CHAIRPERSON
Prof Tim Winter, Asia Research Institute, National University of Singapore
ABSTRACT
Empires come in a variety of forms. They have certain basic features in common, but they also differ in significant ways. It is common, for instance, to distinguish between land and overseas empires. Some would also distinguish between ancient and modern empires, stressing differing legitimating ideologies and the enhanced role of new technologies of warfare, transport, and communications.
Dynastic China from 221 BCE–1911 CE is commonly referred to as an empire, both popularly and in the scholarly literature. It also seems to have a unique continuity and persistence, lasting for 2000 years and bridging the divide between ancient and modern periods. Yet it is also generally recognized that China had no proper word for empire until the late 19th century. Only then did it begin to call itself an empire, and compare itself to the Japanese and European empires.
If nevertheless we agree that China did for a long time have or was an empire — the distinction might be important — what kind of an empire was it? How does it compare with the much-studied Western empires, ancient and modern? How also does it compare with non-Western empires, such as that of the Moghuls or Safavids? How does the argument for continuity square with the long periods of non-Chinese rule, by Jurchens, Mongols, Manchus? How multinational or multiethnic was the Chinese empire, as are other empires? Can it be called a colonial empire, despite the absence of overseas colonies? To what extent was it expansionist, as are most empires? These and other questions will form the basis of this lecture, as an exercise in the comparative analysis of empires.
ABOUT THE SPEAKER
Krishan Kumar is University Professor and William R. Kenan, Jr. Professor of Sociology at University of Virginia, USA. He was previously Professor of Social and Political Thought at the University of Kent at Canterbury, UK. He has been a visiting scholar at Harvard University, a member of the Institute of Advanced Study, Princeton, and a visiting professor at the universities of Bergen, Bristol, Colorado, Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, and the University of Hong Kong. Among his publications are Utopia and Anti-Utopia in Modern Times (1987), 1989: Revolutionary Ideas and Ideals (2001), The Making of English National Identity (2003), Visions of Empire: How Five Imperial Regimes Shaped the World (2017), and Empires: A Historical and Political Sociology (2021).
