Asian Empires Revisited

vi Editors’ Introduction Erica Brindley and On-­ cho Ng Asian Empires Revisited: Decentering Imperialism While empires in Asia, such as the mighty Mauryan and Qin, have admittedly existed since ancient times, the concept of empire has largely been defined according to Western history and historiography. To be sure, various Asian states throughout history might legitimately be defined and conceived in terms of the elements and attributes known to have been shared by empires in world history, but the almost exclusive use of Western historical experiences as the criteria of intelligibility tends to flatten the particularities of imperial regimes that laid outside of the ambit of Europe. The unfortunate result has been that even though many governing entities could indeed have been understood as “empires” in premodern world history, the notion of “empire” in much existing scholarship has a propensity to retain the imprint of a historical pattern that begins with the Roman imperium and extends to the Byzantine and Holy Roman empires in the premodern period. This paradigm, presumed to be of universal applicability, is then appropriated as the working definition of the modern empires of Portugal, Spain, the Netherlands, Great Britain, America, and Japan, notwithstanding the fact that the new technological prowess of these latter-­ day imperial versions is duly acknowledged. In brief, the study of world empires has been dominated by this patently Eurocentric, and thus relatively static, conception of empire, which has served as the basic model for understanding the nature and effects of various megaterritorial governing structures throughout world history. Our conception and use of the term empire in this special issue loosens the term (and indeed the entire nomenclature) of empire from the dominion of a single historical trajectory largely projected by the Roman–­ Byzantine–­European models. The authors featured in the following pages, Editors’ Introduction vii especially those who work on premodern Asian empires, describe imperial regimes in terms of some well-­known and generally accepted general features of empire. Most notably, they see empire as a colossal state that possesses military, economic, cultural, ideological, juridical, bureaucratic, and administrative controls and claims over a substantial, multiethnic region or territory in the world. But by treating premodern Asia as a unique mega-­region that was distinct from European homeland cultures and histories, and by paying due attention to its particular methods of imperial growth and development, these authors offer new definitions of empire that dislocate it from the culturally parochial and essentialized baggage of more European-­ derived discussions of empire dominant in general, contemporary academic circles. Specifically, Pamela Kyle Crossley and Peter K. Bol both urge us to exercise caution when applying the concept and term of “empire” to some of the premodern East Asian mega-­ states. In fact, they argue that we might serve historical realities better if we refrain from labeling these mega-­states as “empires” at all, unless we can establish a far more precise means of distinguishing distinct levels and types of military, ideological, and administrative control across the East–­ West divide. As far as Crossley and Bol are concerned, the premodern empires they discuss did not maintain tight, homogenous, supraregional control throughout. Rather, they exercised administrative, legal control most directly through their civil governments in the “inner” realms and only nebulous, ephemeral control via military structures in their “outer,” colonial realms. Such manifestations do not neatly fit the patterns of imperial rule often imputed to Roman and Byzantine empires, patterns that stress the clear and systematic transformation of a state into a fully centralized regime with major reach in terms of both administrative and military control. This special issue also provides a discursive arena for the vast concept of “Asian imperialisms,” which covers a conceptual ground even more massive than that of “Asian empires” to the extent that imperialism is a putative historical phenomenon abstracted from the workings of a conglomeration of empires. Current models of imperialism tend to take the concept itself for granted, presenting it as a naturalized analytic category that describes a particular power relationship or structure of authority, the pattern of which is based on relatively recent examples, drawing from the British, American, European, and Japanese realms. In a general way, these imperialist experiences and examples

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