a complex pyramid of

HEAD TO HEAD obligation, which was

expressed through the giving of
tribute – grain, cotton, luxury
ARE EMPIRES goods like warrior costumes,

ALWAYS BAD?
even sacrificial victims – to
their overlords. It was a similar
structure to ‘hegemonic’
empires, where power is more
Empires have been Caroline Dodds important than territory.
The Aztecs were more
part of human Pennock interested in extracting
history for wealth than deep control
and ‘imperial’ relationships
millennia. Are they, Being part of the shifted constantly, sometimes
of necessity, a bad Aztec federation through war and violence and
at other times through alliance
thing? was not without and cooperation.
its advantages The Aztecs did use their
formidable warriors to rise
Senior Lecturer in through the ranks – but only
International History at made it to the top of the pile
the University of Sheffield in the mid-15th century.
Being part of the Aztec
Stereotyping ‘empire’ as ‘good’ federation had advantages:
or ‘bad’ is not only deeply as a citizen of the empire,
flawed and ahistorical, but also you gained protection, access
misses the fact that a wide to communal grain stores and
range of types of state are land and the right to appeal to
bundled under this heading. the imperial courts for justice,
The ‘Aztec empire’, for example, and even your own sources of
wasn’t really an empire in the tribute. (Privileges varied
sense that is often imagined: depending on your willingness
it was a cluster of allied and to accept Aztec rule.) This loose
subject states, bound together network was the reason that
in a network of power and the ‘empire’ broke down
tribute relationships. When when the Spanish arrived, as
Cortés arrived in Mexico in member states looked for more
1519, he believed that the advantageous alliances. But
Aztecs of Tenochtitlan ruled an was it good or bad? For Aztecs,
‘empire’. The reality was much that depends on how high up
more unstable and complex. the food chain you were. From
Moctezuma II was the huey a historian’s point of view it is
tlatoani (great speaker) of neither, only a demonstration
what we call the ‘Triple that our ideas of empire are
Alliance’ of Tenochtitlan, often too reductive to allow
Texcoco and Tlacopan: three a nuanced understanding.
cities which dominated much
of central Mexico. Moctezuma
‘Aztecs were more
was not the only tlatoani interested in
in the region – there were
many others, all with their own
extracting wealth
territory. Each city was part of than deep control’
8 | History Today | July 2019
 share in this self-estimation.
In the second century ad,
the rhetorician Aelius Aristides
travelled from his home in
what is now Turkey to Rome to
deliver a lecture. Once, before
Rome had embarked on its
global mission, he declared,
life had been ‘little different
Tom Holland from living on a mountainside’. Toby Green
Now, thanks to Roman rule,
the world was filled with
Suspicion of earthly cities ‘radiant with grace Africa’s experience
greatness was and splendour’. Even amid of empire was of an
what had once been
fundamental to the barbarous wildernesses, alliance of African
culture exported there were ‘gymnasia and and European elites
fountains, gateways and
by Europeans temples, exquisite handicrafts Author of A Fistful of Shells:
and schools’. West Africa from the Rise of
Author of Dynasty: the Rise This, mutatis mutandis, the Slave Trade to the Age of
and Fall of the House of Caesar was the justification for empire Revolution (Allen Lane, 2019)
(Little, Brown, 2016) that modern European
imperialists – the Spanish, Empires excel at producing
Imperialism depends on the British, the French – liked quantity: of people moving
self-belief. When Sargon of to deploy. Yet there was a catch. (by force or not), increased
Akkad, in the third millennium No people in antiquity would populations, increased
bc, blazed a trail for empire, ever have succeeded in winning production and consumption
he did so convinced that he had an empire had they doubted and increased strains on
the backing of the gods: his their licence to slaughter and ecosystems. That makes
name meant ‘the legitimate enslave the vanquished; them good for statisticians,
king’. Conquerors who followed but Christians could not economists and those
in his wake invariably upheld be so innocent in their cruelty. who measure reality by
a similar conviction. Pharaohs The image of a God tortured spreadsheets. But the human
ruled as agents of ma’at; to death by an imperial power experience is not measurable
Chinese emperors claimed the lay at the heart of their faith. by a spreadsheet; and there is
Mandate of Heaven; Persian Suspicion of earthly greatness no quantifiable ‘balance sheet’
kings identified their rule was a fundamental aspect for empires.
with the order of the cosmos. of the culture that European Like all empires, Africa’s
‘You who shall be king conquerors exported to sought control over resources,
hereafter, be firmly on your the rest of the world. The most trade routes and people. The
guard against the Lie.’ So distinctive legacy of European West African empires of Mali
Darius the Great instructed imperialism was also its most and Songhay controlled the
his successors. To defy him was paradoxical: the doubt that gold trade, expanded through
to defy Truth itself. empire can ever be justified. conquest and, when Songhay
In the West, the most usurped Mali’s power in the
influential model of empire ‘Thanks to Roman 15th century, it did so by taking
has been the Roman one. control of trans-Saharan trade
Like other successful imperial
rule, the world was routes; meanwhile, the Omani
peoples, the Romans tended filled with cities empire on the Swahili
to see their sway as evidence Coast from the 17th to
of divine approval. In time,
“radiant with grace 19th centuries controlled
provincials would come to and splendour”’ production on the spice islands

