Empires and Bureaucracy in World History: From Late Antiquity to the Twentieth Century ed. by Peter Crooks and Timothy H. Parsons
John Deàk
Reviewed by: Empires and Bureaucracy in World History: From Late Antiquity to the Twentieth Century ed. by Peter Crooks Timothy H. Parsons John Deak Century. Edited peter crooks timothy h. parsons. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2016. xxii, 474 pp. $126.00 (hardcover); $35.99 (paper); $29.00 (ebook). This volume of eighteen essays, spanning over 450 pages text, collectively examines intersection empire bureaucracy. Call them what you will: bean-counters, pedants, mustachioed Napoleons love with their arbitrary authority, officials—"bureaucrats" is not necessarily a neutral term—were necessary for princes, kings, emperors, trading colonial corporations, imperial governments project power build maintain empire. have been us millennia, but how did they "rule different peoples across vast expanses space time?" Following "imperial turn," which has established much empires rule nation-states exception, these essays ask "real actually ran" (p. 3). Together including very good introductory essay editors, examine terms bureaucracies, officials who work ruling. Their subject then, on discourses mentalities that undergirded economies internalization discipline, rather "formal institutions governance" 7). admittedly history old school, one informed accumulation knowledge practices social cultural histories. [End Page 433] The themselves span breathtaking breadth time space. Patricia Ebrey contributes an examination bureaucracy Song China (960–1276 a.d.). She argues Chinese provided infrastructure govern 100 million subjects relative effectiveness stability. István T. Kristó-Nagy writes about Arab rulers Persian administrators early years Arab-Islamic conquest. there we move forward Incan Empire (Chris Given-Wilson) Ottoman (Karen Barkey). These help expand our idea administrators, were did, often enough could come up effective ways projecting from center. there, book shifts back center Europe five covering period late Roman Middle Ages. Michael Whitby it was above all administrative competence combined unified unifying culture glued disparate pieces together. A strong Haldon Byzantium makes argument Eastern indeed bureaucratic state. It deeply-rooted institutions, staffed Byzantine officials, allowed weather crises. Moreover, itself, belonging common class, forge connections another—often providing flexibility system may looked more rigid paper than or needed be. Essays follow Carolingian military administration, bureaucrats raise army; crisis English State Angevin turn thirteenth century (John Gillingham); importance word medium parchment Ages (Len Scales). Finally, England "brittleness bureaucracy" 1259 1453. last section six turns modern commercial Spain, Britain, France. Christopher Storrs' Spain elaborates gave way encroachment local elites New World, so when sought reassert its authority promoting efficiency nineteenth century, provoked resentment among subjects. Jack P. Greene's Britain's overseas echoes this sentiment, American colonies being case point. wonderful Broers Napoleon's empire...
Journal of World History