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A TALE OF THREE EMPIRES: Mughals, Ottomans, and Habsburgs in a Comparative Context

A TALE OF THREE EMPIRES: Mughals, Ottomans, and Habsburgs in a Comparative Context Sanjay Subrahmanyam The recent spate of writings about empire—following on the emergence of the unipolar American system at the end of the Cold War, and further stimulated by the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq after September 2001—has left those of us who have long worked on empires somewhat bemused. Or perhaps this new literature has produced a perverse form of “imperial trauma.” It is not easy for specialists to correct the myriad errors and dissect the outlandish theses of relative novices, then watch them laugh nonetheless all the way to the bank. I believe that we have by now spilled too much futile ink, whether on the ostensibly left-wing speculations of Messrs. Hardt and Negri or on the definitively right-wing suggestions of Niall Ferguson.1 We have surely heard enough of such propositions as that the British empire was a “force for good” given that Hitler and his allies could never have been defeated in the 1940s without the Indian troops recruited by the British.2 Ferguson’s argument could be redeployed in justification of Stalin and the gulag, for without that excellent invention of the Soviets’, how could Hitler have been defeated either? 1. Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri, Empire http://www.deepdyve.com/assets/images/DeepDyve-Logo-lg.png Common Knowledge Duke University Press

A TALE OF THREE EMPIRES: Mughals, Ottomans, and Habsburgs in a Comparative Context

Subrahmanyam, Sanjay
Common Knowledge , Volume 12 (1) – Jan 1, 2006
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References (54)

Publisher
Duke University Press
Copyright
Copyright 2006 by Duke University Press
ISSN
0961-754X
eISSN
1538-4578
DOI
10.1215/0961754X-12-1-66
Publisher site
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Abstract

Sanjay Subrahmanyam The recent spate of writings about empire—following on the emergence of the unipolar American system at the end of the Cold War, and further stimulated by the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq after September 2001—has left those of us who have long worked on empires somewhat bemused. Or perhaps this new literature has produced a perverse form of “imperial trauma.” It is not easy for specialists to correct the myriad errors and dissect the outlandish theses of relative novices, then watch them laugh nonetheless all the way to the bank. I believe that we have by now spilled too much futile ink, whether on the ostensibly left-wing speculations of Messrs. Hardt and Negri or on the definitively right-wing suggestions of Niall Ferguson.1 We have surely heard enough of such propositions as that the British empire was a “force for good” given that Hitler and his allies could never have been defeated in the 1940s without the Indian troops recruited by the British.2 Ferguson’s argument could be redeployed in justification of Stalin and the gulag, for without that excellent invention of the Soviets’, how could Hitler have been defeated either? 1. Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri, Empire

Journal

Common Knowledge – Duke University Press

Published: Jan 1, 2006

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