Tributary Empires in Global History (review)

The varied travails of the United States have placed empire on the public and intellectual agenda. Regrettably, the cognitive level of the resulting discussion has been low. Far too many commentators have assumed equivalence between Washington and Rome, exemplifying the habit of treating empire as a monolithic category. This superb collection is to be warmly welcomed for taking a different approach. Most obviously, it provides a clear sense of the basic character of pre-industrial empires. Although these polities lacked the advanced means of communication and transport that distinguished modern commercial empires, they were able nonetheless to maintain large expanses of territory by extracting tribute in various forms. The introduction and the chapter by Bang are especially useful in this regard, describing the pretensions widely shared by many such empires, while recognizing their fundamental logistical weaknesses. The dilemma of empire was nicely captured by the Roman poet Vergil in the Aeneid c. 19 B.C.: Should the state "spare the humble" or "destroy the proud"? Most empires tried the first strategy but acted savagely on occasion to remove any notions of genuine autonomy from the people that they had subjugated.

The first part of the book deals with historiography. Bayly show how discourses have been, and continue to be, shaped by telescopic views of development and by prejudicial views of Islam. Fabrizio De Donno complements this observation by revealing the extraordinary influence of James Bryce's Holy Roman Empire (London, 1864) on Italian historians. Baki Tezcan's chapter amusingly describes the "standard" view of late Ottoman degeneracy as a construct of those wishing to reform the Empire at the end of the nineteenth century.

The second part of the book ranges widely. Applying a Darwinian theory of social evolution, Garry Runciman makes intriguing comments about the differential longevity of empires. Michal Tymowski suggests that African empires were made especially weak by the absence of settled agricultural cores. Andre Wink details the ways in which settlement in north India changed Mongol behavior. David Ludden deals with disputes about the control of borderlands and frontiers. Finally, Giovanni Salmeri offers an account of Sicilian history from the Roman Empire to the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies, revealing how the inhabitants cannily developed strategies and discourses to defend their liberties.

The third part of the book turns to comparison. After Bang's chapter, a pair of chapters—one by Walter Scheidel about East and West Eurasia and the other by Chris Wickham about late Rome and the Arab Caliphate—study fiscal sociology. Stephen Blake's account of the inner politics of the Mughal, Safavid, and Ottoman Empires is a tour de force. The volume concludes with a chapter by Karen Barkey and Rudi Batzell explaining the different responses of the Ottomans, Romanovs, and Hapsburgs to the general crisis of the seventeenth century.¹

The contributors, justly celebrated as experts in their respective fields, write at the top of their form. Anyone wanting to understand the mechanisms of rule in premodern empires, and much more, would do well to start with this volume.