On Empire Collapse, State Fragmentation, and Balance of Power and Social Imaginaries in World History.
Origin and Legitimating Function of the Founding Fathers in the Modern Sociopolitical Itinerary of Nations (1808-1989).
By Joaquín E. Meabe, Jorge G. Paredes M., Eduardo R. Saguier and the collaboration of Maximiliano Korstanje (translation by Estela Herrera) .

Comments

Selected Comments (with bibliographic references) on the Research Proposal referred to the comparisons between Africa, Asia, Eastern Europe, the Levant, and Latin América (each signature is followed by the institutional affiliation and the title of the main works).

Signatures List:

Abaka, Edmund (University of Miami at Coral Gables);
Adeoti, Gbemisola (Ph D) Leeds University (UK)Adeoti, Gbemisola (Ph D) Leeds University (UK)
Andersen, Walter (School of Advanced International Studies/Johns HopkinsUniversity);
Angulo Fuentes, Arsenio (Universidad de San Petersburgo, Rusia);
Arias Mora, Dennis F. (Universidad de Costa Rica);
Bangura, Joseph (Kalamazoo College, Michigan, USA)
Bassil, Noah R. (Macquarie University, North Ryde, Australia)
Biagini, Eugenio (University of Cambridge, UK)
Braddick, Mike (University of Sheffield, UK)
Breuilly, John (London School of Economics, UK)
Brummett, Palmira (University of Tennessee at Knoxville)
Cain, Peter (Sheffield Hallam University, UK);
Caliceti, Eugenio (Università degli Studi di Trento, Italia)
Camara, Mohamed S. (Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University in Daytona Beach, Florida, USA)
Capurro, Rafael (U. de Stuttgart, Alemania);
Colomer, Josep M. (Universidad Pompeu Fabre, España);
Cribb, Robert (Australian National University);
Cuthell Jr., David Cameron (Institute of Turkish Studies, Washington D.C.)
Darling. Linda T. (University of Arizona, USA);
Dube, Saurabh (El Colegio de México);
Dorman, David (Manhasset High School)
Douglass, Larissa (University of Oxford, UK)
Esherick, Joseph (University of California, San Diego, USA).
Farazmand, Ali  (Florida Atlantic University)
García Rojas, José Adrián (Universidad de La Laguna, Tenerife, Canarias, España);
Gleditsch, Kristian Skrede (University of Essex, UK)
Gran, Peter (Temple University, USA);
Grimalda, Gianluca (CSGR - Warwick University)
Heredia, Edmundo (Universidad Nacional de Córdoba, Argentina)
Herrera, Bernal (Universidad de Costa Rica);
Higley, John (University of Texas at Austin, USA)
Ingrao, Charles (Purdue University, USA);
Juarez-Dappe, Patricia PhD (California State University, Northridge)
Kahler, Miles (University of California, San Diego, USA). 
Kaufman, Stuart J. (University of Delaware, USA)
Kaufmann, Eric (Birkbeck College, University of London, UK);
Keyder, Caglar (Bogaziçi University-Istanbul, Turkey)
Khodarkovsky, Michael (Loyola University, Chicago, USA)
Lemke, Douglas (The Pennsylvania State University, USA);
Lilón, Domingo (Universidad de Pécs, Hungría)
Maier, Charles S. (Harvard University)
Mak, Ricardo (Hong Kong Baptist University)
Malhotra, Rajiv (The Infinity Foundation, USA)
Martensson, Ulrika (The Norwegian University of Science & Technology, Norway);
Migdal, Joel (University of Washington, USA);
Millward, James A. (Georgetown University, USA)
Mogilner, Marina B. “Ab Imperio” Quarterly
Mudimbe, Valentín (Duke University, USA)
Paz dos Santos, Raquel (IFCS/UFRJ, Brasil);
Pervillé, Guy (Université de Toulouse - Le Mirail, France).
Rex, John (University of Warwick, UK):
Rogan, Eugene L. (St Antony's College, UK)
Saunier, Pierre-Yves (Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, Lyons)
Saville, Julie (The University of Chicago, USA);
Spruyt, Hendrik (Northwestern University, USA)
Suleymanova, Dilyara (Ab Imperio International Quarterly, Kazan, Tatarstan, Russia)
Thompson, Ewa M. (Rice University, USA)
Thompson, William R. (Indiana University, USA)
Weatherford, Jack (Macalester College, St. Paul, Minnesota, USA.);
Webre, Stephen (Louisiana Tech University, USA);
Young, Crawford (University of Wisconsin Madison, USA);
Zartman, I. William      (The Johns Hopkins University, USA);
Zellman, Ariel (Northwestern University, USA);
Zhao, Quansheng (American Univ, Wash, DC; & Ritsumeikan Univ.
Kyoto, Japan)
Zielonka, Jan  (St Antony's College, University of Oxford)

Cartas

Eduardo,

I thought I was responding to Levy who had passed along your message.  But as it happens, I agree that comparing post-imperial aftermaths and the fragile states they leave as successors is a worthwhile enterprise.
I would not attribute all or perhaps even most of what follows imperial disintegration to the old empires themselves but they do establish a context that can be compared across time and space.  Bill

William R. Thompson
Rogers Professor of Political Science
Managing Editor, International Studies Quarterly (2009-13)
348 Woodburn Hall
Dept. of Political Science
Indiana University
Bloomington, IN. 47405
USA

Dear Eduardo (if I may),

Many thanks for sending me this notice of your very interesting project.  I have not read your proposal in detail, but the range and importance of the ideas speak for themselves.  I look forward to hearing more about your work.  May I take this opportunity also to apologise for failing to reply to an earlier
email: I have just taken over as Head of Department here, and am finding myself rather overwhelmed at the moment.

With very best wishes,

Mike Braddick
University of Sheffield
Braddick has published widely on aspects of state formation and forms of
political resistance in early modern England. He is also co-editor of two
essay collections and of a major edition of seventeenth century letters. His
most recent book is God's Fury, England's Fire: a new history of the English
civil wars.

Dear Professor Saguier:

Thank you for your message and  address of the  website containing your  challenging paper. I read it with great interest.  Indeed, comparisons between East European developments (of which I know something) and the developments in Asia, Latin America, and Africa (of which I known very little) are worth pursuing.  I wish your bibliography contained my book, IMPERIAL KNOWLEDGE: RUSSIAN LITERATURE AND COLONIALISM (2000) that deals with related topics. Its opening chapter, which I enclose  in its earlier version published in MODERN AGE and later reprinted in various other collections, deals with nationalism, colonialism, and identity--the topics that are at the center of your interests as well. I also enclose a recent article on postcolonial Russia published in a compendium of postcolonialism by Edinburgh University Press. My research indicates that the relationship between Russia and its colonies was based, until recently, on nationality rather than race. It is only in the postcommunist period that race began to play a role.

These are fascinating topics, and I I shall be interested in the conference you mention.
Sincerely,

Ewa Thompson
Professor of Slavic Studies at Rice University
Author of Imperial Knowledge: Russian Literature and Colonialism (2000)

Dear Mr. Saguier,

Congratulations on your new project.  Best wishes and stay in touch,

Quansheng Zhao
(American University, Washington, DC) Visiting Professor at Ritsumeikan University Kyoto, Japan

Dear Eduardo,
Many thanks for the information. Very interesting. I have set up a link to your website at this webpage:
http://www2.warwick.ac.uk/fac/soc/csgr/links1/resources . I wasn't too sure about which name to use to define your centre, so I used 'Nation state in crisis'.

Best,

Gianluca
Dr Gianluca Grimalda
CSGR - Warwick University
Tel: +44 (0)24 7657 4424
http://go.warwick.ac.uk/ggrimalda

Mi estimado Eduardo:

Me parece muy interesante el proyecto, como siempre tus proyectos son de largo alcance, casi gigantescos.  Se me ocurrió una sugerencia: que te conectes con un angoleño que participó en la independencia de su paìs, y ahora reside un tiempo en Rio de Janeiro y otro en Luanda. Es un estudioso de las relaciones África-América Latina en el Atlántico Sud. Se llama José Gonçalves y sus correos son jogo@yahoo.com y jogo34@hotrmail.com . Además, es mi amigo y lo aprecio mucho. Creo que será un contacto provechoso. A propósito, si les parece podrían incluir un estudio comparativo entre las independencias latinoamericanas y las africanas, con 150 años de diferencia pero con muchos puntos en común, sobre todo porque algunos de esos países africanos proveyeron de mano de obra esclava a América. Hoy la África negra y la América negra plantean reivindicaciones comunes contra los imperios que los sometieron y aún los someten.

Un abrazo,

Edmundo Heredia

Dear Eduardo,

Thank you for sending me this info. As you probably know, I am also working on contemporary empires and your website is therefore very useful to me. Further details about my current work you can find at my website: http://www.sant.ox.ac.uk/people/zielonka/index.html
I hope to stay in touch.

Best wishes,

Jan Zielonka
St Antony's College, University of Oxford
website: http://www.sant.ox.ac.uk/people/zielonka/index.html
His books include Europe as Empire. The Nature of the Enlarged European Union,  (Oxford University Press, 2006), Europe Unbound: Enlarging and Reshaping the Boundaries of the European Union, (Routledge 2002), Democratic Consolidation in Eastern Europe, vol. 1 & 2 (Oxford University Press, 2001), Explaining Euro-paralysis. Why Europe is Unable to Act in International Politics (Macmillan, 1998), and Political Ideas in Contemporary Poland (Avebury 1989).

Dear Eduardo,

I have gone to the website and like what you are doing very much.  Many of these ideas were incorporated into a course that I am now giving for the first time, Nations and States.  The comparative study of the disintegration of empires is a crucial lens for viewing the world.  Keep up the good work!

Joel Migdal

University of Washington, USA
Joel S. Migdal is the Robert F. Philip Professor of International Studies in the University of Washington’s Henry M. Jackson School of International Studies. His books include Palestinian Society and Politics, Peasants, Politics, and Revolution, Strong Societies and Weak States, Through the Lens of Israel, and (with Baruch Kimmerling of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem) Palestinians: The Making of a People

Dear Professor Saguier,

Thank you for your message and the very interesting web site.  I am impressed with the breadth of your research program.  It covers many of the issues and themes that I have been thinking and writing about.

Best regards,

Caglar Keyder
The Atatürk Institute for Modern Turkish History
Bogaziçi University 34342 Bebek-Istanbul
Author of Ways to Modernity in Greece And Turkey : Encounters With Europe, 1850 -1950, 2007; Social Assessment and Agricultural Reform in Central Asia and Turkey by Caglar Keyder (Editor), 2000; Istanbul : Between the Global and the Local by Caglar Keyder (Editor, 1999; Developmentalism and Beyond : Society and Politics in Egypt and Turkey by Caglar Keyder, Caglar Keyder (Editor), 1994; State and Class in Turkey : A Study in Capitalist Development, by Caglar Keyder, 1987; The Definition of a Peripheral Economy : Turkey 1923-1929 by Caglar Keyder, September 1981,

Dear Eduardo

I have looked at the web site very briefly It looks very interesting. Once term ends I will look at it more carefully and if I have any comments will get back to you them.

John Breuilly

London School of Economics
Editor of Nineteenth-Century Germany: Politics, Culture, and Society, 1780-1918
John Breuilly's book Nationalism and the State is a classic discussion of the politics of nationalism in a comparative and historical perspective

Dear Eduardo Saguier

I am no professor, but i thank you for having let me know about this interesting undertaking. Quite an important issue to capture how the nation state was recognised as the best way to organise polities and societies regardless of time,  space and context. I am not too good at sweeping comparisons and big picture drawing, but what intrigues me is that your proposal does not consider the practical ways and means through which the nation state became universal.

