Cultures of Empire
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Cultures of Empire
| Author(s) | McMahon, Robert J. |
|---|---|
| Abstract | In view of the ever-increasing specialization and volume of contemporary scholarship, one can only applaud any effort to break down the boundaries that tend to be drawn around separate disciplines. In this provocatively ambitious essay, Ann Laura Stoler manages to do exactly that. She zeroes in on key trends in the scholarly literatures on European and American empires, identifies hitherto unrecognized points of convergence and congruence within those distinct literatures, and suggests potentially fruitful comparative projects that might uncover additional common ground. That an anthropologist who specializes in European imperialism-a self-identified interloper-has accomplished so much, and more, in this wide-ranging article makes hers an unusually important and welcome intervention in American history. My comments will concentrate on the utility of the insights Stoler offers, largely through the comparative lens that she deploys, for just one of the scholarly audiences her stimulating article addresses: students of United States foreign relations. There is much of value here for diplomatic historians, it bears emphasizing from the outset, especially if they accept Stoler’s invitation to approach potential comparative projects with imagination and breadth of vision. By insisting upon the essential comparability of European and American experiences of empire, she joins a swelling chorus of U.S. historians who have been seeking to internationalize the study of American history. This intellectual ferment, abetted by the Organization of American Historians and well-reflected in the pages of this journal, aspires to get a firmer handle on the distinctive and not-so-distinctive features of United States history by looking closely at how other states and societies responded to, and were shaped by, similar transnational processes. Slavery and the slave trade, emancipation, industrialization, immigration, the rise of organized labor, the emergence of movements for women’s rights and other reforms, state development-each of those subjects has been enriched in recent years by scholars who have sought to place American developments within a broader, comparative frame of reference. So, too, has the study of U.S. imperialism, even if, as Stoler rightly notes, more extended and extensive conversations between students of the American empire and their Europeanist counterparts could redound to the benefit of both groups. |
| IssueNo | 3 |
| Pages | 888-892 |
| Article | Access to Article |
| Source | Journal of American History, The |
| VolumeNo | 88 |
| PubDate | December2001 |
| ISBN_ISSN | 0021-8723 |
| Browse Path(s) |
Empires/Imperialism
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