Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-8ctnn Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-24T18:02:37.504Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Mimesis and rivalry: European empires and global regimes*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  18 February 2015

Jeremy Adelman
Jeremy Adelman*
Affiliation:
History Department, Princeton University, 129 Dickinson Hall, Princeton, NJ 08544-1017, USA E-mail: [email protected]
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

This article places empires as interlocking parts of a broader global regime, a term invoked as an alternative to a world system. By focusing on connective processes and political contingencies, it presents a strategy that avoids rendering empires as radial hubs of a European-centred arrangement. Two features lie at the core of the approach: the way in which empires competed with each other, and the way in which they imitated, borrowed, and learned from each other. Instead of looking at the cyclical rise or fall of great powers, the accent here is on the tensions and intervisibilities between the parts that make up a whole. The regime was, therefore, inherently unstable and integrative at the same time. The article looks in particular at European empires embedded in the broader, unstable, yet increasingly integrated global context that shaped them. The period at stake covers the fifteenth century to the nineteenth and concludes by pointing at some longer-term legacies. It suggests an alternative political economy to the familiar models of ‘European world system’.

Keywords

circulationcompetitionencountersenlightenmentEuropean empiresworld systems
Type
Articles
Information
Journal of Global History , Volume 10 , Issue 1 , March 2015 , pp. 77 - 98
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2015 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Footnotes

*

Versions of this paper were presented at the University of Freiburg and at Princeton. In addition to the participants of those workshops, I am grateful to Stephen Aron, Sebastian Conrad, Atul Kohli, John Ikenberry and Sanjay Subrahmanyam for comments and conversations. Thanks as well to the reviewers for this journal.

References

1 Wallerstein, Immanuel, The modern world-system II: mercantilism and the consolidation of the European world-economy, New York: Academic Press, 1980Google Scholar; Ferguson, Niall, Empire: the rise and demise of the British world order and the lessons for global power, New York: Basic Books, 2004Google Scholar.

2 Stern, Steve J., ‘Feudalism, capitalism, and the modern world system in the perspective of Latin America and the Caribbean’, American historical review, 93, 4, October 1988, pp. 829–872CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

3 Burbank, Jane and Cooper, Frederick, Empires in world history: power and the politics of difference, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2010Google Scholar.

4 Benton, Lauren, Law and colonial cultures: legal regimes in world history, 1400–1900, New York: Cambridge University Press, 2002Google Scholar; Benton, Lauren and Ross, Richard J., ‘Empires and legal pluralism: jurisdiction, sovereignty, and political imagination in the early modern world’, in Lauren Benton and Richard J. Ross, eds., Legal pluralism and empires: 1500–1800, New York: NYU Press, 2013, p. 7CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

5 Krasner, Stephen, ed., International Regimes, Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1982Google Scholar; Donald Ostrowski, Muscovy and the Mongols: Cross-cultural influences on the steppe frontier, 1304–1589, New York & Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998; Subrahmanyam, Sanjay, ‘Connected histories’, Modern Asian Studies, 31, 3, July, 1997CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Gruzinski, Serge, L'Aigle et le dragon: Démesure Européene et mondialisation au XVIe siécle, Paris: Fayard, 2012Google Scholar.

6 Marx, Karl and Engels, Friedrich, The German ideology, New York: Prometheus Books, 1998, p. 47Google Scholar; Auerbach, Erich, Mimesis: the representation of reality in Western literature, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2003Google Scholar. On Girard, see Doran, Robert, ed., Mimesis and theory: essays on literature and criticism, 1953–2005, Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2008Google Scholar.

7 Greenblatt, Stephen, Marvelous possessions: the wonder of the new world, Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 1992, p. 6Google Scholar; Gruzinski, Serge, What time is it there? America and Islam at the dawn of modern times, Cambridge: Polity Press, 2010Google Scholar; Fuchs, Barbara, Mimesis and empire: the new world, Islam, and the construction of European identities, New York: Cambridge University Press, 2004Google Scholar; Hart, Jonathan, Representing the new world: the English and French uses of the example of Spain, London: Palgrave, 2001CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

8 Abulafia, David, The discovery of mankind: Atlantic encounters in the age of Columbus, New Haven, CT, and London: Yale University Press, 2008Google Scholar.