In addition to comparison, and to complement your stimulating political approach,  I would stress that attention also needs to be given to how nationalism and state building were topics debated and discussed across linguistic, national or civilizational borders, but also frames and features that were implemented through the circulation and connections of ideas, artifacts and funds. The characteristics of legal and administrative transplants, the operation  of policies transfers are some of the  topics that do not appear in your proposal. I suspect that a reconstruction of these across time would help you to grasp how the nation state became universal or rather what were the rival or converging projects, designs and aspirations that strove to make it universal (including the projects that went against the idea of the nation state).  Is it something that you are interested in ?

best regards

PYS
Pierre-Yves Saunier 
Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, Lyons
Author of ANOTHER GLOBAL CITY. Historical Explorations into the Transnational Municipal Movement, 1850-2000

dear colleague,
you are on something amazing, and really big. congratulations  and good luck.

vym mudimbe

Valentín Mudimbe

Duke University
Valentin Y. Mudimbe (born 1941) is a polymathic philosopher, professor, and author of non-fiction books and articles about African culture, poems, and novels. He is the author of The Invention of Africa. He was born in Zaire (now the Democratic Republic of the Congo). After stints at Haverford College and Stanford University, he now teaches at Duke University.

Dear Eduardo Saguier,

Thank you very much for the information about your new website www.nationstatecrisis.org.

Your email was forwarded to me by my colleague Marina Mogilner.
I am coordinator of the website on Empire and Nationalism Studies http://net.abimperio.net.
Our web-site brings together researchers on Russian empire and on  nationalism on the post-Soviet space from Eastern Europe and other  regions of the world.

www.nationstatecrisis.org is indeed an interesting projects and we are  looking forward to have a fruitful cooperation. I will forward the  information on your web-site to my colleagues in Russia.

For all queries and further information you can contact me directly I would be very grateful if you could circulate the information on our  website among you colleagues.

Many thanks.

Sincerely,

Dilyara Suleymanova
net.abimperio.net website coordinator
Ab Imperio International Quarterly
Kazan State University, Kazan , Tatarstan, Russia..
 

Thank you. I find this very interesting. regards,
rajiv malhotra

Mr. Rajiv Malhotra is an Indian American public intellectual and philanthropist. He works full-time with The Infinity Foundation, a non-profit organization in Princeton, New Jersey, which he founded in 1995 with is own funds to foster harmony among the diverse cultures of the world.

Dear Eduardo Saquier,

Thank you for your e-mail. I appreciate you sharing the link to your website with me. I find the information on the website intriguing and useful.

Let me know if I can be of any help.

Best regards,
Dr. Joseph Bangura
Assistant Professor of History and African Studies Department of History. Kalamazoo College, Michigan

Dear Eduardo, many thanks for the link. i think this is a very interestng and rich field. Look forward to hearing more.

Best,

David Cuthell
Dr. David Cameron Cuthell Jr. is the Executive Director of the Institute of Turkish Studies in Washington D.C. He was born in Manilla and raised in Istanbul and Washington D.C. He attended Phillips Academy and Yale, graduating in 1975. He received his MBA from Columbia University in 1979 and worked in the capital markets in New York and London with Citibank and Morgan Stanley as well as Managing Director of mortgage securities at Mabon Securities. After leaving Wall Street, Dr. Cuthell returned to Columbia and received his PhD in History in 2005. His research at Columbia focused on the 19th century immigration of Muslims from the Caucasus and the Crimea and their role in transforming late Ottoman Anatolia.

Eduardo

Many thanks for your kind message.  I look forward to examining your new research project via its web portal soon.

With all best wishes

Eugene Rogan
The Middle East Centre
St Antony's College
Oxford OX2 6JF
www.sant.ox.ac.uk

Dear prof. Saguier,

This is a very interesting project and I was glad to be made aware of it. I have coordinated some work on related topics, especially concerning the British empire, attitudes to the Far east and Italian democratic nationalism (see for example Bayly and Biagini, -Giuseppe Mazzini and the globalization of democratic nationalism-, Oxford, 2008).
I would be grateful if you could kindly keep me posted about future developments,
Best wishes,

Eugenio Biagini
Faculty of History
University of Cambridge, UK

Dear Prof. Saguier,

I would be interested in pursuing comparisons involving Qing (or Chinese) and other empires.  Please keep me on your lists, and consider me for any conferences you may be planning.
 
Yours,
 
James A. Millward
Professor of history at Georgetown University. Among his books is Eurasian Crossroads: A History of Xinjiang (C Hurst, 2007)

Eduardo:

Thanks for letting me know about the updated website; I've bookmarked it.  Please continue to keep me informed of the project's progress.

Regards, 

Doug Lemke
Autor of Regions of War and Peace. Cambridge University Press, 2002; and "African Lessons for International Relations Research." World Politics 56(1), 2003.

Dear Eduardo R. Saguier,

I find your research extremely interesting and I will visit your website soon. I hope we can be in touch regularly.

Ricardo Mak

Hong Kong Baptist University

Les felicito por este magnífico proyecto. La labor que tienen por delante es apasionante, pero, sin duda, también ardua. Voy a enviar a mis colegas en la Universidad de La Laguna información para que conozcan su página web y el proyecto que sustenta.

José Adrián García Rojas,
Profesor Titular de Ciencia Política y de la Administración, Universidad de La Laguna.
Tenerife, Canarias

Dear Prof. Eduardo R. Saguier,

I must commend you on this initiative. There is an urgency, at this historical moment, for understanding the crisis of the state, and seeking solutions to the collapse of political and social structures that defend people from the deprecations of the imperative of global capital. If there is an invitation to participate I would gladly be involved and partake in whatever way to advancing research on this vital topic. In terms of a conference I would gladly be involved.

Best regards

Noah
Noah R. Bassil 
Department of Politics and International Relations
Centre for Middle East and North African Studies,
Macquarie University--North Ryde, Australia, 2109
Author of The Rise and Demise of the Keira Sultanate of Dar Fur, The Journal of North African Studies, Volume 11, Issue 4 December 2006 , pages 347 - 364

Dear Mr. Saguier,

I am writing to congratulate you on putting together this very useful website.  The question of the comparative empires lies at the heart of many crucial issues, past and present.  On my part, I have been engaged in the comparative study of the Russian and Ottoman empires and a broader comparison with other empires.  Next semester I will teaching a graduate course on Comparative Empires and Colonialisms and will be happy to refer my students to your website.   Of course, the maps could be improved and the historiography broadened, but this is the first step in the right direction.

 Congratulations!

Best wishes,
Professor Michael Khodarkovsky
History Department
Loyola University, Chicago

I have entered your website, and viewed it with great interest. As a teacher of world history, I am always interested in thoughtful analysis of the interconnectedness of global events and patterns. When and where will your proposed conference occur?
 
David Dorman
Manhasset High School

Dear Professor Saguier

Thank you for sending along this information on your research. It looks very interesting. I will try to take a look at it over the break, as I am currently inundated with various projects with hard deadlines.

Once again. Thank you.

Hendrik Spruyt
Hendrik Spruyt is Norman Dwight Harris Professor of International Relations and Chair of the Department of Political Science at Northwestern University

Estimado professor Saguier,

muchas gracias por mandarme su propuesta y el enlace a su sito. No puedo llamarme experto sobre imperios historicos, pero estoy de acuedro que su puede aprender mucho sobre las guerras civiles contemporanes y las formacion de nuevos estado tras una perspectiva comparativa.

atentamente,

Kristian Skrede Gleditsch
Department of Government
University of Essex
Wivenhoe Park
Colchester, Essex CO4 3SQ, UK
Email: ksg@essex.ac.uk
http://privatewww.essex.ac.uk/~ksg/

Dear Dr. Saguier,

Thank you for sending me the information about your web site.  I have skimmed your research program, which is very ambitious; and I'll devote more time to studying it carefully.  I cnnot tell from your notes and bibliography whether you are familiar with Jeffrey Adelman's recent study of the Ibero-American world at the time of liberation.  I presume you've seen my 2006 book,  Among Empires: American Ascendancy and its Predecessors, which attempts some comparative history.

I look forward to reading further. 
Yours sincerely,

Charles Maier
Harvard University
Maier is the Director of the Center for European Studies and the Krupp Foundation Professor of European Studies, and has recently completed service as Chair of the Committee on Degrees in Social Studies. He is the author of Dissolution: The Crisis of Communism and the End of East Germany (1997); The Unmasterable Past: History, Holocaust, and German National Identity (1988); In Search of Stability: Explorations in Historical Political Economy (1987); Recasting Bourgeois Europe (1975, 1988); as well as editor of several collaborative volumes, among them: The Marshall Plan and Germany (1991), Changing Boundaries of the Political (1987), and The Politics of Inflation and Economic Stagnation (1985).

Dear Edwardo,

Thank you for your kind e-mail and including me in your list of people of interest. 
I find your proposal and ideas interesting, comparing empires, however, I have two questions:
First, I see Roman Empire along with others...., where is the Persian Empire? There is a great deal of comparisons you can make--Persian Empire was the First World State Empire ever built and it operated vast areas from East to West, South to North, virtually the entire known world--yet, it did not practice slavery, Cyrus the Great abolished
slavery when he conquered Babylon (without bloodshed) and issued the first Universal Human Rights Charter (On October 29, 339 BC) in which he alos established freedom of religion, association, and education for
all, merit system for training and development and in the bureaucracy, etc..... There is a lot to be learned from this comparison.
Second, you have included, in your modern empires, Britain, Spain, ....but not USA? USA is the largest, most potent, and most exploitative, most militaristic, and most organizationally powerful (and very repressive) as a Global Empire of the this time of globalization--why is it excluded? Because of the words capitalist democracy and republic that is no longer republic but a globalist empire? 
Finally, you have listed Soviet Union as an Empire? Just like that, repeating the western ideological propaganda to bring down socialism and the Soviet Union? What made Soviet an empire but America not? Which China? the Old pre-socialist China? or after, present China? Is this new project a new Western ideological warfare to make self look good (food guy) and others bad?
I am neither socialist, nor pure capitalist, but for free market and free nation-state relations, but against predatory corporatism and imperialism, whether called republic, empire, or monarchy. Are you discussing America as a neocolonial, imperialist? or democratic global power? How about Britain, France, and ... How do you explain what
happened in Chile on September 11, 1973, in Iran in August 1953, in Indonesia in the 1960s, and in Greece in the 1960s and 70s, and in Argentina in the 1980s?

I hope these comments help.
Good luck and thank you again for sharing you project with me.

Ali Farazmand
Professor
Florida Atlantic University

Dear Professor  Saguier,

thank you very much for this information and a very interesting research proposal. May I suggest that you prepare a text based on this proposal for Ab Imperio and we'll publish it to disseminate this information among the Ab Imperio readers who are actively involved in imperial and nationalism studies? This can be a few pages in the format of information-announcement or a larger article explaining theoretical grounds of your project. In the latter case the article will be subjected to a normal peer-reviewing procedure.
We also would like to post your announcement on a research information platform which is affiliated with Ab  Imperio -- www.net.abimperio.net.  This service was created for the international community of scholars involved in imperial studies. We need your formal endorsement to go forward.  Do you have access to Ab Imperio? There we have published many articles on the topics related to your proposal. If you do not have access and are interested in getting it, please let me know. I can provide you with temporary login and pass. I think that we should stay in touch and collaborate.

