- Shaka Jacob Ivey, Age of Revolutions
- Stalin Jeremy Friedman, Modern Age
- Saladin Jason Burke, Spectator
- Shakespeare Geoffrey Marsh, TLS
British Empire
Nightcap
- The last (effortless) rulers of the world Branko Milanovic, globalinequality
- How TikTok is rewriting the world John Herrman, New York Times
- Empires of the weak: European imperialism reconsidered Peter Gordon, Asian Review of Books
- The place that launched a thousand ships Sean McMeekin, Literary Review
Nightcap
- Austin City Limits Kevin Williamson, Claremont Review of Books
- Boredom and the British Empire Erik Linstrum, History Today
- The little-known war crime in Tokyo Hiroaki Sato, Japan Times
- China’s “Hundred Schools of Thought” Ian Johnson, ChinaFile
Nightcap
- A good intuitive argument for authority Michael Young, Policy of Truth
- The Cold War’s killing fields Daniel Immerwahr, the Nation
- In defence of Jeremy Corbyn Chris Dillow, Stumbling & Mumbling
- Deeds and ghosts (imperial twilight) Gavin Jacobson, Times Literary Supplement
Afternoon Tea: “Dividing Power in the First and Second British Empires: Revisiting Durham’s Imperial Constitution”
In his Report on the Affairs of British North America, Lord Durham proposed that “internal” government be placed in the hands of the colonists themselves and that a short list of subjects be reserved for Imperial control. Janet Ajzenstat maintains that Durham did not intend to formally restrict the authority of the new colonial legislature by dividing power. This paper argues otherwise: that Durham’s recommendation fell squarely within a tradition of distinguishing between the internal and external affairs of the colony. This was the imprecise but pragmatic distinction that American colonists invoked during the Stamp Act crisis as a means of curtailing imperial authority over internal taxation while maintaining their allegiance to the British Crown. It also was a division that Charles Buller relied upon in a constitution for New South Wales that he proposed prior to sailing to Canada as Durham’s principal secretary. Durham likely was drawing upon this tradition when he made his recommendation, a distinction that began to crumble away almost immediately. In the result, Canadians inherited a robust semblance of self-government, just as colonists during the Stamp Act crisis had desired, but without the need for revolution.
This is from David Schneiderman, a law professor at the University of Toronto. Here is the link.
Afternoon Tea: “Magna Carta for the World? The Merchants’ Chapter and Foreign Capital in the Early American Republic”
This Article examines the early modern revival and subtle transformation in what is here called the merchants’ chapter of Magna Carta and then analyzes how lawyers, judges, and government officeholders invoked it in the new American federal courts and in debates over congressional power. In the U.S. Supreme Court in the early 1790s, a British creditor and an American State debated the meaning and applicability of the merchants’ chapter, which guaranteed two rights to foreign merchants: free entry and exit during peacetime, without being subjected to arbitrary taxes; and, in wartime, the promise that their persons and goods would not be harmed or confiscated, unless their own king attacked and confiscated English merchants. In other words, no harm to enemy aliens, except as retaliation. Tit for tat.
The idea that reciprocity was a fundamental mechanism of international (and interpersonal) relations became something like a social science axiom in the early modern Enlightenment. Edward Coke claimed to find that mechanism in the merchants’ chapter and publicized it to lawyers throughout the emerging British Empire and beyond. Montesquieu lauded the English for protecting foreign commerce in their fundamental law, and Blackstone basked in that praise. American lawyers derived their understanding of the merchants’ chapter from these sources and then, in the early Republic, stretched the principle behind it to protect foreign capital, not just resident merchants. The vindication of old imperial debt contracts would signal to all international creditors that, in the United States, credit was safe. Federalists then invoked the chapter outside of the courts to resist Republican attempts to embargo commerce and sequester foreign credit. For Republicans, doux commerce had become the Achilles heel of the great Atlantic empires: their reliance on American trade could be used to gain diplomatic leverage without risking war. For Federalists, economic sanctions threatened not just their fiscal policy but their entire vision of an Atlantic world that increasingly insulated international capital from national politics. They all agreed, however, that the role of foreign capital in the American constitutional system was a central issue for the new and developing nation.
This is from Daniel J. Hulsebosch, a historian at NYU’s law school. Here is the link.
Nightcap
- Israel’s political balagan Michael Koplow, Ottomans & Zionists
- A summary of the rights of British America Thomas Jefferson, Avalon Project
- Studying Singapore before it was famous Frank Beyer, Asian Review of Books
- The mystic life of Hermann Hesse Philip Hensher, Spectator
