An Imperial Nation-State

2021 ◽  
pp. 941-963
Author(s):  
David Todd
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Continuous Process ◽  
Historical Research ◽  
Nation State ◽  
French Empire ◽  
French Experience ◽  
Informal Empire ◽  
Imperial Power ◽  
Imperial Expansion ◽  
The Ideal

Rather than as a continuous process, French imperial expansion is better understood as a succession of four distinct empires: a Bourbon mercantilist empire until 1789, a messianic European empire in the Revolutionary and Napoleonic era, a global informal empire in the nineteenth century, and a republican territorial empire after 1880. In each of these empires, the ideal of assimilation, in its Catholic, Napoleonic, or republican variants, was much trumpeted by French empire-builders. But historical research has shown that, in practice, French imperial power chiefly relied on pragmatic collaboration with imperial subjects and auxiliaries. Successive waves of imperial expansion rarely resulted in extensive “Frenchification,” although universalist rhetoric often inadvertently contributed to the outbreak of violent and successful rebellions against imperial rule as in Haiti, Napoleonic Europe, or Algeria. Despite such moments of dislocation, the French experience illustrates well the potential and resilience of the nation-state as a powerbase for imperial expansion.

Contested Citizenship

2017 ◽  
Vol 9 (2) ◽  
pp. 15-39 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ingrid Brühwiler
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Public Education ◽  
Nation State ◽  
The Church ◽  
The Ideal

This article examines public education and the establishment of the nation-state in the first half of the nineteenth century in Switzerland. Textbooks, governmental decisions, and reports are analyzed in order to better understand how citizenship is depicted in school textbooks and whether (federal) political changes affected the image of the “imagined citizen” portrayed in such texts. The “ideal citizen” was, first and foremost, a communal and cantonal member of a twofold society run by the church and the secular government, in which nationality was depicted as a third realm.

Champagne Capitalism

2021 ◽  
pp. 123-174
Author(s):  
David Todd
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Special Kind ◽  
Economic Success ◽  
French Empire ◽  
Imperial Expansion

This chapter highlights the extent of French economic success in the mid-nineteenth century, providing a deeper understanding of the sources of French imperial expansion. The French empire of taste was not a purely capitalistic enterprise. It pursued profit, but also power and prestige. The chapter explores the cultural, political, and economic origins of French specialization in the provision of luxury and semi-luxury commodities, in order to understand how it helped France regain imperial status after 1815. By reconciling economic modernity with the preservation of firm hierarchies, French conspicuous commodities exercised a special kind of fascination on foreign elites and facilitated collaboration with other imperial and indigenous powers. The act of turning economic gains into global political advantages was especially overt during the Second Napoleonic Empire, and the latter's downfall contributed to the eventual decline of the empire of taste after 1870.

Nation-State Science: Lappology and Sweden's Ethnoracial Purity

2014 ◽  
Vol 56 (2) ◽  
pp. 320-350 ◽  
Author(s):  
Greggor Mattson
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Scientific Work ◽  
State Building ◽  
Nation State ◽  
Empirical Knowledge ◽  
Paradigm Shifts ◽  
Scientific Thought ◽  
Scientific Labor ◽  
And Control ◽  
The Ideal

AbstractThis paper introduces the concept of “nation-state science” to describe the scientific work of ethnoracial classification that made possible the ideal of the homogenous nation-state. Swedish scientists implicitly defined their nation for Continental Europeans when they explicitly created knowledge about the “Lapps” (today's Sámi/Saami). Nation was coupled to state through such ethnoracial categories, the content of which were redefined as Sweden's geopolitical power rose and fell. These shifts sparked methodological innovations to redefine the Lapp, making it a durable category whose content was plastic enough to survive paradigm shifts in political and scientific thought. Idiosyncratic Swedish concerns thus became universalized through the scientific diffusion of empirical knowledge about Lapps and generalizable anthropometric techniques to distinguish among populations. What Sweden lost during the nineteenth century in terms of geopolitical power, it gained in terms of biopower: the knowledge and control of internal populations made possible by its widely adopted anthropometric innovations. Nation-state science helps unpack the interrelationships between state-building, nation-making, and scientific labor.