Sincerely,
Marina
Marina B. Mogilner, Ph.D.
Editor, Russia and NIS
“Ab Imperio” Quarterly

Dear Dr Saguier,

Thank you very much for this information. Although I am not currently working on this topic, I find it to be very challenging and intellctually stimulating. I will bring the website and project to the attention of my colleagues as well.

Best regards,


Patricia Juarez-Dappe, PhD
Associate Professor
Department of History
California State University, Northridge

Dear Dr. Saguier,

Thank you very much for informing me about your new website.  I will be sure to review it for the UK academic web project Intute.
Your research lines up squarely with what I am about to embark upon in my post-doctoral work in 2009.  I am proposing to work on comparative imperial legal history between the British and Habsburg empires.
I hope we may stay in touch with regard to your project and I will be happy to collaborate in the future on any relevant work.  By the way, I have not yet finished my doctorate at Oxford, but should finish it in 2009, so I am unfortunately not yet a professor.  My contact information is in the footer of this message.

Best wishes,

Larissa Douglass
University of Oxford

Dear Eduardo,
I ve been to the website and it is quite informative. Keep up the good work
Thanks.

Gbemisola

Gbemisola Adeoti (Ph D)
British Academy Visiting Fellow
School of English
Leeds University
Leeds LS 2 9JT
United Kingdom.

Sounds interesting.  I looked at it, and appreciate your effort.

Sincerely,

Stuart J. Kaufman, Professor
Department of Political Science and International Relations
347 Smith Hall
University of Delaware
Newark, DE 19716

Dear Eduardo Saguier,

Interesting project. I look forward to reading the prospectus. While I am less inclined to make 20th C. comparisons, I certainly think the imperial comparisons you suggest (including the Ottomans) are definitely worthwhile.
Regards,

Palmira J. Brummett
University of Tennessee at Knoxville
Author of Ottoman Seapower and Levantine Diplomacy in the Age of Discovery
New York, State University Of New York Press 1994

Dear Professor Saguier—

A brief note to thank you for making your provocative intervention available to me. I have read in haste but look forward to thinking over its proposition. My interests in slavery and emancipation most often require me to re-think premises that posit evolutionary sequences rather than rupture as a point of interpretive departure.
Thank you and best wishes//

julie saville
The University of Chicago, USA
Author of The Work of Reconstruction: From Slave to Wage Laborer in South Carolina,1860-1870 (Cambridge University Press, 1994; pbk 1996).

Eduardo:

Un cordial saludo y, por supuesto, felicitaciones por el nuevo lanzamiento del website. Realmente está estupendo. He estado revisándolo y realmente considero que has llevado a cabo una tarea muy importante y de gran trascendencia. Estoy seguro que va a ser fuente obligada de consulta porque incluye materiales realmente muy significativos y que muchas veces son pocos conocidos y consultado tanto por la enorme cantidad de material de consulta disponible como por la dispersión de éstos muchos de ellos en revistas importantísimas de diversos países.
Lo que no sé si ya has hecho de conocimiento el website entre las ya innumerables personas con las cuales has entrado en contacto a raíz del proyecto. En un mail de hace ya varias semanas me decías que estaba en su fase de preparación y que todavía no había que difundirlo. Creo, sinceramente, que es el momento adecuado de hacerlo y deduzco que ya es tu decisión  por la invitación a hacer llegar comentarios al respecto. Estoy seguro que va a ser excelentemente recibido. 
El enfoque comparativo que sugieres como metodología de trabajo  acerca del colapso de los imperios absolutistas para comprender lo ocurrido y lo que está ocurriendo en el Medio Oriente, África, Europa Oriental y América Latina es muy sugestivo aunque una tarea intelectual realmente titánica por la versación que necesariamente se ha de poseer sobre un campo de estudio amplísimo por lo que no pocos lo van a sentir como difícil de alcanzar. ¡Es un verdadero desafío!   
Eduardo, en archivo adjunto te alcanzo un trabajo interesantísimo de Rafael Calduch C., catedrático de Relaciones Internacionales de la Complutense de Madrid. El trabajo es relativamente amplio y es el texto de la conferencia que pronunciara en Palencia, en julio de 1998 y lleva por título Nacionalismo y minorías en Europa. Es un trabajo realmente de excelente calidad y con la claridad didáctica propia de las conferencias.

Un abrazo

Jorge G. Paredes

Monsieur, et cher collègue,

je réponds à vos deux textes comme je vous l'avais promis, après les avoir lus et avoir parcouru celui de Memel Foté. Je vous félicite d'abord pour ce projet très méritoire de ne pas laisser réduire l'histoire à une légende nationale, mais de rechercher des analogies profondes entre les situations. Mais en même temps, je dois dire que votre projet me paraît risqué, dans la mesure où il risque de confondre des événements et des situations très différentes, non seulement par leurs dates, mais par leurs contenus réels. Je crains tout particulièrement la tendance à employer des concepts tels que "colonisation" et "décolonisation" sans les définir assez clairement , comme le font trop souvent les Américains du Nord, qui se prétendent "anticolonialistes" alors qu'ils ont été les plus grands colonisateurs de l'histoire mondiale. C'est pourquoi j'estime qu'une histoire des décolonisations a un besoin vital d'une définition rigoureuse des concepts employés, afin de ne pas verser dans l'idéologie. C'est ce que j'ai voulu faire en consacrant le premier chapitre de mon manuel De l'empire français à la décolonisation (Paris, Hachette, 1991 et 1993) à la définition des concepts employés : " Colonisation", "décolonisation" : des concepts à définir (op. cit., pp. 4-22).
Je peux aussi vous recommander de lire toute une série de textes que vous trouverez sur mon site internet (http://guy.perville.free.fr) :
- Qu’est-ce que la colonisation ? (1972)
- L’impérialisme : le mot et le concept (1986)
- Le rôle de la colonisation de peuplement dans la politique de la France en Algérie et dans l’organisation de la colonie (1991)
- Qu’est-ce que la décolonisation ? Pour une réhabilitation des facteurs démographiques (1993)
- Décolonisations « à l’algérienne » et « à la rhodésienne » en Afrique du Nord et en Afrique australe (1993)
Et aussi le recueil de textes que j'ai publié en 1994 aux Editions Ophrys, Paris et Gap : L’Europe et l’Afrique de 1914 à 1974 (1994), 152 p.
D'autre part, je crois devoir vous signaler une excellente étude comparative de la décolonisation européenne du XXème siècle : L'Europe retrouvée, les migrations de la décolonisation, par Colette Dubois et Jean-Louis Miège, Paris, Editions L'Harmattan, 1994.

Voilà les idées qui me viennent pour le moment. Bonne lecture, et à bientôt. Bien cordialement,
Guy Pervillé.
Université de Toulouse - Le Mirail, France
Autor de L’Europe et l’Afrique de 1914 à 1974, Editions Ophrys, Paris et Gap, 1994

Eduardo:

Esa es una pregunta muy buena. En verdad ni en Tucídides ni en Platón y menos aun en Aristóteles puede localizarse algo parecido a una idea de equilibrio de poder.
La noción por otra parte es moderna y se construye pari pasu con el establecimiento de los estados territoriales modernos y cuando el espacio geográfico es conquistado completamente por Europa Occidental y las posibilidades de expansión quedan saturadas o bloqueadas por límites territoriales irrebasables y por la ampliación del conglomerado de cuerpos políticos poderosos y variados.
En la antigüedad no existe el presupuesto para el equilibrio de poder que es el límite como estatuto sociopolítico y como demarcación geográfica. En las sociedades antiguas no hay límite para la expansión del poder de dominación de una polis, de un reino o  de un imperio, de manera que no se impone una exigencia de compensación recíproca por limitaciones territoriales. Y por eso en la antigüedad la confrontación originada en disputas por ámbitos de poder superpuestos dentro de espacios de influencia común como ocurre con el Imperio Ateniense y Liga del Peloponeso en la Grecia Territorial lleva a la Guerra del Peloponeso. O sea que tras el límite del poder de dominación en la antigüedad está siempre la guerra. Y solo la guerra o la violencia dirime el antagonismo. Lo que en interior de la polis es violencia en el exterior es guerra. El caso interior paradigmático es Sócrates. El caso exterior ejemplar es la Guerra del Peloponeso. Ambas series son correlativas y ambas se implican recíprocamente.
En cambio en el mundo moderno, a partir del siglo XVI en Europa Occidental, se inicia una nueva modalidad que edifica un espacio intermedio entre el límite territorial del poder y la guerra y ese límite es el espacio de equilibrio de poder que no es más que una forma de neutralización recíproca transitoria que se impone dentro de un espacio territorialmente saturado que ya no permite ninguna expansión ilimitada como la de Alejando o la del Imperio Romano. En verdad el equilibrio de poder no es es un equilibrio sino una impasse y se mide en términos temporales y no físicos aunque los teóricos de la razón de estado lo ven desde este segundo punto de vista y como un juego de fuerzas y amenazas recíprocamente neutralizadas. Pero lo importante el tiempo que dura la contención recíproca (pueden ser meses o años o incluso décadas o más aun). Y en ese tiempo la tensión se mantiene hasta una de las partes cede. Por eso el tiempo es la clave de la propia acción. El que mide su propio tiempo es en definitiva el que se impone porque es el que puede encontrar la oportunidad. Es lo que hizo Inglaterra con la Francia Napoleónica y lo que hizo Talleyrand con los vencedores en el Congreso de Viena. 

Es así como yo veo la cuestión. De todos modos el asunto da para una amplia averiguación. Parece entonces que en la antiguedad el horizonte político estaba demarcado por el espacio ilimitado y en el mundo moderno por el tiempo limitado.

