The field of IR [International Relations] has a problem. It is a field that aims to explain broad patterns in world politics, such as the processes of state formation, the nature and frequency of conflict, and how order emerges among states across a range of issue areas. To answer these questions, IR scholars have looked back into history to draw general lessons and construct universal theories. Yet for the most part they have examined one state system, the European system, which expanded to become the global system by the early twentieth century. But other state systems existed during this period that are less well understood.
In the volatile, uncertain world of the twenty-first century, then, the book is a timely reminder of how fragile states and nationhoods across the globe really are. A popular belief is that colonisation was always instigated by Europeans and, therefore, all of the world's states are Eurocentric in nature. That is not true, of course. There is a great deal of global diversity and this book presents a welcome new perspective on the topic.
The book is quite data-driven, explaining, often at length, the analytical models employed in collating the research and subsequent findings. Those readers less keen on statistics and more interested in the facts and history of colonisation and its subsequent collapse are encouraged to persevere. It will be worth their while. The discourse, explaining the differences and similarities between non-western states in, say, southeast Asia and west Africa and European ones in terms of religion, the economy, trade and judicial processes, is enlightening. About how states are governed, for example, the authors write:
Whether states are centralized or decentralized is the outcome of conflict and bargaining between rulers and vassals. Rulers are individuals who control the state, sitting atop the hierarchy as the sovereign. Vassals often control their own territories, appoint their own successors, keep their own military forces, collect their own taxes, and appoint their own officials but are constrained in their ability to make war and contract with other states and may send resources to the ruler as tribute.
The book defines the notion and functions of states, the different ways in which they were structured and worked as well as how they interacted with other governing authorities both inside and outside their borders. It explains that centralised governance involves the increasing encroachment of more bureaucrats and governors over the territory claimed by the ruler and the erosion of the vassals’ privileges, while decentralisation is less expensive and more flexible when military forces need to be mobilised or changes to the personnel in charge of a particular state have to be made. Most states in the nineteenth century and earlier began decentralized, only becoming more centralised by degrees over a period of time. The requirements of trade and war are the most likely factors to lead to centralised rule.
While borders in Europe and Africa and South Asia shifted repeatedly, those of East Asian countries have remained the same for centuries. Furthermore, due to the burgeoning importance of China and the West's desire to understand its culture, politics and functioning, the colonial experience lasted longest and the most intact in this region.
The authors discuss the various trade routes taken in countries across the Asian continent from around 1600 until the late 1900s, transporting everything from grain and cloth to gold and silver. In this and a few other instances the scope is slightly broader than the nineteenth century focus suggested by the book's tagline, probably with the purpose of putting particular topics into proper context. The authors elaborate, for example:
Although accounting for a small proportion of India’s precolonial gross domestic product, trading links with the Indian Ocean generated large cities, banking and financial institutions, as well as demand for education and public goods along the coast; as such, they were the staging post for the colonization of the entire subcontinent. For these coastal parts of India, the eighteenth century was a period of urbanization and expansion of monetary connections, with increasingly broad networks of clients.
One of the most fascinating and enlightening sections in the book — for this reader, at least — is that centred on West Africa. The authors outline the slow process of moving goods about by camel or donkey. Camels could travel twenty to twenty-five kilometres per day with relatively heavy loads, while donkeys and humans could travel about twenty kilometres with lighter loads. Although most production was for local subsistence and exchange at nearby markets, there was also a lively trade in gold, salt, and kola nuts. In addition there was an active slave trade. As the authors write:
The Atlantic slave trade, which peaked in the eighteenth century but continued “unabated” through the early and mid–nineteenth century despite being banned in the United Kingdom (the largest trader in slaves) in 1807. Slaves were abducted from the interior by indigenous state monopolies, merchant slave traders, and smaller-scale conglomerates and taken to coastal ports such as Ouidah (in modern-day Benin) or Old Calabar (in Nigeria) to be sold as slave labour in the Americas and the Caribbean.
For centuries West African politics oscillated between rule by decentralized empires and fragmented city-states, some of which attempted unsuccessfully to introduce centralised rule.
Before Colonization is a highly scholarly, well-researched study of the birth and death of statehoods and their governance across Asia and West Africa, during the nineteenth century with occasional references to earlier periods serving to provide additional context. Due to the book's academic premise, there is a fair amount of repetition in which first the contents of chapters are outlined at the beginning, before being summarised at the end and repeated at the start and conclusion of sections.
In conclusion, the book's intended readership are academics in the field of International Relations, as well as scholars concerned with global social history more widely. It's very dense reading for significant stretches of the narrative but, as suggested in the body of the review, general readers who are not academics but who are genuinely interested in the history of states, their operations and ultimate decolonisation will find their persistence rewarded. This reader found Before Colonization fascinating, but admits that it might not be for everyone.
Before Colonization: Non-Western States and Systems in the Nineteenth Century, by Charles R. Butcher & Ryan D. Griffiths (Columbia Studies in International Order and Politics)
Hardcover: 344 pages
Publisher: Chicago University Press (8 July 2025)
06/07/2025
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