Peoples and Empires: A Short History of European Migration, Exploration, and Conquest, from Greece to the Present (Modern Library Chronicles)

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. 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. 24) Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information. "Anthony Pagden tells the story of the great empires of the West, from the days of Alexander the Great and Rome to the fall of Europe's colonial system after World War II.". "Peoples and Empires explains how Europe's great colonial enterprises exploded across the world at the time and in the manner that they did, connects them in a mosaic of cause and effect, teases out their similarities and significant differences, and follows the waxing and waning tides of their fortunes. Pagden assesses how Europe made sense of the "New World"; how it integrated slavery into its economic framework and to what ends; and how, again and again, it found new ways of convincing itself that subjecting other peoples to its rule was an act of great generosity and kindness. Finally, he shows how the Age of Empire, at least as traditionally understood, came to an end, leaving conquerors and subjects changed beyond all recognition."--BOOK JACKET. A short history of European migration, exploration, and conquest, from Greece to the present--Cover