Joaquín

Prezado Prof. Saguier,

agradeço muito para ter mantido o contacto. Peco desculpa se demorei em responder.
Sò quero esclarecer que sou um doutorando e que não sou brasileiro mas italiano. Tinha a oportunidade de estudar só alguns aspectos do actual reconhecimento jurídico da diferença étnico-cultural no ordenamento jurídico brasileiro.
Li com muito interesse o prologo e permito-me enviar algumas considerações, que escrevi em liberdade, colhendo o espírito que parece-me animar o debate.
Se percebi bem, o projecto de pesquisa quer evidenciar, numa perspectivas unitária, uma especifica modalidade na qual se formaram os estados nações surgidos da desarticulação dos impérios políticos e económicos centrais nos multíplices sistemas mundos dos últimos dois séculos. Em este sentido a formação do estado nação em contextos periféricos articula de maneira especifica um processo que pode se dizer universal, enquanto conhecido também nos países centrais, e que legitimou, através uma mitologia cientificamente elaborada (historia oficial), a afirmação da modernidade (como mecanismo auto- referencial que restringe as opções do politicamente possível com base em argumentações de ordem racional-naturalístico).
Não tem duvidas que hoje o exercício de uma consciência critica desmistificou e contextualizou a mitológica e originaria re-fundação do estado-nação moderno (não obstante a modernidade ainda hoje seja promovida, não mais através de um processo de modernização, mas de transição) e do seu ordenamento jurídico (das manuais do direito natural a justificação naturalista do ordem do mercado). Em este sentido a urgência de encontrar a historia dos invisíveis continua ser uma importante tarefa que as disciplinas das ciências  humanas devem assumir.
A minha preocupação è perceber se este fenómeno deva ser considerado de verdade uma crise ou por outro lado, a sua mais recente gattopardesca expressão.
Ou seja queria perguntar-Lhe se este percurso que aprofunda as estruturas de dominação que foram veiculadas através do ordem jurídico moderno, ao mesmo tempo instituído e instituinte, legitimado no big tale, consiga evidenciar a real transformação de tais relações de poder, e oferecer instrumentos de emancipação cultural, politica, jurídica.
O reconhecimento das minorias étnico-culturais representa uma articulação desta transição. Este reconhecimento pode ser seja instrumentos de emancipação, seja instrumentos de regulação (ou seja de integração, que se normalmente è termo positivo, talvez deveria ser mehlor definido em relacoes a dinamicas orizontais ou verticais)) Tendo a possibilidade de assistir, em pequeníssima parte, a este processo no Brasil, com os olhos de estrangeiro, tenho muitas duvidas que o paradigma do estado nação, como instrumento no mesmo momento de integracao e de regulacao (com as consequentes dinâmicas de dominação) seja em crise. Podem mudar as narrativas, podem se articular em perspectivas multiétnicas a fundação do ordem instituinte e instituído (enquanto capaz de se auto-reproduzir autonomamente), mas o verdadeiro elemento que merece ser criticado no processo de fundação da modernidade politica vais permanecer, perpetuando dinâmicas diferentes de dominação. O que me parece em crise è o produto, não o processo.
Come já escrevei acredito que a articulação do reconhecimento de minoriasétnico-culturais, como no caso quilombola no Brasil, possa conduzir a processos de emancipação como de regulação. Mas na minha opinião os êxitos desses processos não vão depender da uma acção politica orientada pelo exercício de uma consciência critica no que diz respeito ao paradigma modernista e nacionalista nacionalista (integração vertical).
Será a sustentabilidade ou da insustentabilidade económica (recolocação de cada nação no cenário económico internacional) e politica (flexibilidade das elites nacionais e internacionais) das acções promovidas para re-articular a integração vertical dos segmentos sociais emergentes a decretar o sucesso ou o fracasso deste processo. Em outras palavras a sua dimensão reguladora dependerá da possibilidade e da capacidade das mesmas elites nacionais e internacionais, em relação a precisos contextos territoriais,  de permitir uma redistribuição de recursos para promover uma integração que alimentará dinâmicas de integração vertical (ou seja de dependência), invés que de autonomia horizontal (emancipação).
O fracasso deste processo não dependerá da uma revindicação que exerça conscientemente a critica do ordem instituído, enquanto, por o que podei perceber, paradoxalmente a revindicação, que fundamenta os conflitos étnicos- culturais consequentes a crise de legitimidade do estado-nação, è ainda ligada a uma perspectiva de integração. O estado nação è ainda mais hoje o pressuposto para tais revindicações.
A centralidade do estado è ainda mais confirmada pelo duplo papel que ele assume no contexto internacional. Por um lado è ainda hoje um instrumento poderoso de localização e regulação do conflito social, na perspectiva que do
centro vai para a periferia. Por outro lado, na perspectiva que da periferia vai para o centro, è o único instrumento que permite actuar, nos limites da o poder e da autonomia que ainda tem, uma função redistributiva que nenhuma
autoridade tem, num contesto internacional regulado pela teoria do mercado.
Estou muito interessado nos avanços do projecto. Vamos andando.

Cordialmente,

Eugenio Caliceti
Dipartimento di Scienze Giuridiche, U. degli Studi di Trento, Italia
Autor deIdentità, diversità e diritto in Brasile: il riconoscimento giuridico di territori quilombolas e cafuzos, XXX Congreso Internacional de Americanistas, 2008

Estimado Eduardo,

de entrada te hago saber lo genial de la página Web y la vez te felicito por tan buena iniciativa. Sin haberle dado un vistazo completo a ella, cosa que haré con más detenimiento, ahora sólo te hago la observación de que es Universidad de Pécs y no Pécz como aparece. Más tarde te haré saber mis observaciones.
Por otro lado te comento que en mi universidad, además del Centro Iberoamericano, contamos con el Grupo de Investigación "Las metrópolis y las ex-colonias (Asia, África, América Latina")", que realiza actividades docentes y de investigación al respecto. También organizamos conferencias, nacionales y extranjeras. El anyo pasado elaboramos un programa de maestría (dentro del nuevo espacio europeo, Bologna) sobre el tema, programa que ha sido aceptado por la Comisión de Evaluación (MAB en húngaro) y que iniciaremos ya en el 2009. Te comento ésto, porque voy a conversar con mis colegas para que nos integremos al proyecto que diriges, para ofrecerle incluso a ustedes la participación docente en nuestro programa de maestría. Te haré saber de todo esto a principio de septiembre, que es cuando regresamos a nuestras labores.
Yo, por mi parte, te enviaré próximamente mi ensayo más acabado sobre la República Dominicana para que lo coloques en la sección de lecturas.

De nuevo felicitándote por tan buena iniciativa, atentamente me despido,

Domingo Lilón
Universidad de Pécs
Hungría

Dear Dr. Saguier,

I'm sorry that it has taken me until now to respond to your message and attachment. As for all of us, the past months have been quite busy. In your attachment you and your colleagues certainly do not shrink from Big History! So big that there's a danger, in my view, of conflating many important differences between the continents you seek to place into a kind of holistic package. But I admit that I'm largely innocent of the large historical interpretations on which your project builds, and so my impression should not be taken very seriously. In my own recent book about Elite Foundations of Liberal Democracy (attached flyer), I take a somewhat more middle-level road, arguing that all Latin American and most African and Asian/South Asian countries achieved national independence with legacies of "disunited elites" stemming from the disunited elites in the original colonial countries (Spain, Portugal, France, in particular) and the persistence of the disunited elites with which independence was gained was long-lasting, well into the 20th-century's second half and even now in the 21st century in the bulk of such countries. So I take a somewhat more specific focus on elites and their configurations than does your project. Still, we are obviously interested in the same legacies of colonial rule, and I find your sweeping project interesting.
As chair of the IPSA Research Committee on Political Elites, I'm organizing four panels for the IPSA World Congress in Santiago next July. Perhaps you will be there or in the neighborhood? You might have a look at my Committee's website www.ipsa-rc2.sciencespobordeaux.fr/en_presenta6.htm
when you get a chance.
I'm off on a short trip to Australia later today, so let me stop here. Thank you for sending me your project outline.

With regards,

John Higley
Professor of Government & Sociology
University of Texas at Austin
Chair, IPSA Research Committee on Political Elites

Eduardo: ¡Felicitaciones! Realmente fantástica la página dedicada  a la Crisis del estado, nación y su origen histórico en América Latina. Estoy seguro que va a ser excelentemente recibida y va a convertirse en fuente de consulta  por  los textos que has incluido y que de seguro vas a ir aumentado.
Cartas y Colaboradores son de acceso restringido y se requiere de una clave.  
En cuanto a  tu pedido para revisar las páginas 9-12 del Prólogo te alcanzo en archivo adjunto el texto con los ligerísimos cambios que he hecho, resaltándolos con color azul. El único cambio que quiero comentarte es el referente al fin de la dinastía Qing. La dinastía Ming realmente llegó a su fin en 1644  cuando Li Zicheng tomó posesión de Pekín, aunque ya en 1636 Abahai, de origen manchú, había proclamado dicha dinastía (manchú). Sin embargo, se considera como año de su inicio la conquista de Pekín, es decir 1644. Esta dinastía procedía de Manchuria, considerado pro los chinos como extranjera, de allí que la revolución china de comienzos del siglo XX fue un movimiento revolucionario y una lucha independentista, nacionalista tal como había ocurrido siglos atrás cuando los chinos se enfrentaron a la dominación mongol, también foránea, la cual tuvo una duración de cuatro centurias. El último soberano mongol fue Tog han Temür (en chino Shunti). En 1368, en Nanking, fue coronado emperador Zhu Yuanzhang quien fue el emperador chino que estableció la dinastía Ming, auténticamente china.  Por lo tanto la dinastía que llega a su fin en 1911 es la dinastía Qing  conocida también como manchú. Durante la dinastía Ming, Manchuria no había sido realmente integrado al imperio chino, siendo una verdadera zona marginal.

Un fraternal abrazo

Jorge Paredes

Eduardo,

mi comentario sobre la historia de los sistemas de comunicación tiene el siguiente trasfondo: cuando estuve en México en febrero dando un seminario sobre ética de la información en la Universidad del Claustro de Sor Juana, tuve la oportunidad de visitar (por segunda vez) el Museo Arqueológico. Lo que me llamó la atención esta vez fue que no hay ninguna sala dedicada a estos temas (comunicación, medios, etc.) en dicho museo siendo así que toda sociedad humana (por decirlo de una forma muy general que habría que matizar históricamente y también en
relación a la evolución, al "reino animal" etc.) se fundamenta en redes de comunicación en bases a diversas tecnologías, medios etc. Esto es naturalmente evidente en culturas tan avanzadas culturalmente como las culturas pre-hispánicas. Leyendo algunas de la fuentes que se publicaron bajo el titulo "Visión de los vencidos" y también leyendo algunos documentos de la época (cartas de Cortés a Europa etc.), vi que importancia inmensa tenia el sistema de información del imperio de Moctezuma y con que claridad se relatan los procesos de información en
ese momento excepcional y también como dichos procesos se contrastan con los medios y procesos (y poderes...) de los "invasores". Cuando uno lee dichos textos desde esta perspectiva saltan de pronto a los ojos conceptos como "mensajes", "mensajeros", "cartas" etc. etc. todo esto inmerso en estructuras y instancias de poder (el Rey, el Papa etc.) tanto de parte de los "conquistadores" como de los "conquistados" (y de quienes se adherían a los "conquistadores"). Por supuesto que las versiones mismas de dichos acontecimientos reproducidas en dicho libro
"Visión de los vencidos" son en si mismas ya parte de esta historia de sistemas de información, comunicación, almacenamiento, transmisión, interpretación y apropiamiento de saberes durante y después de los acontecimientos hasta hoy (y en el futuro). Gran fue mi desilusión, entonces, cuando veía los objetos relacionados directamente con este tema en el Museo Arqueológico pero no vistos ni, por supuesto, expuestos en una sala donde se explicitara esta perspectiva, se la contrastara con la de los "conquistadores" y con la de civilizaciones posteriores (hasta hoy). Al leer las historias del imperio azteca percibí también en que forma una "moral informacional azteca" (con sus sistemas de premios y castigos, estos últimos muchas veces terriblemente crueles, pero no mucho mas que los de los "conquistadores"!) no solo era vivida como moral, sino que era también reflexionada como ética (por lo menos en los textos trasmitidos que ya están contaminados con la perspectiva
histórica nueva). Lo que creo que seria interesante analizar históricamente (en el sentido de una "historia critica") es el rol que dichos "encuentros" de sistemas causan o no (y en que medida) el desmembramiento de los imperios (en este caso del azteca, luego del español...) o ayudan a perpetuarlos y como se establecen los nuevos centros de poder "nacionales" o "étnicos" o... en el sentido en que tu lo analizas. El caso clásico actual es por supuesto el de la influencia de los medios (TV etc.) en la caída del muro de Berlín, del imperio soviético etc. En resumen, entonces, mi pregunta va hacia el rol que juegan los sistemas de transmisión, almacenamiento, interpretación etc.de los saberes (y su utilización practica como "información") en la gesta de estructuras políticas "nacionales" conjuntamente con la "caída" de los imperios y de sus sistemas de comunicación (pienso naturalmente en el imperio romano, o el persa, o...)

un abrazo

Rafael Capurro
U. de los Medios de Stuttgart, Alemania
Autor de  Lleva la implantación mundial de la red a una ética global de la información? En: Concilium 2005,

Dear Professor Saguier:

Thank you very much for sending me your paper, "The Nation-State Crisis and its Historical Origin...".  It is a very interesting document I enjoyed reading.  Whoever mentioned me to you deserves my thanks too, as it is nice to find others with similar interests.  I think the search for comparisons over time and across geographic regions in the history of state formation a fascinating topic, and hope to interact more with you and the network you are developing.
Toward that end I have attached a copy of the galley proofs of an article of mine being published this fall.  The empirical subject matter of the paper concerns wars among the various provinces of the Rio de la Plata in the early 19th century.  My purpose in writing the paper was first to investigate whether the state-like political units
of that time and place behaved like official states in the wider international system, and then to draw parallels between the violent state making struggles of Argentine and Uruguayan caudillos of the 19th century with modern day warlords of the developing world.  In this regard I think my paper very consistent with your interests and ambitions.
But in two other regards I am concerned my paper will impress you negatively.  First, I am no historian, and what I know about 19th century history in the Rio de la Plata I learned from secondary sources.  I consulted with two colleagues who grew up in Argentina, and presented an earlier version of the paper to a group of specialists in Latin American politics at the University of New Mexico in hopes of avoiding any egregious historical inaccuracies.  But I will not be surprised if you find yourself doubting my account of the region's early history.  Secondly, my intended audience in this paper is the subset of political scientists who undertake quantitative analysis of international politics.  Consequently the literatures I address in my paper are different from those engaged in yours by you and your co-authors.  I worry that those sections of my work would be of little or no interest to you.
But I hope our common interest outweigh our somewhat different intended audiences and focuses, and so wish very much that you will keep me informed about the network of interested researchers you are developing.  I would also appreciate hearing about any conferences you organize on this topic.

