Product Description

This book explores the role of empire in world history. What does it mean to be an empire? How does one empire differ from another? Why does an empire rise and why fall? Why have empires flourished in some eras and regions of the world but not in others?;On an unusually wide canvas, Dominic Lieven addresses all these questions. His central focus is on the rise and fall of empire in Russia and the Soviet Union. The dynamics of empire's history in Russia are explored through comparisons not only between the tsarist and Soviet periods but also between Russia, its great contemporaries and rivals of the Ottoman, Habsburg and British empires, and a broad range of other cases from ancient China to Rome to the present-day United States, Indonesia, India and the European Union.;Dominic Lieven shows that many of empire's dilemmas still have their force in today's world. His perspective throws light on the current crisis in the former USSR by comparing post-Soviet problems and dangers with the upheavals caused by the collapse of other leading powers' empires.A fresh view of many of today's most intractable issues is also provided, from the troubles in Ulster to ethnic cleansing in the Balkans and the fate of Russian, British, German and Asian diasporas stranded by the collapse of empire. ;Here is history on the grandest scale. Dominic Lieven questions assumptions, raises unexpected questions and approaches familiar historical topics from unfamiliar Russian angles. He combines formidable erudition with stimulating readability.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #1398714 in Books
• Published on: 2000-09-07
• Original language: English
• Binding: Hardcover
• 486 pages

About the Author
Dominic Lieven graduated first in his year, 1973, at the University of Cambridge. He was a Kennedy Scholar at Harvard and, on completing his PhD, became a lecturer in the Department of Government at the London School of Economics, where he is now Professor of Russian Government. He has also been a visiting professor at Tokyo and Harvard universities, as well as a Humboldt Fellow in Gottingen and Munich. He has published widely, mostly on late imperial Russia, and his family history connects him to a surprising range of empires.

Customer Reviews

Rambling, but not interesting
Dominic Lieven, the historian of Imperial Russia has written a long book on a big subject. In spite of the broad title ("Empire"), the book, as suggested by the sub-title, is really a comparison between modern continental European empires (Ottoman, Austro-Hungarian, Russian and Soviet) and a modern Atlantic Empire (British). He also makes a couple of stabs at the Chinese empire, although wisely steers away from making many points about this subject, which is likely to suck in the unwary. He does not attempt a definition of empire as such, and while acknowledging the socio-geographical school of thought (pioneered by Montesquieu and currently incarnated in Huntington), largely steers clear of "German-philosophy-type-First-Principles" and such. This is a relief, because he has much to say just looking at actual facts. Although he concludes that, after the (probably terminal) eclipse of France as a continental great power after the First Empire, the real competition is between Germany and Russia, and that when one is in the ascendant (as was Germany in 1871-1945 and since 1990) the other one is in the relapse (Russia was ascendant between the Vienna Congress and the creation of the German Reich). While intuitively appealing, Lieven does not say enough about Germany proper (the "Drang Nach Osten", for example) to support this contention, given that his focus is on the Southern part of cultural Germany, the Austro-Hungarian empire.

As a historian of Ukraine, Lieven observes that the Russian heartland is Ukraine and that Russia may not be a great power separated from Ukraine, which raises the ugly likelihood of a future anexation of Ukraine and other neighbouring territories of historical, cultural or military significance by the extant Russia, not unlike what Germany did with the Saarland, the Sudetenland and other regions, prior to invading Poland and precipitating we-know-what. What is clear is that Russia is not likely to remain within its current borders, which have stripped out virtually all territorial gains made by the successive Russian and Soviet Regimes since Peter the Great at least. He points out that Russia has experienced three modernization waves: one, starting with Peter the Great and probably "petering" out with the disappointments of Alexander I and the regression of Nicholas I, the second one starting with the liberation of the serfs by Alexander II and extending to the Soviet times, winding down with the ossification of the regime with Breznev and Andropov after a failure by Kruschev to re-ignite the revolutionary fires, and a third one started by Gorbachov and still apparently in full swing. Given that each renewal was accompanied by a period or Russian Hegemony (the first one culminated during the second half of the XVIII century, under Catherine the Great and the second one in the 1940s and 1950s, under Stalin and Kruschev), it is clear that Lieven believes that a Russian comeback is waiting around the corner, hard is it may be to believe this now.

