The Perilous Frontier by Thomas J. Barfield

China’s central state formation during the Chin- and Han-, later the Sui- and T’ang-period created a centralized tax collection system.

The nomadic tribes have been portrayed in the textbooks as acts of a malevolent (today of a climate-driven) god. Their emergent political structures reflected this reality: “imperial confederacies”, autocratic and state-like in foreign affairs, but consultative and federally structured internally.Ī similar pattern is found along the northern border of China. They were the response to external factors. Nation- and state-formation in this perspective are the reaction of unstructured groups beyond the border to a nearby empire. Such dynamic policies were hard to sustain, and mistakes (the Romans blundered to defeat at Adrianopolis in 378) irreversible. Bribery and extortion are two sides of the same coin: it all depends on the power relation between the two sides. State-formation beyond the limes was encouraged – emerging elites were bribed to keep order among the masses as trade made them aware of opportunities just across the border.

Trade was severely controlled: many of the border fortifications were established to manage trade, rather than to keep barbarians out. Immigrants trickled in unnoticed larger groups were deported to the other end of the empire. Able bodies were needed – in particular after two bouts of devastating epidemics – to man the legions, to tend the fields and the factories. They were eerily akin to current immigration policies. The Romans had a swath of policies toward the groups beyond the limes. Its borders – the limes – were set at the point where the cost of conquest and control outstripped expected returns. The Roman Empire was a centralized surplus extraction machinery in favor of the center and its legions.

The traditional view was that Germanic tribes emerged from the dark wilderness under charismatic leaders, battered down the Roman defensive walls, and swept through the empire.Īrchaeological studies after WWII challenged this view. The first area is the collapse of the Roman Empire under the onslaught of Germanic tribes – the Barbarians. This “virgin birth” view of nation- and state-building is being challenged by historical research. The ensuing state may have to accommodate itself to the international political reality: hence the lack of congruence between nation and state, which is the cause of venomous squabbles with one’s neighbors. Nations coalesce around an idea, or a charismatic unifier, Mazzini and Garibaldi being two such personalities. Nations grow from within: or so the conventional historical trope goes. African Digital Diplomacy and Governance.

The Perilous Frontier by Thomas J. Barfield