Warm regards, and thanks again for contacting me.

Doug Lemke
Douglas Lemke Department of Political Science
The Pennsylvania State University
Author of: "African Lessons for International Relations Research." World Politics 56(1)., 2003;

Dear Eduardo Saguier,

congratulations for this excellent project of, what I wood call, /critical history/.
I consider your work as a kind of second-order methodology of what the "official history" says/said about what happened ("erga"). The task of critical history should be, from this perspective, a critical reflection on such official "logoi" and particularly on their founding distinctions.
Of course, every observer has his/her own bias and it is an open task of (second-order) history to be observed by other colleagues particularly from observers coming from other cultures.
I would also like to suggest that historians take special care of the institutions, norms, media, and policies underlying (explicitly or implicitly) the production, distribution, and use of messages (of all kind) in different societies. I miss, particularly in museums, a specific informational view of history: who had the power to distribute
messages? under what constraints? with what means? with exclusion or inclusion of whom? In other words, historians must become (more) aware not only of economic and political proceses but also of communication
and information processes as well and the power structures they were based upon. In case there is a written and/or oral tradtion of such moral and/or political rules/norms (and a written tradition of reflexion on such norms, i.e., a tradition of ethical tradition), historians can make an important contribution to what I call Intercultural Information Ethics (IIE).

kind regards

Rafael Capurro
U. de los Medios de Stuttgart, Alemania
Autor de   Lleva la implantación mundial de la red a una ética global de la información? En: Concilium 2005,

Dear Eduardo:

Thank you for your communication.  You are dealing with issues and a vocabulary that are really beyond my area, although you are welcome to get out of my work anything that you find helpful.  I could not tell from your
article what you were driving at, since you mentioned a series of events without saying what it was about them that you found relevant to your schema.  Are you simply identifying different periods or are you saying that they are organically related to one another?  Is there a causal chain there?

Linda T. Darling
Associate Professor of History
University of Arizona
Autora de: Ottoman Politics through British Eyes,
http://www.questia.com/PM.qst?a=o&d=97921443

Dear Prof. Saguier,

Thank you for bringing your project to my attention. I am interested in comparative and world historical interpretations and will follow your venture with interest.

yours,
Peter Gran
Temple University, USA
Autor de: Beyond Eurocentrism. A New View of Modern World.

Estimado Eduardo;

Muchas  gracias por responderme y me parece muy interesante tu investigación. Acá en Chile la historiografía es poco propensa a los estudios comparados. Me interesa, yo estudié en Rusia, Universidad de San Petersburgo, y tengo material vinculado a su tema (aún no lo tengo aún traducido) por lo que no he preparado un artículo. Seria interesante seguir en contacto en este sentido y si es posible en participar con una ponencia...
Por ahora estoy algo entrampado en el tema del colaboracionismo, viendo el tema de las fuentes y definir mejor el objeto de investigación. El del tipo institucional (Iglesia) , por las características de la dictadura chilena y su transición. es interesante pero, hay que ver la factibilidad. Acá en chile no es nada fácil investigar este tipo de temas.. rompe la cristalería...  

 Seguimos en contacto
Afectuosamente

A Angulo Fuentes
Universidad de San Petersburgo, Rusia
Autor de: Miedo en la Modernidad del Cine; y de La modernidad a través del cine de rainer Werner Fassbinder

Eduardo

Thank you very much.  I look forward to looking over this material and sharing it with my Middle East specialist colleague, Dr Nazir Atassi, who is interested in similar comparative themes.
In Costa Rica last week I had the pleasure of meeting your colleague Dr Joaquín Meabe, who spoke very highly of you.  We had a long and interesting conversation about comparative history.

Stephen Webre
Louisiana Tech University
Editor de: La sociedad colonial en Guatemala:. estudios. regionales y locales. Antigua: Centro de Investigaciones Regionales de ..

Dear Dr. Saguier --

Thank you very much for sending the copy of your fascinating paper.  Your analysis very effectively captures the pathway from the rise of anti-colonial nationalism and its genetic ties to the founding father generation, to the revolt of a new generation in the democratization.  Naturally I am gratified to learn that THE AFRICAN
COLONIAL STATE has made the journey to Argentina...

Crawford Young
University of Wisconsin Madison, USA
Young became an Assistant Professor at Wisconisin in 1963, and published his first major work, Politics in the Congo: Decolonization and Independence. He became prominent as the author in 1976 of the highly influential The Politics of Cultural Pluralism, which was awarded the Herskovits Prize by the African Studies Association. His 1994 book, The African Colonial State in Comparative Perspective, won the Lubbert Prize from the American Political Science Association as the best book written that year in the field of Comparative Politics.

Estimado Eduardo:

Agradezco su gentileza por incorporarme al proyecto del Orden Instituyente y el mito del héroe. De momento, mis investigaciones han girado en torno al impacto del nazismo en la sociedad costarricense, pero ello me ha llevado a considerar diversos aspectos en torno a lo heroico y lo monstruoso en la historia política, sobre todo al tratar con la cuestión nazi y la cuestión antifascista en la izquierda. De allí que, desde que me enteré del proyecto, tuve mucho interés en él y le avisé de inmediato a David. Acá, durante los días del Congreso de Historia, pude conocer brevemente a Joaquín Meabe, y también le escribiré.
Para el futuro cercano, trabajaré aspectos de ideas autoritarias en la primera mitad del siglo XX, también en Costa Rica, y la cuestión del mito del héroe (y paralelamente lo monstruoso) no deja de ser una variable de suma importancia para mis intereses. Ignoro cuánto encaja mi enfoque inicial en el conjunto de sus proyectos, pero le reitero todo mi interés en participar de estos.

Le mando un saludo muy cordial,
Dennis Arias Mora

Universidad de Costa Rica
Autor de: “La novela histórica como andamiaje reflexivo de los grandes problemas de la historia en América Central: un comentario a Manosanta (1996) de Rafael Ruiloba”. En: Istmo (revista virtual de estudios literarios y culturales centroamericanos), nr. 9, julio-diciembre, 2004.

Estimado Dr. Saguier:

Gracias por el mensaje y los textos enviados. El proyecto propuesto me parece de una enorme envergadura y de una gran importancia. Tiene la ventaja de una amplia visión espacial y temporal, y de aglutinar muy diversas perspectivas analíticas. Aun no lo he leído con la intensidad que requiere, pero tras una primera lectura a vuelapluma, y desde la ignorancia (no soy historiador), aventuraría algunos pensamientos en voz alta, para no ser simplemente laudatorio (lo soy), sino también proponer un diálogo.
1. Estoy convencido de que buena parte de la historia de las naciones que habían sido colonias durante la modernidad, tiene sus raíces en esa etapa colonial. En esa medida, vincular ambas etapas es crucial. Al mismo tiempo, también creo que, en una perspectiva comparatista, habría que distinguir más entre dos procesos: el de la formación de las naciones o estados que surgen tras el colapso de los imperios de los que surgen, y la posterior crisis de dichos estados y/o naciones. Ello no implica, en absoluto, que ambos procesos no estén relacionados, pero tampoco habría una causalidad que permita reunirlos en un solo proceso. Por ejemplo, el tiempo que transcurre entre el surgimiento y la crisis de dichos estados nacionales es muy diversa según haya sido el imperio español (grosso modo 150 años), el otomano (unos 80 años), o el inglés y francés (bastante menos). Esto pareciera insinuar que la actual crisis está influido por factores
 "horizontales" que todos comparten, al margen de su "vertical" historia poscolonial.
2. Creo apasionante la propuesta de comparar diversos colapsos imperiales y la posterior aparición de estados poscoloniales, y estoy seguro que ello arrojará mucha luz al proceso. Un peligro a evitar, que no aparece en el texto enviado, pero sí en otros estudios que adoptan una perspectiva comparatista, es el de intentar delinear un cierto camino básico que todos los estados, en este caso los poscoloniales, grosso modo y pese a sus especificidades, seguirían. Este cuasi-automatismo intelectual (que, repito, no está en su texto, pero vale la pena mencionarlo) nos viene de la modernidad occidental e ilustrada, para la cual hay una única historia universal, que todas las sociedades siguen, lo que hace necesaria ver en qué etapa de ese proceso está cada sociedad. Lo cierto, sin embargo, es que cada sociedad, al tiempo que está inmersa en ese sistema-mundo del que habla Wallerstein, también responde a factores internos.
3. Creo que, acaso, sería útil establecer algún tipo de subdivisión al interior de la investigación, pues tanto la complejidad de los temas como lo variado de los enfoques analíticos implicados, hacen muy difícil manejarlos en conjunto. Básicamente, veo tres grandes áreas:
a. La descomposición imperial y el surgimiento de estados.
b. La función instituyente de los Padres de la Patria
c. la crisis del orden instituido y expresado en la Historia oficial.
Ello permitiría, por ejemplo, y situándose en el punto b., entrar a comparar con algún detalle el accionar de personajes tan diferentes como Bolívar, Toussaint-Loverture, Morelos y Tiradentes.
Lo anterior no implica, obviamente, que todos los procesos no estén fuertemente imbricados, sino que en una primera etapa acaso convendría establecer sub-áreas.
En todo caso, esto no es sino una reacción inicial, a la que yo mismo no doy importancia, a un proyecto realmente apasionante, cuyos resultados preliminares ya son de una enorme riqueza conceptual, y abren vías de investigación en buena medida insospechadas. Yo estoy en este momento abocado a investigar la otra punta del colonialismo: su surgimiento, y ello desde la perspectiva de sus relaciones con la modernidad. Pero igual espero seguir dialogando con ustedes. Reciba un saludo tan agradecido como cordial de

Bernal Herrera
Universidad de Costa Rica
Autor de: Estética y Política. Roberto Arlt y la narrativa hispanoamericana.  Madrid: Ediciones del Orto, 2004; y de Arlt, Borges y Cía. Narrativa rioplatense de vanguardia. San José: Editorial de la Universidad de Costa Rica, 1997.

Estimado Profesor Saguier:

Muchas gracias por su mensaje y el archivo. Me parece bien y muy útil su idea. Estaremos en contacto.