Very perceptively, Lieven notes that growing unrest with Islamic nations can only lead to a rapprochement between the USA and Russia. This was published in 2000, well before S-11 and the current entente cordiale between the 2 great nations.

He also has a few things to say concerning current multi-lingual "empires", such as Malaysia, Indonesia and (surprise, surpise) the European Union. As may be expected with an author writing on this subject, he has antipathy towards nationalism and thinks that such "empires" may yet make a comeback. But he acknowledges that they are not sustainable absent an over-arching ideology powerful to overcome nationalism, such as counter-reformation in the Habsburg Empire in XVI and XVII centuries or Communism in the Soviet Union (or Nazism in the Third Reich, or Islam in the Ottoman Empire). Whether contemporary multinational "empires" have such ideologies is not obvious.

Although Lieven is erudite and writes engagingly, and in spite of the interest of his mildly revisionist views on the Ottoman and Austro-Hungarian empires, I missed some of the other empires that competed with the Russians in their quest for continental mastery. A small chapter dealing with the Baltics (Polish, Swedish and Lithuanians) would have been useful. A major rival empire that fought Russia not once but twice within the XX century, Japan, is barely mentioned. And British rivalry with Russia in the context of the "Big Game" (over Afghanistan) also is mentioned only in passing.

Still, it's difficult not to like such a sane writer, who clearly sees that apparatchik kleptocrats such as those lording it over most of the former Soviet Union (and some of its satellites) are probably preferable to gaunt, angry cultural nationalists who are still waiting on the wings and sometimes getting their licks in (when the two groups merge, as in Milosevic's Serbia, the results are scary indeed). He sees very clearly that the Soviet Union was just a nastier version of the Russian empire and faced some of the same problems, such as dealing with large, rich, culturally distinct "colonies" (such as Poland). He clearly misses the multi-cultural empires such as the Austro-Hungarian empire (a short detour on the Spanish Hungarian empire would not have been amiss either), which he believes looks positively dazzling when compared with the hellishness of Hitler's Ostmark and the colonization of Soviet times. Whether his domesticated empires (of which the European Union is the most recent version) will survive is anybody's guess.

Austria-Hungary: a nascent EU?
Lieven's work is high in erudition, lively and interesting. His subject is vast, which is both its strength and its weakness; however, it would be churlish to criticize his necessary brevity in some areas unduly, given he has acted to whet the appetite of the reader to find out more.

He attempts to draw comparisons between various empires, in order to see whether there can be any historically-useful conclusions to be drawn. This is an enormous task so, after an introductory discussion that is wide-ranging both temporally and geographically, he finally settles on his subject.

His main interest is Russia, as one might expect from the scion of displaced Russian nobility, and it is the Russian and Soviet empires which are the main focus of his work. The empires which he choses for comparison are the British, Ottoman and Austro-Hungarian. The time period chosen for the most detailed examination consists mainly of the last three hundred years.

Despite bypassing with minimal discussion such other empires for consideration as those of Rome, China, France and Holland, Lieven shows mastery of his subject and draws some intersting conclusions. I certainly learned many interesting facts, partuclarly of the Ottoman and Austro-Hungarian empires, which are probably less well known to the average person.

Overall I was left with a grudging fondness for the Austro-Hungarian Hapsburgs, whose pan-cultural and pan-linguistic empire shared certain charactersitics with a proto-EU, and some pangs of what might have been had not a certain Serbian assassin struck in 1914.

Fascinating, thoroughly readable...
do not be intimidated by the hefty girth of this book! lieven puts forth a very interesting description of the ways in which the practice of empire has developed, taking on new meanings in different cultures and time periods. this book is a interesting survey of international relations theory mixed with an impeccable knowledge of european, asian, russian, and islamic history. whether you aim to brush up your history or familiarize yourself with the many meanings of the word 'empire', this book will be both useful and enjoyable.