire, from the earliest times to now. Western colonialism is part of that story; to separate it out is to impoverish the field.

The Oxford World History of Empire

The Oxford World History of Empire, Vol.1: The Imperial Experience is dedicated to synthesis and comparison. Following a comprehensive theoretical survey and world-historical synthesis, fifteen chapters analyze and explore the multifaceted experience of empire across cultures and through five millennia. The broad range of perspectives includes: scale, world systems and geopolitics, military organization, political economy and elite formation, monumental display, law, mapping and registering, religion, literature, the politics of difference, resistance, energy transfers, ecology, memories, and the decline of empires. This broad set of topics is united by the central theme of power, examined under four headings: systems of power, cultures of power, disparities of power, and memory and decline. Taken together, these chapters offer a comprehensive view of the imperial experience in world history

The Empires of Western Asia and the Assyrian World Empire

The history of empire begins in Western Asia. This chapter tracks developments in the second and first millennia BCE as imperial control in the region became increasingly common and progressively more pervasive. Oscillations between political fragmentation and imperial unification swung gradually toward the latter, from just a few documented examples in the third millennium BCE to the more-or-less permanent partition of Western Asia into successive imperial states from the seventh century BCE until the end of World War I. The chapter covers about a dozen empires and empire-like states, tracing developments of territoriality and notions of imperial universality using Assyria ca. 2004–605 BCE as a case study for how large and loose hegemonies became the normative political formation in the region.