Saludos,

Saurabh Dube
El Colegio de México
Saurabh, Dube (coord.), 1999, Pasados poscoloniales: colección de ensayos
sobre la nueva historia y etnografía de la India, El Colegio de México,
Mexico,

Dear Eduardo Saquier,

Thank you for letting me see Professor Cribb's comment on your paper. No doubt you will sort this out between you and produce a revised paper. I think that the whole exercize has been very valuable and I expect to learn much from it,

Sincerely,

John Rex 
University of Warwick, UK
Autor de:Ethnic identity and Ethnic mobilization in Britain, Monographs in Ethnic Relations, Centre for Research in Ethnic Relations, University of Warwick, 1991.

Dear Eduardo Saquier,

Thank you for sending me your revised paper. I shall let you have any observations in due course. I also hope to send you next month a report which I am writing ion collaboration with a colleague in Hong Kong/China on The Most Important Research Centres on Immigration and Race/Ethnic Relations around the World,

Sincerely,

John Rex.
Professor Emeritus,
Universityof Warwick,
England

Dear Professor Saguier,

Thank you for your note and the attached document.  I very much like the idea of looking comparatively at state formation (the institutive order, you mention).  I have attached an article I recently finished for a revised edition of Mark Lichbach and Alan Zuckerman, eds., Comparative Politics (Cambridge University Press, forthcoming).  You will see, it spends some time on the comparative disintegration of empires and the effects on state formation.
Let me wish you the best of luck on your project and conference.

Sincerely,

Joel Migdal
University of Washington, USA
Joel S. Migdal is the Robert F. Philip Professor of International Studies in the University of Washington’s Henry M. Jackson School of International Studies. His books include Palestinian Society and Politics, Peasants, Politics, and Revolution, Strong Societies and Weak States, Through the Lens of Israel, and (with Baruch Kimmerling of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem) Palestinians: The Making of a People

Dear Eduardo,

Professor Cribb's remarks are quite pertinent. In fact, his comparison of the dismantlement of  Dutch and French colonial empires in Southeast and East Asia recalls the "last minute-balkanization" of the former French West Africa federation into the current nation-states of Benin, Burkina Faso, Cote d'Ivoire, Guinea, Mali, Mauritania, Niger, Senegal (plus Togo). One does see here a pattern in the outcome of decolonization in the former French empire. On the other hand, even though the British, mainly through Lord Luggard, succeeded in creating a somewhat loose federal colony in Nigeria (loose because of the deep regional differences between North and South) which now is the largest, most populous and economically strongest country in West Africa, they failed to integrate Kenya, Uganda and Tanganyika into an actual British East Africa. This, in my opinion, also corroborates the professor's view on the reconfiguration of British colonies in Asia to result in present day Malaysia, Singapour and Brunei. There are definitely legitimate similarities and differences to be explored. 
In any case, I have received the second version of your paper and will send you my feedback once I am done with a research project that I am in the process of completing.

Thank you for your patience.

Mohamed Saliou Camara
Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University in Daytona Beach, Florida, USA
Autor de: His Master’s Voice: Mass Communication and Single Party Politics in Guinea Under Sékou Touré. Trenton, N.J.: Africa World Press

Dear Mr. Saguier,

I would be very pleased to be added to the website in which you plan to make cross-cultural/cross-national comparisons.  I have long maintained that there has been insufficient study of Latin America in academic circles and I think it offers some excellent examples of state crisis, nation building, and challenges of economic development that are, as you note, a global phenomenon.  Please keep me informed on development.
I have recently been invited to give a paper on India at a conference on India in late August being organized by the Foreign Ministry.  Unfortunately, I will be in Europe at that time and so had to regret.  Are you involved in that effort?

Best wishes,

Walter Andersen
   South Asia Program
   School of Advanced International Studies/Johns Hopkins University
   Washington DC

Dear Professor Saguier,

   Thank you very much for your interesting paper.  I agree very strongly than not enough research has been done on the structural similarities and differences between different imperial structure or on the differing patterns of imperial dismantlement.  My own interest is in both Southeast and East Asia -- the reasons why Dutch rule in the East Indies was followed by a single independent state, whereas French rule in Indochina led to three successor states, as well as the complex reconfiguration of British colonies to produce Malaysia, Singapore and Brunei.  I am also very much interested in the end of the 'Chinese' empire, which you don't mention at all in your paper.  It is an intriguing case of an empire ruled by a semi-assimilated alien minority, the Manchus, which was then faced with a choice between disintegrating into its various ethnic components (Chinese, Mongol, Tibetan Uighur etc.) or reconfiguring itself as a multi-ethnic nation-state.
    I would be very pleased to hear more about your work as it takes shape.
 
Best wishes
Robert Cribb
Australian National University
Autor de: Historical Injustice and Democratic Transition in Eastern Asia and Northern Europe: ghosts at the table of democracy (with Kenneth Christie) (2002)

Prof. Saguier

It's a great project.  At the conference launching Crawford's and Beisinger's work I urged a comparison of the comparison of Easten Europe with decolonized, not contemporary, Africa, and the parallel betwen decolonized Africa and LA, over a century apart, demands analysis.  Good luck on your work; I look forward to further news. 

I. William Zartman
The Johns Hopkins University
Autor de: Collapsed States: The Disintegration and Restoration of Legitimate Authority. Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner, 1995.

Hello again,

A few brief comments on the draft you sent me...

1. I am embarrassed to admit that much of this is pretty far over my head.  While the themes and ideas seem familiar (modalities of decolonization, writing of the official stories of the nation, development of identity through elite led processes), many of the terms and concepts are new to me. 
2.  I do find particularly interesting the notion that artificial (re-)construction of national identities and its concomitant segregation of historical context may lead to increased fratricidal conflicts.  What I would interested to see more of is an exploration of what these historical contexts were that have been "segregated" away.  Are you pointing to pre-colonial identities that are not easily confined to colonial borders?  Are you referring to older elite colonial identities that broke down along with decolonization? 
3.  It seems that the theory would benefit from an explicit geographic element.  That particular elites and ideologies take the upper hand in constructing exclusive national identities is a given; how this identity is extended and solidified over what territory is another question altogether.  If fratricidal conflicts following decolonization truly follow from notions of what constitutes the physical manifestation of the nation and not simply from economic greed or elites striving for greater power and dominance, the space under contest must itself have meaning.
 I have no doubt that I missed many of the nuances of the piece in my quick read, so my comments are likely more reflective of my own interests as I saw them expressed in the piece.  That said, this seems like a very fruitful and interesting project, and I would love to hear more about it as it develops.

Best wishes!

Ariel Zellman, M.A.
Ph.D. Student
Department of Political Science
Northwestern University

Hi Eduardo,

I apologize for my late response.  Things have been more than a little crazy here in Chicago as of late.  Just for the record, I am not a professor yet, just a Ph.D. student.  I am far from an expert in Latin American politics, but the comparison seems sound.  However, my understanding is that borders particularly in South America have been only weakly contested and barely contested at all in the modern period. 
Aside from folks like Simon Bolivar who sought to unite several of the newly independent states, I am not aware of any outstanding border disputes, etc... this is of course not to say that there are none.  It's just not information in the realm of my knowledge.  One book I found to be particularly interesting regarding latin American state development was Miguel Centeno's book: Blood and Debt: War and the Nation-State Latin America. In this book he makes the argument that persistant state weakness in Latin America is best attributed to the absence of the serious threat of interstate war.  Admittedly there are a number of problems to this theory.... many of my Latin Americanist friends have pointed out a number of historical issues as well as the obvious cause-effect issues inherent to the Tillyesque bellicist approach.  An interesting read nonetheless that may relate to your topic of interest.
My particular interest is in examining prolonged territorial disputes that cannot be readily explained by standard realist or liberal economic/cooperation models.  I make the argument for disputes that exist in Israel, Serbia, Armenia, and the like, questions over who has what right to what territory is as much informed and prolonged by questions of national identity as they are determined and guided by strategic moves by government, state, and military.  I suspect that geographic notions of collective self are not limited to these conflicts but rather lie latent in most collectively imagined nations.  These cases in particular pop out largely because their borders are contested.
In any event, I'll try to peruse your draft today and send comments in a timely fashion.  I apologize again for the delay, but do hope we can correspond again soon.

best wishes,

Ariel Zellman, M.A.
Ph.D. Student
Department of Political Science
Northwestern University

Eduardo:

Un fraternal abrazo. Te envío dos artículos que sé que te van a interesar. Uno es de Daniel Yépez quien analiza el movimiento juntero español pero desde la óptica que proporcionan las fuentes inglesas. El otro es el texto de la conferencia que diera el estudioso peruano Edgar Montiel en Argentina, el año pasado, durante el II Congreso Internacional Extraordinario de Filosofía. Encuentro un enfoque bastante novedoso del proceso separatista hispanoamericano y que tiene algunos puntos que se asemejan al enfoque que últimamente estás enfatizando en el sentido de encontrar lo que tienen en común los diversos procesos separatistas que se han dado en el mundo a partir del siglo XIX y que de una u otra manera están realmente imbricados toda vez que son procesos históricos que se han dado cuando ya estaba en plena marcha el proceso de mundialización o globalización, cuyos inicios se retrotraen a los siglos XV y XVI. La historia-mundo exige perspectivas integradoras.
Seguimos en contacto

Jorge Paredes

Dear Dr. Saguier,

Thank you so much for contacting me.  Spain and its empire has long been one of my academic interests (my paternal ancestry is Castilian) and I very much share your scholarly interest in the role that nation states have played in the current turbulence in Africa, the Middle East and Eastern Europe.  I am, however, less knowledgeable about the Latin American statebuilding experience except for Benedict Anderson's important Imagined Identities.  I will, however, discuss the parallels with my friend and colleague Ariel de la Fuente, who just returned from Argentina last week.
In the meantime, I have attached my curriculum vitae with an offer to send you offprints (or e-files) of any of my scholarly articles that interest you.

Regards,

Charles Ingrao
Purdue University
Autor de: State and Society in Early modern Austria. West Lafayette, Indiana Purdue University Press 1994,

Eduardo,

Quisiera que incluyeras al historiador costarricense Dennis Arias como investigador en el proyecto de El Orden Instituyente y el Mito del Héroe. Arias es un excelente historiador costarricense que se ha estado especializando en el estudio del totalitarismo, en nazismo, en discurso
histórico y en historia política. Le comenté a Dennis este interés y él se encuentra muy motivado de participar en el asunto. Te mando este corrreo con copia a la cuenta de Arias, para que la tengas entre tus contactos.

Un abrazo,


David Díaz-Arias

Dear Dr. Saguier,

Thank you for your mail and the attached draft article. I am not an expert in this field at all though I do think that you are raising some interesting questions of comparative history. If you are not familiar with it already, I would advise you to look at A. G.Hopkins (ed), Globalisation in World History (2002)where questions about the relations between empires, globalisation and the nation state are all discussed especially in Hopkins' own chapter  'The History of Globalisation - and the Globalisation of History?'
Yours sincerely,

Peter Cain
(Sheffield Hallam University, UK);
Autor de: British Imperialism, 1688-2000

Hola Eduardo:

Informo que el "Laboratório de Estudos do Tempo Presente" en el Instituto de Filosofia e Ciências Humanas (UFRJ) a cual soy afiliada acepta su invitación para colaborar o prestar su adhesión por favor hágamelo saber. El Tempo Presente (www.tempopresente.org) es un centro de investigación muy prestigiado en el Brasil. Su director el profesor Francisco Carlos Teixeira coloca a su disposición del evento el espacio el Fórum Cultural de la UFRJ, ubicado en la Praia Vermelha/Urca/ Rio de Janeiro. Un espacio muy amplo, bonito e con buenas instalaciones para sediar el simpósio, puede mirarlo en na página www.ufrj.br .
Gustaría de saber con más clareza como podemos participar de la obra de investigación colectiva e escala mundial propuesta por ustedes, pues nosotros, somos vários investigadores, nos interesamos mucho por el tema.