scholarly journals The French Revolution and the New Spatial Format for Empire

2021 ◽  
Vol 44 (3) ◽  
pp. 499-528
Author(s):  
Megan Maruschke
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
French Revolution ◽  
Nation State ◽  
Global History ◽  
French Empire ◽  
Imperial History ◽  
History Of ◽  
New Type ◽  
The French Revolution ◽  
The Revolution

Abstract Both global history and the new imperial history identify an emerging convergence of spatial formats, practices, and knowledge for organizing societies during the nineteenth century, though each emphasizes different competitive formats: the territorializing nation-state and the enduring empire. Rather than contrasting empire and nation-state, this article takes their combination seriously through the example of the respatialization of the French Empire during the Revolution and the reorganization of domestic territory into departments. The history of departmentalization underscores the emerging and changing interrelationships between nation and empire. The territorialization of metropolitan France, which developed out of imperial and transregional exchanges, was emblematic of the new type of empire that became a prevailing model for societal organization in the nineteenth century: the nation-state with imperial extensions. L'histoire globale et la nouvelle histoire impériale ont toutes deux signalé l’émergence d'une convergence des formats spatiaux, des pratiques et des savoirs tout au long du dix-neuvième siècle, mais chacun de ces deux champs de recherche insiste sur des formats distincts et rivaux pour organiser les sociétés : l'Etat-nation en voie de territorialisation, d'une part, et l'empire qui perdure, d'autre part. En effet, plutôt que d'opposer l'empire à l'Etat-nation, cet article prend au sérieux leur conjonction en examinant à nouveaux frais la respatialisation de l'empire français pendant la Révolution et la réorganisation du territoire national en départements. L'histoire de la départementalisation met ainsi en évidence l’émergence et le développement des relations mutuelles entre nation et empire. La territorialisation de la France métropolitaine, qui se développa à la faveur d’échanges impériaux et transrégionaux, fut caractéristique du nouveau type d'empire qui devint un modèle dominant d'organisation des sociétés au dix-neuvième siècle : celui de l'Etat-nation pourvu de prolongements impériaux.

Property Rights and Empire Building: Britain's Annexation of Lagos, 1861

1980 ◽  
Vol 40 (4) ◽  
pp. 777-798 ◽  
Author(s):  
Antony G. Hopkins
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Property Rights ◽  
Institutional Change ◽  
Historical Research ◽  
African History ◽  
Empire Building ◽  
Imperial Expansion ◽  
New Perspective ◽  
Century Development

Britain's acquisiton of Lagos has already attracted considerable historical research, but it is examined here from a new perspective and with the help of unused sources. Three conclusions are drawn. First, the episode itself is reinterpreted to give prominence to changing property rights as both a cause and a consequence of annexation. Second, it is argued that the Lagos case can be placed in a broader framework of imperial expansion in which institutional change formed the centerpiece of a nineteenth-century development drive. Third, it is suggested that the study of African history might benefit from assigning higher priority to the analysis of property rights other than those embodied in slave-holding.

scholarly journals Het belang van '1814' in de Belgische archiefgeschiedenis

1970 ◽  
Vol 71 ◽  
pp. 99-113
Author(s):  
Timo Van Havere
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
United Kingdom ◽  
The Netherlands ◽  
Turning Point ◽  
Historical Research ◽  
French Empire ◽  
The United Kingdom ◽  
National Archives ◽  
History Of ◽  
The City

In recent years archivists and historians have been pondering the importance of '1800' inthe history of archives and historiography: did the turn of that century mark the start of'modern' archival organisation, focused on historical research? Even though the accessibilityof Belgian archives was unsurpassed in nineteenth-century Europe, the archival historyof that country has been neglected thus far. By looking at the National Archives inBrussels and the city archives of Ghent, new light can be shed on the Belgian archivallandscape around 1800. As it turns out, 1814 was an important turning point. The politicalchange ftom the French Empire to the United Kingdom of the Netherlands was used bysome historians to secure an appointment as archivist. At the same time, the new nationalgovernment actively remodelled archives into historiographical institutions.