9 M. A. Screech, ed., Montaigne: the complete essays, New York: Penguin, 1987, book 3:6, pp. 1029–31.

10 Abulafia, , Discovery of mankind, pp. 184–186Google Scholar.

11 ‘Letter of Columbus to various persons describing the results of his first voyage and written on the return journey’, in Cohen, J. M., ed., Christopher Columbus: the four voyages, New York: Penguin, 1969, p. 120Google Scholar.

12 ‘Digest of Columbus's log-book on his first voyage made by Bartolomé de las Casas’, in ibid., p. 37; Housley, Norman, The later crusades: from Lyons to Alcazar, 1274–1580, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1992, pp. 291–321Google Scholar; Housley, Norman, Crusading and the Ottoman threat, 1453–1505, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012, pp. 62–71CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

13 Casale, Giancarlo, The Ottoman age of exploration, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011Google Scholar.

14 Anthony Pagden, trans. and ed., Hernán Cortés: letters from Mexico, New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1986, p. 445.

15 Casas, Bartolomé de Las, A short account of the destruction of the Indies, ed. and trans. Nigel Griffin, New York: Penguin, 1992Google Scholar; Hart, , Representing the New World, pp. 36, 101–117Google Scholar.

16 McIntosh, Gregory C., The Piri Reis map of 1513, Athens, GA: University of Georgia Press, 2000Google Scholar; Goodrich, Thomas D., The Ottoman Turks and the new world: a study of Tarih-i Hind-i Garbi and sixteenth century Americana, Wiesbaden: Otto Harrassowitz, 1990Google Scholar; Matar, Nabil, ed., In the lands of the Christians: Arabic travel writing in the seventeenth century, New York: Routledge, 2003Google Scholar.

17 Ho, Enseng, ‘Empire through diasporic eyes: a view from the other boat’, Comparative Studies in Society and History, 46, 2, 2004, p. 223CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Chaudhuri, K. N., Trade and civilisation in the Indian Ocean: an economic history from the rise of Islam to 1750, New York: Cambridge University Press, 1985, pp. 73CrossRefGoogle Scholar, 79, 117.

18 Wills, John E. Jr, ‘Maritime Europe and the Ming’, in John E. Wills Jr, ed., China and maritime Europe, 1500–1800: trade, settlement, diplomacy, and missions, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011, pp. 26–28Google Scholar.

19 Headley, John M., ‘Spain's Asian presence, 1565–1590: structures and aspirations’, Hispanic American Historical Review, 75, 4, November 1995, pp. 623–646CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Clark, Hugh, ‘Frontier discourse and China's maritime frontier: China's frontiers and encounters with the sea through early imperial history’, Journal of World History, 20, 1, March 2009, pp. 1–33Google Scholar.

20 Flynn, Dennis O. and Giráldez, Arturo, ‘Born with a “silver spoon”: the origin of world trade in 1571’, Journal of World History, 6, 2, Fall 1995, pp. 201–221Google Scholar.

21 de Las Casas, Fray Bartolomé, Vida de Cristóbal Colon, Caracas: Biblioteca Ayacucho, 1992, p. 67Google Scholar; Brotton, Jerry, Trading territories: mapping the early modern world, London: Reaktion Books, 1997, pp. 122–159Google Scholar.

22 Trigger, Bruce, Natives and newcomers: Canada's ‘heroic age’ reconsidered, Montreal: McGill-Queen's University Press, 1985, pp. 132–133Google Scholar.

23 Gibson, Charles, ‘Introduction’, in Charles Gibson, ed., The Black Legend: anti-Spanish attitudes in the old world and the new, New York: Knopf, 1971, pp. 3–27Google Scholar; Hanke, Lewis, All mankind is one: a study of the disputation between Bartolomé de Las Casas and Juan Ginés de Sepúlveda on the religious and intellectual capacity of the American Indians, DeKalb, IL: Northern Illinois University Press, 1974Google Scholar.

24 Gerassi-Navarro, Nina, Pirate novels: fictions of nation-building in Spanish America, Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1999, p. 21Google Scholar.

25 Heywood, Linda M. and Thornton, John K., Central Africans, Atlantic creoles, and the foundation of the Americas, 1585–1660, New York: Cambridge University Press, 2007, pp. 14–16Google Scholar.

26 Anderson, J. L., ‘Piracy and world history: an economic perspective on maritime predation’, Journal of World History, 6, 2, 1995, pp. 175–199Google Scholar.