Aguardo su contacto.
Un abrazo.

Raquel Paz.
IFCS/UFRJ, Brasil
Autora deNova Argentina: imaginário de uma nação. ... así como de
“Refletindo sobre relacoes Brasil-Argentina a partir da diplomacia. cultural (1930-1950)”. ...

Caro sr. Saguier,

Muito obrigado pelo convite. Gostaria muito de participar e saber mais detalhes sobre esta investigação. Afora o congresso e a página web, que outros tipos de atividades vocês desenvolvem?
Cordialmente,

João Maia
Maia, João Joao Marcelo Ehlert (Fundação Getulio Vargas, Brasil);
Autor de: A terra como invenção. O espaço no pensamento social brasileiro

Dear Eduardo

Thank you again! It is a very interesting and ambitious piece of work. However, I think it is a bit too nostalgic for the old orders; for example racial categories were rife in the medieval Islamic empires, because they went along with the institution of slave labour; the Roma could testify to the same problem with the old Austro-Hungarian Empire, where they were enslaved and dehumanised. And so far as I know, "limpieza de sangre" is a medieval Spanish term, coined in the context of the Reconquista and Inquisition; or am I wrong? So yes, I agree that there are political problems to be solved in nation states all over the world, concerning citizenship and rights, but that does not warrant looking for models in the past.

Best wishes,
Ulrika Martensson
The Norwegian University of Science & Technology, Norway
Autor de: Trondheim: "The Covenant: A Pre-Modern Islamic Contract-Theory?" (SMI, Dept. History of religion)

Dear Eduardo Saguier,

You ask very interesting questions.  
Certainly, on the first one I think that there are not only parallels between the crisis of the nation state in South America in the last century and the other parts of the world, but I think that it is also one connected process that first showed itself in Latin America and has now moved on around the globe.  I think that it will continue to move and plague even more countries in the near future.  It may have already begun in China as well.
On the second issue, I think that there are always parallels among empires -- both in the rise and the fall.  Yet, each one is slightly unique.  I immediately see a few with the Spanish empire and the Ottomans and Soviets, but they may not be the same that you intend, and I would have to think more deeply about it. 
 Right now I am away from home and office -- slowly making my way back to Mongolia where I will be working  for a few months finishing this book on the daughters of Genghis Khan. 
Keep up the good works!  keep me informed as you progress with this line of thought.  If I were seated right now or in my office I might have more to say, but maybe another time I will have clearer thoughts.

Jack Weatherford
Macalester College, St. Paul, Minnesota, USA
Jack Weatherford is a professor of Anthropology at Macalester College, specializing in Mongolia. He recently received media spotlight for his 2004 book, Genghis Khan and the Making of the Modern World. In 2006, he was awarded the Order of the Polar Star, Mongolia’s highest national honor.

Estimado colega,

Gracias por su mensaje. Me parece que sí puede ser interesante enfocar el proceso de formación de los estados nacionales soberanos a partir de la descomposición  de los imperios. A veces se tiende, casi inconscientemente, a suponer que los estados son la forma primordial de organización política y que los imperios no pueden ser más que el resultado de la expansión de los estados. Pero esto sólo es medianamente cierto para algunos imperios coloniales. Lo que ustedes sugieren puede ser más realista y más fructífero analiticamente; sería algo así: La forma de organización tradicional es un conjunto de unidades locales, diversas y dispersas, bajo un amplio paraguas imperial. Cuando éste se deshace, las piezas fragmentadas tienden a aglutinarse en unidades relativamente más pequeñas, aunque extensas, a las que llamamos estados, los cuales, en contraste con los imperios, implican un intento de fijar fronteras y forzar la homogeneidad interna. En muchos casos este intento ha fracasado, efectivamente, tanto tras la descomposición del imperio español en las Américas, como tras la del imperio británico en Africa y Asia, como tras la disolución del imperio soviético en Europa y Asia.
Estaria bien que, para empezar, pudieran desarrollar algo así como una 'narrativa analítica' de estos procesos.
La discusión contra la literatura previa siempre se puede dejar para un apéndice.

Atentamente,

Josep M. Colomer
Research Professor, Higher Council of Scientific Research.
Affiliated profesor, Barcelona-Graduate School of Economics.
Elected member, Academia Europaea.
Life member, American Political Science Association.

Eduardo,

The kinds of comparisons you are suggesting are exactly what the book is about -- especially the
fall of the Spanish and Ottoman empires, plus tose of Eastern Europe and then the Soviet Union.  There are also some interesting chapters that speak to the problems of the Latin American nations in the post-colonial period.  I hope you get a chance to read the book and would be interested in your comments.

Joe Esherick
University of California, San Diego (UCSD).
Autor de  Empire to nation. Historical perspectives on the making of the modern world By Joseph Esherick, Hasan Kayali and Eric van Young, eds., London: Rowman and ...

Dear Dr. Saguier:

You may wish to consult an excellent edited volume:   Joseph Esherick, Hasan Kayali, and Eric Van Young, editors, Empire to Nation:  Historical Perspectives on the Making of the Modern World (Rowman and Littlefield, 2006).  This work makes exactly the comparisons between Latin America and other post-imperial societies that you describe.

Sincerely,

Miles Kahler
University of California, San Diego (UCSD). 
Autor de Territoriality and Conflict in an Era of Globalization (co-edited with Barbara Walter, Cambridge University Press, 2006); Governance in a Global Economy (co-edited with David Lake, Princeton University Press, 2003) and Leadership Selection in the Major Multilaterals (Institute for International Economics, 2001). 

Eduardo

    An interesting essay, in a quite postmodern style, based on wide reading. I commend it, but I think it is difficult to compare the ethno-territorial fracturing of states in Africa or the breakup of multinational empires with the more homogeneous Spanish and Portuguese empires where ethnic divisions, where they exist, are largely based on non-territorial racial divides.

Best

Eric Kaufmann
(Birkbeck College, University of London, UK);
Autor de:  Unionism and Orangeism in Northern Ireland since 1945: the decline of the loyal family (Manchester University Press, May '07)

Prof. Eduardo R. Saguier

He recibido toda la información acerca del Simposio así como del libro que ustedes  preparan y me han parecido muy interesantes. Ante todo le explico que mis líneas de investigación actuales se circunscriben al estudio de la América colonial, la Iglesia, el mundo indígena y su resistencia a los procesos de dominación. No obstante, como profesora de Historia de América me vinculo a los procesos por ustedes apuntados. Por tanto presto mi adhesión personal a su proyecto pero me gustaría tener más información sobre el Simposio que pretenden realizar.
Quiero agregarle que he notado en la propuesta enviada una escasa participación de los cientistas sociales cubanos en la misma. Si esto se debe a falta de comunicación con este mundo académico me brindo para facilitarle los vínculos con el mismo porque, aunque soy argentina, laboro actualmente en Cuba. Para ello enviaré a varios colaboradores su propuesta y espero que respondan también a la convocatoria.
Reciba mis cordiales saludos y quedo a la espera de sus noticias:

María Victoria Guevara
Colegio Universitario San Gerónimo de La Habana
Universidad de La Habana
C/ O’Reilly nº 104 Habana Vieja, Ciudad de La Habana, Cuba
Tel. 866-3736

Dear Eduardo,

Thank you for your initiative in the Research Program.  I just came back from Ghana and did not read your previous e-mail.
I would be happy to contribute in any capacity.

Best,

Edmund Abaka
University of Miami at Coral Gables
AFRICA AND AFRICAN DIASPORA Edmund Abaka ... RACE AND ETHNICITY Edmund Abaka ... ECONOMIC, BUSINESS, AND LABOR HISTORY Edmund Abaka ...

Dear Eduardo Saguier,

congratulations for this excellent project of, what I good call, critical history writing. I consider your work as a kind of second-order view of what the "official history" says/said about what happened ("erga"). The task of critical history should be, from my perspective, a critical reflection on such official "logoi" and particularly of their founding distinctions. Of course, every observer has his/her own bias and it is an open task of (second-order) history writing to be observed by other colleagues particularly from other cultures, with other singularities. I would like to suggest that historians take special care of the institutions, norms, media, and policies underlying (explicitly or implicitly) the production, distribution, and use of messages (of all kind) in different societies. I miss, particularly in museums, a specific informational view of history: who had the power to distribute messages? under what constraints? with what means? with exclusion or inclusion of whom? In other words, historians must become (more) aware not only of economic and political processes but also of communication and information processes as well and the power structures they were based upon. In case there is a written tradition of such moral and/or political rules/norms, historians can make an important contribution to
what I call Intercultural Information Ethics (IIE).

kind regards
Rafael Capurro
U. de Stuttgart, Alemania
Autor de  Lleva la implantación mundial de la red a una ética global de la información? En: Concilium 2005,

Dear Eduardo:

Thank you for your communication.  You are dealing with issues and a vocabulary that are really beyond my area, although you are welcome to get out of my work anything that you find helpful.  I could not tell from your
article what you were driving at, since you mentioned a series of events without saying what it was about them that you found relevant to your schema.  Are you simply identifying different periods or are you saying that they are organically related to one another?  Is there a causal chain there?

Linda T. Darling
Associate Professor of History
University of Arizona
Autora de: Ottoman Politics through British Eyes,
http://www.questia.com/PM.qst?a=o&d=97921443

Dear Prof. Saguier,

Thank you for bringing your project to my attention. I am interested in comparative and world historical interpretations and will follow your venture with interest.
yours,

Peter Gran
Temple University, USA
Autor de: Beyond Eurocentrism. A New View of Modern World.

Estimado Eduardo;

Muchas  gracias por responderme y me parece muy interesante tu investigación. Acá en Chile la historiografía es poco propensa a los estudios comparados. Me interesa, yo estudié en Rusia, Universidad de San Petersburgo, y tengo material vinculado a su tema (aún no lo tengo aún traducido) por lo que no he preparado un artículo. Seria interesante seguir en contacto en este sentido y si es posible en participar con una ponencia...
Por ahora estoy algo entrampado en el tema del colaboracionismo, viendo el tema de las fuentes y definir mejor el objeto de investigación. El del tipo institucional (Iglesia) , por las características de la dictadura chilena y su transición. es interesante pero, hay que ver la factibilidad. Acá en chile no es nada fácil investigar este tipo de temas.. rompe la cristalería...   Seguimos en contacto
Afectuosamente

A Angulo Fuentes
Universidad de San Petersburgo, Rusia
Autor de: Miedo en la Modernidad del Cine; y de La modernidad a través del cine de rainer Werner Fassbinder

Eduardo

Thank you very much.  I look forward to looking over this material and sharing it with my Middle East specialist colleague, Dr Nazir Atassi, who is interested in similar comparative themes.
In Costa Rica last week I had the pleasure of meeting your colleague Dr Joaquín Meabe, who spoke very highly of you.  We had a long and interesting conversation about comparative history.

Stephen Webre
Louisiana Tech University
Editor de: La sociedad colonial en Guatemala:. estudios. regionales y locales. Antigua: Centro de Investigaciones Regionales de ..

