Does Empire Matter?

18 Historically Speaking March/April 2007 reflects on the most important events of the last millennium compared with the first, the ascent of the English-speaking peoples to predominance in the world surely ranks the highest. At the end of the first millennium it was the Arabs who could have righdy had the same sense of achievement, as seated in Baghdad they surveyed the world described by die Syrian geographer al- Muqaddasi : The Islam he beheld was spread like a pavilion under the tent of the sky, erected as if for some great ceremonial occasion, arrayed widi great cities in the role of princes .... The cities were linked not only by the obvious elements in a common culture . . . but also by commerce. The strict political unity which once characterized Islam had been shattered in the 10th century . . . yet a sense of comity survived, and travelers could feel at home tiiroughout the Dar-al Islam—or to use an image popular with poets—in a garden of Islam, cultivated, walled against the world, yielding for its privileged occupants , shades and tastes of paradise.'1 At die end of the second millennium Britain was a small island off the coast of Eurasia, whose rise had begun with a few trading outposts established by its merchant-adventurers around die world. Finding a power vacuum in crumbling empires or in empty lands populated by stateless people, the British established a vast empire. They led die way to modernity, and at the end of the 19th century Britain's dominions and influence stretched to all four corners of the globe. In the last century its outpost in the New World was to further extend this heritage, both economically and militarily. Seen from the perspective of world history, in the last millennium the hopes expressed by Virgil for Rome—"For these I set no bounds in space or time; / I have given diem empire without end"—seem to have been fulfilled in large measure for the descendants of this "sceptered isle." Yet in those millennial celebrations in the Dome there was no pride in these amazing British achievements. For in New Labour's modernizing project, Britain's past, and particularly its empire , has been airbrushed away. But this is a mistake, and it is time to recognize diat the British and now the American Imperium have offered the best hope of peace and prosperity to vast multitudes around die globe in a congenitally disorderly world. Deepak LaI is theJames S. Coleman Professor of InternationalDevelopment Studies at UCLA. His most recent book is Reviving die Invisible Hand: The Case for Classical Liberalism in the TwentyFirst Century (Princeton University Press, 2006). ' Niccolo Machiavelli, The Prince (Modern Library, 1513/1950), 18. : S. E. Finer, The History of Government, 3 vols. (Oxford University Press, 1997), 1:34. 1 P.J.Cain and A.G. Hopkins, British Imperialism, 1688-2000, 2nd ed. (Longman, 2001). ' Quotations from Cain and Hopkins, British Imperialism, 98, 99. ' The nationalist claims of the deleterious effects of the British Raj on India are critically evaluated in my The Hindu Equilibrium: India c. 1500 B.C - 2000A.D., abridged and revised ed. (Oxford University Press, 2005) and Lloyd G. Reynolds, Economic Growth in the Third World, 1850-1980 (Yale University Press, 1985). 'See Robert Siadeisky,John MaynardKtynes, Vol. 1: Hopes Betrayed, 1883-1920 (Macmillan, 1983), 325. 1 The former concern the worldview of a civilization that provides its moral anchor, and in Plato's words "how one should live." The latter concern beliefs about the best way to make a living . Sec Deepak IaI, Unintended Consequences: The Impact of Factor Endowments, Culture, andPolitics on Long-Rnn EconomicPerformance (MIT Press, 1998). H See Deepak LaL In Praise of Empires: Globalisation and Order (Palgrave Macmillan, 2004), eh. 8. " Quoted in Felipe Fernandez-Armesto, Millennium:A History of the Last Thousand Years (Scribner, 1995), 35. Does Empire Matter? Jan Nederveen Pieterse Is empire the main street of history, or is it a side street or a cul-de-sac? In relation to American domestic problems and economic prospects, does empire matter? In relation to global problems, does empire matter? Does the American pursuit of primacy contribute to global stability, or is...