July 2019 | History Today | 9

and the dhow trading routes. moral terms allows for
Whether the experience of particular narratives to be
this was ‘bad’ depended on who formulated – that the British
you were. For Islamic Empire was on balance ‘good’
theologians, itinerant because of the abolition of
preachers and traders, the slavery, for instance. Yet this
empires of Mali and Songhay assertion of ‘good’ is based
were beneficial. The circulation on some kind of ahistorical
of books, scholars and goods calculation according
increased. Alongside this went Kim Wagner to which the centuries of
growing artisanal production, slavery before its abolition
so craftsmen also gained. are essentially wiped from
Yet for subject and conquered Subjective and the ‘balance sheet’ while the
populations, the capacity to subsequent fate of freed slaves
be enslaved created insecurity. arbitrary notions as indentured labourers
Empires feed inequalities and of ‘good’ or ‘bad’ is effectively forgotten.
depend on coerced labour to do That does not mean that the
so. As Claude Meillassoux, are inadequate abolition of slavery was ‘bad’,
put it: ‘The surge of as analytical but rather that these labels are
philosophical or political altogether useless if our aim is
thought in ancient Greece or categories to actually understand the past
Rome is partly attributed to and recognise its continuing
the leisure time slavery made Senior Lecturer in British legacies. Or take something
available to the ruling classes.’ Imperial History at Queen like the Amritsar Massacre of
European empires in Africa Mary, University of London 1919, so often highlighted as an
also fought to control human example of a colonial atrocity
and material resources, first This is in many ways a silly that was indisputably ‘bad’.
through slavery, then through question and one that no That label, however, does
forced labour. They did not serious historian would ever nothing to help us understand
introduce these paradigms pose. The study of the past does why the event occurred the way
to Africa, but transformed not simply consist of trawling it did, nor how it was justified
existing institutions. Whether through history and meting or criticised at the time.
during the Atlantic slave trade, out labels of either ‘good’ or Not only are subjective and
the Scramble for Africa, ‘bad’ – and the category of arbitrary notions of ‘good’ or
or the Cold War, the African ‘empires’ is at any rate so vast ‘bad’ inadequate as analytical
experience depended on social and varied that any sweeping categories, they actively hinder
position: elite gatekeepers of assertions would in this regard a more complex engagement
people and resources could be meaningless. Today, the with the past. Rather than
expand prestige, even as notion that history can be a meaningful question in
subject populations were reduced to a moral binary and of itself, what must be
impoverished. As the Guyanese is most often seen in public interrogated is the perceived
historian Walter Rodney wrote, debates concerning the British need to attach simplistic and
the African experience of Empire. Yet, even if we narrow ahistorical labels to historical
empire was of the alliance of it down, the British Empire at events and structures.
African and European elites at the time when the first colonies
the expense of the African poor. in America were established is ‘The notion that
hardly the same as the British history can be
Empire at its apex, when
‘Whether the Kipling penned ‘The White
reduced to a moral
experience was Man’s Burden’ to guide binary is often seen
America as an imperial
“bad” depended on power of its own.
in debates about
who you were’ Judging history primarily in the British Empire’
10 | History Today | July 2019
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