27 Thompson, Janice E., Mercenaries, pirates, and sovereigns: state-building and extra territorial violence in early modern Europe, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1994Google Scholar.

28 Prange, Sebastian, ‘A trade of no dishonor: piracy, commerce, and community in the western Indian Ocean, twelfth to sixteenth century’, American Historical Review, 116, 5, 2011, pp. 1269–1293CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

29 Casale, , Ottoman age of exploration, pp. 56–66Google Scholar; Housley, , Later crusades, pp. 320–321Google Scholar.

30 Smith, Pamela H. and Findlen, Paula, ‘Commerce and the representation of nature in art and science’, in Pamela H. Smith and Paula Findlen, eds., Merchants and marvels: commerce, science, and art in early modern Europe, London: Routledge, 2002, pp. 1–28Google Scholar; Aldrich, Robert, ‘Imperial mise en valeur and mise en scène: recent works on French colonialism’, Historical Journal, 45, 4, 2002, pp. 917–936CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

31 de Champlain, Samuel, Narrative of a voyage to the West Indies and Mexico in the years 1599–1602, ed. Norton Shaw, London: Hakluyt Society, 1858, pp. 2Google Scholar, 22, 33.

32 Fischer, David Hackett, Champlain's dream, New York: Simon & Schuster, 2008Google Scholar.

33 Weber, David, Bárbaros: Spaniards and their savages in the Age of Enlightenment, New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2005Google Scholar, ch. 5; Subrahmanyam, Sanjay, Courtly encounters: translating courtliness and violence in early modern Eurasia, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2012CrossRefGoogle Scholar, esp. pp. 28–9 and 208–9.

34 Bracewell, Catherine Wendy, The Uskoks of Senj: piracy, banditry, and holy war in the sixteenth-century Adriatic, Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2011Google Scholar.

35 Elbl, Ivana, ‘Cross-cultural trade and diplomacy: Portuguese relations with West Africa, 1441–1521’, Journal of World History, 3, 2, 1992, pp. 165–204Google Scholar; Heywood and Thornton, Central Africans, p. 146; de Alencastro, Luiz Felipe, O trato dos viventes: formação do Brasil no Atlântico sul, São Paulo: Companhia das Letras, 2000, pp. 70–76Google Scholar.

36 Subrahmanyam, Sanjay, ‘Holding the world in balance: the connected histories of the Iberian overseas empires’, American Historical Review, 112, 5, 2007, pp. 1359–1385CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

37 Tilly, Charles, ‘War making and state making as organized crime’, in Peter Evans, Dieter Rueschemeyer, and Theda Skocpol, eds., Bringing the state back in, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985, pp. 169–191Google Scholar.

38 Alison Sandman, ‘Controlling knowledge: navigation, cartography, and secrecy in the early modern Spanish Atlantic’, in Smith and Findlen, Merchants and marvels, pp. 31–52.

39 Bisaha, Nancy, Creating East and West: Renaissance humanists and the Ottoman Turks, Philadelphia, PA: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2004CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

40 Elman, Benjamin A., ‘Jesuit scientia and natural studies in late imperial China, 1600–1800’, Journal of Early Modern History, 6, 3, 2002, pp. 209–232Google Scholar.

41 Barrera, Antonio, ‘Local herbs and global medicines: commerce, knowledge, and commodities in Spanish America’, in Smith and Findlen, Merchants and marvels, pp. 163–181Google Scholar; Safier, Neil, Measuring the New World: Enlightenment science and South America, Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 2008, p. 233CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

42 Schiebinger, Londa, Plants and empire: colonial bioprospecting in the Atlantic world, Cambridge MA: Harvard University Press, 2004Google Scholar, pp. 5, 11; Furtado, Júnia Ferreira, ‘The Indies of knowledge, or the imaginary geography of the discoveries of gold in Brazil’, in Daniela Bleichmar, Paula De Vos, Kristin Huffine, and Kevin Sheehan, eds., Science in the Spanish and Portuguese empires, 1500–1800, Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2009, pp. 178–197Google Scholar; Cook, Harold J., Matters of exchange: commerce, medicine, and science in the Dutch golden age, New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2007CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

43 Bleichmar, Daniela, Visible empire: botanical expedition and visual culture in the Hispanic Enlightenment, Chicago, IL: Chicago University Press, 2012CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

44 Smith, Adam, An inquiry into the nature and causes of the wealth of nations, ed. Edwin Cannan, Chicago, IL: University of Chicago, 1977CrossRefGoogle Scholar, book IV, ch. 7, part II, p. 444; Murrin, John, ‘The beneficiaries of catastrophe: the English colonies in America’, in Eric Foner, ed., The new American history, Philadelphia, PA: Temple University Press, 1997, pp. 3–30Google Scholar.