Empire and Allegory in Henry James's The Europeans

2010 ◽  
Vol 45 (1) ◽  
pp. 39-51
Author(s):  
KIM VANDERLAAN
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Nathaniel Hawthorne ◽  
Historical Research ◽  
The Novel ◽  
French Empire ◽  
Political Allegory ◽  
Art For Art's Sake ◽  
European Family

My article argues for reading the novel as political allegory. America's efforts in the early and mid-nineteenth century are represented by Robert Acton trying to compete with a “European family” for international colonizing privileges. A blend of British and French empire can be seen in the person of Eugenia, the Baroness Munster – originally American by birth, who has, though her years as European nobility, adopted the policy of expansionism. To fully understand James's caustic comment on imperialistic ventures – most notably as he pits the pernicious nature of European exploits against the more humanistic pursuit of art for art's sake – we can read Eugenia's brother, Felix, as a proponent of aestheticism, committed to seeking beauty in all life pursuits. In sum, I suggest that the novel need not be dismissed (as it largely has been for so many decades) as a simplistic, insignificant part of James's oeuvre. I use historical research, literary analyses of other scholars, statements made by James in his letters, and critical statements by James in such commentaries as his biography of Nathaniel Hawthorne in order to support my views. Of course, I use the primary text, The Europeans, for much of my support.

scholarly journals THE EAST INDIA COLLEGE DEBATE AND THE FASHIONING OF IMPERIAL OFFICIALS, 1806–1858

2017 ◽  
Vol 60 (4) ◽  
pp. 943-969 ◽  
Author(s):  
CALLIE WILKINSON
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Educational Theory ◽  
Elite Education ◽  
Early Nineteenth Century ◽  
The Press ◽  
Imperial Expansion ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Practical Level ◽  
The Ideal

AbstractThroughout its relatively brief existence, the English East India Company's college in Hertfordshire was hotly debated in Company headquarters, parliament, and the press. These disputes are deeply revealing of contemporary attitudes to the inter-related issues of elite education, government, ‘Britishness’, and empire. Previously, historians interested in the relationship between education and empire have concentrated largely on British attempts to construct colonial subjects, but just as important and just as controversial to contemporaries was the concomitant endeavour to create colonial officials. On a practical level, disputes in educational theory made it difficult to decide on how to train recruits who would satisfy growing demands for transparency, accountability, and merit. Furthermore, on certain points contemporaries fundamentally disagreed about which qualities an imperial official should have. These disagreements reflected deeper uncertainties, particularly regarding the ideal relationship to be fostered between the Company, Britain, and India. In short, this debate highlights the tensions, anxieties, and ambiguities surrounding reform and imperial expansion in the early nineteenth century.

scholarly journals The Two Faces of the Hungarian Empire

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-13
Author(s):  
Bálint Varga
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Political Discourse ◽  
Late Nineteenth Century ◽  
Nation State ◽  
Southeastern Europe ◽  
Habsburg Monarchy ◽  
Pressure Groups ◽  
Political Discourses ◽  
Informal Empire ◽  
Late Nineteenth

Abstract This article investigates the uses of the term “Hungarian Empire” during the long nineteenth century. It argues that the term “empire” emerged in the Hungarian political discourse in the Vormärz era and it was used to denote the imagined integrity of Hungary proper, Transylvania, Croatia, Slavonia, and eventually Dalmatia on the grounds of the historic rights of the Holy Crown of Hungary in the form of a composite nation-state. This usage of the term became ubiquitous after the Austro-Hungarian Compromise. A second meaning pertaining to imperialist foreign policy entered the dictionary of Hungarian political discourse in the late nineteenth century. Fed by the recently created memory of the medieval Hungarian great power, several pressure groups in fin-de-siècle Hungary lobbied for a Hungarian (informal) empire in Southeastern Europe and beyond. While several lobby groups were firmly embedded in the framework of the Austro-Hungarian monarchy, some of these visionaries imagined a Hungarian empire independent from the Habsburg structures. A short comparison with the Croatian and Czech political discourses illuminates that the first meaning of empire (composite nation-state) did not differ in substance from contemporary terminology in other Habsburg lands but the second meaning (imperialism) was indeed a unique phenomenon in the Habsburg monarchy.

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