This paper argues that empires in the age of nations are beset by cultural contradictions that undermine attempts to create a cohesive social bloc able to achieve hegemonic rule. The proposition is tested through an examination of the British Empire in the nineteenth and early twentieth...

The presence of a stable, consolidated democracy in the poor and unequal country of India poses a puzzle for contemporary democratic theorists, who contend that low levels of economic development and high levels of inequality and illiteracy are inimical to democracy. Yet a scholarly consensus on...

Except for the Philippines between 1896 and 1939, Southeast Asia was never part of the century-long East Asian industrial catching up until after World War II. Before the 1950s, Southeast Asian manufacturing hardly grew at all: while commodity export processing did grow fast, import-competing...