Anthony Pagden - Peoples and Empires [2003] [A]

Editorial Reviews
From Publishers Weekly
This addition to the Modern Library Chronicles series is described by the author as "a very short book on a very big subject." Happily, Pagden handles the topic with skill, learning, wit and balance. A professor of history at Johns Hopkins, Pagden has written extensively on empires, imperialism and human migration. His new offering is an overview summarizing the influence of empires on the development of civilization. Beginning with the first empire in European history, that of Alexander the Great, which was also the first empire to claim a universal scope, Pagden goes on to examine the land-based empires of Rome and the Hapsburgs that gave way to the seagoing empires of England and the Netherlands. The author makes much of the fact that these last two commercial empires were founded to be "empires of liberty," but derived much of their wealth and power from the exploitation of slave labor. Pagden has not written a screed against European hegemony, though. He knows full well the good and the bad of these institutions ("Most empires have offered their subject peoples a combination of opportunities and restraints"), and he impressively illustrates the ways in which the history of empire has for many centuries past been in fact the history of the human race. (on sale Apr.
Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.
--This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

From Library Journal
Pagden's (Lords of All the World: Ideologies of Empire in Spain, Britain and France 1500-1800; European Encounters with the New World) elegant series of essays, connected by his theories on European efforts at empire, does not so much define empire as discuss the evolution of the phenomenon. Pagden looks at our needs for travel and for cities, needs that he sees as necessary requisites of an empire. Alexander the Great created Europe's first empire, which was held together largely by his personality. In trying to imitate Alexander, the Romans created the model for all time. Politically, all European countries with ambitions of empire have imitated Rome, and the Catholic Church reinforced this model in the spiritual realm. Pagden's chapters on the Spanish Empire are exemplary, yet the chapter on slavery and the admission that this institution irreparably stains Europe's empires allows him to discuss the demise of empire, the rise of nationalism, and the directions in which these developments could take civilization. Recommended as a good overview for general readers. Clay Williams, Hunter Coll., New York
Copyright 2001 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

From Booklist
The most recent installment in the Modern Library Chronicles is another digestible account of a complex historical subject. This objective overview of European empire building and colonization commences with the diffusion of Greek civilization and traces the subsequent evolution of the ensuing Roman, Spanish, French, and British empires. More interesting than how those empires physically expanded is the insightful discussion on what motivated individual men and entire nations to migrate and conquer. Although responsible for horrific human suffering and the inevitable curtailment of certain freedoms, European empires often became bastions of cultural diversity and afforded both the colonists and the colonized unique educational, economic, and social opportunities that might otherwise never have been enjoyed. This engrossing chronicle of the history of European imperialism mirrors, to a certain extent, the history of modern Western civilization. Margaret Flanagan
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

From the Inside Flap
Written by one of the world?s foremost historians of human migration, Peoples and Empires is the story of the great European empires?the Roman, the Spanish, the French, the British?and their colonies, and the back-and-forth between ?us? and ?them,? culture and nature, civilization and barbarism, the center and the periphery. It?s the history of how conquerors justified conquest, and how colonists and the colonized changed each other beyond all recognition.

From the Back Cover
“Two thousand years of empire compressed into two hundred pages, without sacrifice of detail or lucidity. The breadth of vision is phenomenal.” —Roy Porter

“Masterly . . . Pagden has an unerring sense of evidence, a gift of lucidity, an eye for a good story, a sharp taste for argument, and a vivid, pithy way with words. . . . He combines without obvious contrivance a survey and a story, with broad horizons and a perfect pace.” —Felipe Fernández-Armesto

“Without condescension, [Pagden] writes lucidly for the educated non-expert. Sketching a huge territory of knowledge, his compact essay belongs to a series . . . which on the strength of this volume is an admirable publishing venture indeed.” —Chicago Tribune

About the Author
Anthony Pagden was educated in Santiago de Chile, London, Barcelona, and Oxford. Over the past two decades, he has been the Reader in Intellectual History at Cambridge, a fellow of King’s College, a visiting professor at Harvard, and Harry C. Black Professor of History at Johns Hopkins University. Currently a professor of political science at UCLA, he is a regular contributor to the Times Literary Supplement, The New Republic, and The New York Times.