A Study Guide for Political Theories for Students: IMPERIALISM

By Gale and Cengage

Designed with busy students in mind, this concise study guide examines major political theories and is organized into the following easily digestible sections: overview, history, theory in depth, theory in action, analysis and critical response, topics for further study, and bibliography.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Cengage Learning - Gale
• Release date: Jan 27, 2015
• ISBN: 9781535831109

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Empire

HISTORY

Historically, there have been many forms of imperialism. Indeed, arguably, the whole history of human civilization may be written as the rise and fall of consecutive imperial political powers. These started to occur after the Neolithic (or farming) revolution, which led humans to settle and create political units capable of organizing political, administrative, economic, and military power on a large scale. The first instances of these political enterprises occurred where fertile arable land, water, staple food crops, and suitable climate and geography intersected with the arrival of human beings emigrating, at first from Africa and increasing their numbers substantially.

The parts of the world which allowed the formation of the first substantial states were the Middle East (particularly along the Nile and Euphrates rivers), in the river valleys of north India, and in the coastal lands and large river valleys of China. Typically, an imperial order was preceded by a system of smaller states coexisting with one another in relations that varied from amicable trade and cultural intercourse to violent conflict and war. Such multi–state systems broke down when one of the participating states was able to accumulate sufficient power to overwhelm the others and replace a society of competing and cooperating states with imperial rule. This was the manner in which, for examples, the Egyptian, Persian, Roman, Chinese, Ottoman, and Aztec empires were formed.

The ancient imperial states of Rome and China were created at almost the same time by similar processes and sustained by broadly similar methods of military force and then administrative efficiency. On the other hand, empires based on the outstanding abilities of a singular individual—Alexander the Great, who, according to legend, wept when he had no more worlds to conquer; Attila the Hun, who defeated the Roman imperial forces; the Mogul empires, which were later even more extensive—were based almost solely on military conquest, and often did not long survive their creator's death.

The more recent cases of European imperialism are interesting for two reasons. First, attempts to displace the state system within Europe by an imperial domination of one state have failed since the collapse of the Roman Empire. The resulting constant competition helped create the expansionist tendencies of the European system as a whole. Secondly, the collection of European states expanded their own system throughout the world through a number of competing yet cooperating imperial orders, thereby developing the modern global state system.

Recent European–based imperial expansion is often treated as if it were the only instance of imperial subjugation by one political entity over another. This is an extremely ahistorical perspective. Competition within and between political structures, sometimes involving territorial expansion and imperial conquest, is part of the process of human evolution. The most recent forms have often—but not always—involved the subjugation of non–Europeans by European peoples. But this is more a reflection of the distribution of power in the modern era than it is of the European peoples having a more deeply developed imperial ambition than others.

Imperial expansion is as much an expression of power relations as it is of cultural intentions.

Ancient Imperialisms

The first three areas to be brought under intensive agricultural cultivation and thereby support large settled populations with stable political entities were in the Middle East, northern India, and China. In each area, competing states soon vied for supremacy and one emerged, for some time, as the dominant imperial power.

For several thousand years in the Middle East, the Egyptian state, ruled by Pharaohs and based on the alluvial soil and annual floods of the Nile Valley, was the dominant military force. It rested on a large population, mass infantry, advanced horse–utilizing military technology, and an agricultural output well organized by a sophisticated state administration. It successfully competed with other neighboring entities, particularly the Persian Empire, which was able to build a similar edifice on the basis of the Euphrates River.

In northern India, the two great rivers, the Ganges and the Indus, also supported state systems, which were from time to time to generate dominant powers. This process is described in The Arthashastra by Kautilya, a fourth–century Indian political philosopher often compared to the Italian philosopher Machiavelli, whose learned works were designed to assist a ruler in his dealings with rivals, his subjects, and other states. This system was to be later subjugated by the Moguls.

In east Asia, Chinese civilization also supported a period known in Chinese history as that of the Warring States. This came to an end in the third century B.C., when these diverse but culturally similar states were unified by Ch'in to create the Chinese imperial state.

In the Mediterranean world, Greek civilization also threw up a city–state system 2,500 years ago. Like contemporary China and India, and later Europe and Central America, the Greek world comprised a number of discrete sovereign authorities welded together by a common civilization. Wars between the Greek states were common. Indeed, the first study of international relations deals with one of the longest of the generalized wars between them. Thucydides' History of The Peloponnesian Wars, which describes a