45 Smith, John, Memoirs of the Marquis of Pombal: with extracts from his writings and despatches in the state paper office, London: Longman, Brown, Green, and Longmans, 1843Google Scholar, vol. 1, p. 116.

46 ‘Calculo sobre a perda do dinheiro do Reyno offerecido a El Rey D. João 5 no anno de 1748 por Alexandre de Gusmão’, in Biblioteca nacional de Lisboa, coleção pombalina, Códice 473, ff. 207–9; Reinert, Sophus A., Translating empire: emulation and the origins of political economy, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2011, p. 41CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Hont, Istvan, Jealousy of trade: international competition and the nation-state in historical perspective, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2005Google Scholar.

47 Sarreal, Julia, The Guaraní and their missions: a socioeconomic history, Stanford, CA: Stanford University press, 2014CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Adelman, Jeremy and Aron, Stephen, ‘From borderlands to borders: empires, nation-states, and the peoples in between in North American history’, American Historical Review, 104, 3, 1999, pp. 814–841CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

48 Marshall, P. J., The making and unmaking of empires: Britain, India, and America c. 1750–1783, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005, pp. 119–158Google Scholar.

49 Breen, T. H., ‘An empire of goods: the Anglicization of colonial America, 1690–1776’, Journal of British Studies, 25, 1986, pp. 467–499CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Adelman, Jeremy, Sovereignty and revolution in the Iberian Atlantic, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2006Google Scholar.

50 Elliott, John, Empires of the Atlantic world: Britain and Spain in America, 1492–1830, New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2006Google Scholar, esp. chs. 10–11; Raynal and Choiseul cited in Emma Rothschild, ‘A horrible tragedy in the French Atlantic’, Past & Present, 192, 2006, pp. 74, 88.

51 See Bayly's, C. A.Empire and information: intelligence gathering and social communication in India, 1780–1870, New York: Cambridge University Press, 1996Google Scholar, though it stops short of analysing the role of intelligence sometimes sown into the process. On viral revolts, see Adelman, Jeremy, ‘An age of imperial revolutions’, American Historical Review, 113, 2, 2009, pp. 319–340Google Scholar; McFarlane, Anthony, ‘Rebellions in late colonial Spanish America: a comparative perspective’, Bulletin of Latin American Research, 14, 3, 1983, pp. 313–338Google Scholar; White, Ashli, Encountering revolution: Haiti and the making of the early republic, Baltimore, MD: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 2012Google Scholar; Geggus, David, ed., The impact of the Haitian revolution in the Atlantic world, Columbia, SC: University of South Carolina Press, 2001Google Scholar.

52 Buck-Morss, Susan, ‘Hegel and Haiti’, Social Inquiry, 26, 4, 2000, pp. 821–865Google Scholar.

53 Bayly, C. A., Birth of the modern world, 1780–1914, Oxford: Blackwell, 2004, p. 10Google Scholar, emphasis in original.

54 Cárcel, Ricardo García, La leyenda negra, Madrid: Alianza, 1992Google Scholar.

55 de Tocqueville, Alexis, ‘Travail sur l'Algérie’, in Oeuvres complètes, Paris: Gallimard, 1991, pp. 704–705Google Scholar; Pitts, Jennifer, A turn to empire: the rise of imperial liberalism in Britain and France, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2006Google Scholar.

56 Horne, Gerald, The deepest south: the United States, Brazil, and the African slave trade, New York: NYU Press, 2007, pp. 113–114Google Scholar; Smith, Rogers S., Stories of peoplehood: the politics and morals of political membership, New York: Cambridge University Press, 2003CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Adas, Michael, ‘From settler colony to global hegemon: integrating the exceptionalist narrative of the American experience into world history’, American Historical Review, 106, 5, 2001, pp. 1692–1720CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

57 Braudel, Fernand, ‘European expansion and capitalism’, in Chapters in Western civilization, 3rd edn, New York: Columbia University Press, 1961Google Scholar, vol. 1, p. 285.