Dear Dr. Saguier --

Thank you very much for sending the copy of your fascinating paper.  Your analysis very effectively captures the pathway from the rise of anti-colonial nationalism and its genetic ties to the founding father generation, to the revolt of a new generation in the democratization.  Naturally I am gratified to learn that THE AFRICAN
COLONIAL STATE has made the journey to Argentina...

Crawford Young
University of Wisconsin Madison, USA
Young became an Assistant Professor at Wisconisin in 1963, and published his first major work, Politics in the Congo: Decolonization and Independence. He became prominent as the author in 1976 of the highly influential The Politics of Cultural Pluralism, which was awarded the Herskovits Prize by the African Studies Association. His 1994 book, The African Colonial State in Comparative Perspective, won the Lubbert Prize from the American Political Science Association as the best book written that year in the field of Comparative Politics.

Estimado Eduardo:

Agradezco su gentileza por incorporarme al proyecto del Orden Instituyente y el mito del héroe. De momento, mis investigaciones han girado en torno al impacto del nazismo en la sociedad costarricense, pero ello me ha llevado a considerar diversos aspectos en torno a lo heroico y lo monstruoso en la historia política, sobre todo al tratar con la cuestión nazi y la cuestión antifascista en la izquierda. De allí que, desde que me enteré del proyecto, tuve mucho interés en él y le avisé de inmediato a David. Acá, durante los días del Congreso de Historia, pude conocer brevemente a Joaquín Meabe, y también le escribiré.
Para el futuro cercano, trabajaré aspectos de ideas autoritarias en la primera mitad del siglo XX, también en Costa Rica, y la cuestión del mito del héroe (y paralelamente lo monstruoso) no deja de ser una variable de suma importancia para mis intereses. Ignoro cuánto encaja mi enfoque inicial en el conjunto de sus proyectos, pero le reitero todo mi interés en participar de estos.
Le mando un saludo muy cordial,

Dennis Arias Mora
Universidad de Costa Rica
Autor de: “La novela histórica como andamiaje reflexivo de los grandes problemas de la historia en América Central: un comentario a Manosanta (1996) de Rafael Ruiloba”. En: Istmo (revista virtual de estudios literarios y culturales centroamericanos), nr. 9, julio-diciembre, 2004.

Estimado Dr. Saguier:

Gracias por el mensaje y los textos enviados. El proyecto propuesto me parece de una enorme envergadura y de una gran importancia. Tiene la ventaja de una amplia visión espacial y temporal, y de aglutinar muy diversas perspectivas analíticas. Aun no lo he leído con la intensidad que requiere, pero tras una primera lectura a vuelapluma, y desde la ignorancia (no soy historiador), aventuraría algunos pensamientos en voz alta, para no ser simplemente laudatorio (lo soy), sino también proponer un diálogo.
1. Estoy convencido de que buena parte de la historia de las naciones que habían sido colonias durante la modernidad, tiene sus raíces en esa etapa colonial. En esa medida, vincular ambas etapas es crucial. Al mismo tiempo, también creo que, en una perspectiva comparatista, habría que distinguir más entre dos procesos: el de la formación de las naciones o estados que surgen tras el colapso de los imperios de los que surgen, y la posterior crisis de dichos estados y/o naciones. Ello no implica, en absoluto, que ambos procesos no estén relacionados, pero tampoco habría una causalidad que permita reunirlos en un solo proceso. Por ejemplo, el tiempo que transcurre entre el surgimiento y la crisis de dichos estados nacionales es muy diversa según haya sido el imperio español (grosso modo 150 años), el otomano (unos 80 años), o el inglés y francés (bastante menos). Esto pareciera insinuar que la actual crisis está influido por factores
 "horizontales" que todos comparten, al margen de su "vertical" historia poscolonial.
2. Creo apasionante la propuesta de comparar diversos colapsos imperiales y la posterior aparición de estados poscoloniales, y estoy seguro que ello arrojará mucha luz al proceso. Un peligro a evitar, que no aparece en el texto enviado, pero sí en otros estudios que adoptan una perspectiva comparatista, es el de intentar delinear un cierto camino básico que todos los estados, en este caso los poscoloniales, grosso modo y pese a sus especificidades, seguirían. Este cuasi-automatismo intelectual (que, repito, no está en su texto, pero vale la pena mencionarlo) nos viene de la modernidad occidental e ilustrada, para la cual hay una única historia universal, que todas las sociedades siguen, lo que hace necesaria ver en qué etapa de ese proceso está cada sociedad. Lo cierto, sin embargo, es que cada sociedad, al tiempo que está inmersa en ese sistema-mundo del que habla Wallerstein, también responde a factores internos.
3. Creo que, acaso, sería útil establecer algún tipo de subdivisión al interior de la investigación, pues tanto la complejidad de los temas como lo variado de los enfoques analíticos implicados, hacen muy difícil manejarlos en conjunto. Básicamente, veo tres grandes áreas:
a. La descomposición imperial y el surgimiento de estados.
b. La función instituyente de los Padres de la Patria
c. la crisis del orden instituido y expresado en la Historia oficial.
Ello permitiría, por ejemplo, y situándose en el punto b., entrar a comparar con algún detalle el accionar de personajes tan diferentes como Bolívar, Toussaint-Loverture, Morelos y Tiradentes.
Lo anterior no implica, obviamente, que todos los procesos no estén fuertemente imbricados, sino que en una primera etapa acaso convendría establecer sub-áreas.
En todo caso, esto no es sino una reacción inicial, a la que yo mismo no doy importancia, a un proyecto realmente apasionante, cuyos resultados preliminares ya son de una enorme riqueza conceptual, y abren vías de investigación en buena medida insospechadas. Yo estoy en este momento abocado a investigar la otra punta del colonialismo: su surgimiento, y ello desde la perspectiva de sus relaciones con la modernidad. Pero igual espero seguir dialogando con ustedes. Reciba un saludo tan agradecido como cordial de

Bernal Herrera
Universidad de Costa Rica
Autor de: Estética y Política. Roberto Arlt y la narrativa hispanoamericana.  Madrid: Ediciones del Orto, 2004; y de Arlt, Borges y Cía. Narrativa rioplatense de vanguardia. San José: Editorial de la Universidad de Costa Rica, 1997.

Estimado Profesor Saguier:

Muchas gracias por su mensaje y el archivo. Me parece bien y muy útil su idea. Estaremos en contacto.
Saludos,

Saurabh Dube
El Colegio de México
Saurabh, Dube (coord.), 1999, Pasados poscoloniales: colección de ensayos
sobre la nueva historia y etnografía de la India, El Colegio de México,

Dear Eduardo Saquier,

Thank you for letting me see Professor Cribb's comment on your paper. No doubt you will sort this out between you and produce a revised paper. I think that the whole exercize has been very valuable and I expect to learn much from it,
Sincerely,

John Rex 
University of Warwick, UK
Autor de:Ethnic identity and Ethnic mobilization in Britain, Monographs in Ethnic Relations, Centre for Research in Ethnic Relations, University of Warwick, 1991.

Dear Eduardo Saquier,

Thank you for sending me your revised paper. I shall let you have any observations in due course. I also hope to send you next month a report which I am writing ion collaboration with a colleague in Hong Kong/China on The Most Important Research Centres on Immigration and Race/Ethnic Relations around the World,
Sincerely,

John Rex.
Professor Emeritus,
Universityof Warwick, England

Dear Professor Saguier,

Thank you for your note and the attached document.  I very much like the idea of looking comparatively at state formation (the institutive order, you mention).  I have attached an article I recently finished for a revised edition of Mark Lichbach and Alan Zuckerman, eds., Comparative Politics (Cambridge University Press, forthcoming).  You will see, it spends some time on the comparative disintegration of empires and the effects on state formation.
Let me wish you the best of luck on your project and conference.
Sincerely,

Joel Migdal
University of Washington, USA
Joel S. Migdal is the Robert F. Philip Professor of International Studies in the University of Washington’s Henry M. Jackson School of International Studies.
His books include Palestinian Society and Politics, Peasants, Politics, and Revolution, Strong Societies and Weak States, Through the Lens of Israel, and (with Baruch Kimmerling of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem) Palestinians: The
Making of a People

Dear Eduardo,

Professor Cribb's remarks are quite pertinent. In fact, his comparison of the dismantlement of  Dutch and French colonial empires in Southeast and East Asia recalls the "last minute-balkanization" of the former French West Africa federation into the current nation-states of Benin, Burkina Faso, Cote d'Ivoire, Guinea, Mali, Mauritania, Niger, Senegal (plus Togo). One does see here a pattern in the outcome of decolonization in the former French empire. On the other hand, even though the British, mainly through Lord Luggard, succeeded in creating a somewhat loose federal colony in Nigeria (loose because of the deep regional differences between North and South) which now is the largest, most populous and economically strongest country in West Africa, they failed to integrate Kenya, Uganda and Tanganyika into an actual British East Africa. This, in my opinion, also corroborates the professor's view on the reconfiguration of British colonies in Asia to result in present day Malaysia, Singapour and Brunei. There are definitely legitimate similarities and differences to be explored. 
In any case, I have received the second version of your paper and will send you my feedback once I am done with a research project that I am in the process of completing.
Thank you for your patience.

Mohamed Saliou Camara
Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University in Daytona Beach, Florida, USA
Autor de: His Master’s Voice: Mass Communication and Single Party Politics in Guinea Under Sékou Touré. Trenton, N.J.: Africa World Press

Dear Mr. Saguier,

I would be very pleased to be added to the website in which you plan to make cross-cultural/cross-national comparisons.  I have long maintained that there has been insufficient study of Latin America in academic circles and I think it offers some excellent examples of state crisis, nation building, and challenges of economic development that are, as you note, a global phenomenon.  Please keep me informed on development.
I have recently been invited to give a paper on India at a conference on India in late August being organized by the Foreign Ministry.  Unfortunately, I will be in Europe at that time and so had to regret.  Are you involved in that effort?
Best wishes,

Walter Andersen
  South Asia Program
  School of Advanced International Studies/Johns Hopkins University  Washington DC

Dear Professor Saguier,

   Thank you very much for your interesting paper.  I agree very strongly than not enough research has been done on the structural similarities and differences between different imperial structure or on the differing patterns of imperial dismantlement.  My own interest is in both Southeast and East Asia -- the reasons why Dutch rule in the East Indies was followed by a single independent state, whereas French rule in Indochina led to three successor states, as well as the complex reconfiguration of British colonies to produce Malaysia, Singapore and Brunei.  I am also very much interested in the end of the 'Chinese' empire, which you don't mention at all in your paper.  It is an intriguing case of an empire ruled by a semi-assimilated alien minority, the Manchus, which was then faced with a choice between disintegrating into its various ethnic components (Chinese, Mongol, Tibetan Uighur etc.) or reconfiguring itself as a multi-ethnic nation-state.
  I would be very pleased to hear more about your work as it takes shape.
 Best wishes

Robert Cribb
Australian National University
Autor de: Historical Injustice and Democratic Transition in Eastern Asia and Northern Europe: ghosts at the table of democracy (with Kenneth Christie) (2002)

Prof. Saguier

It's a great project.  At the conference launching Crawford's and Beisinger's work I urged a comparison of the comparison of Easten Europe with decolonized, not contemporary, Africa, and the parallel betwen decolonized Africa and LA, over a century apart, demands analysis.  Good luck on your work; I look forward to further news. 

I. William Zartman
The Johns Hopkins University
Autor de: Collapsed States: The Disintegration and Restoration of Legitimate Authority. Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner, 1995.

Hello again,

A few brief comments on the draft you sent me...
1. I am embarrassed to admit that much of this is pretty far over my head.  While the themes and ideas seem familiar (modalities of decolonization, writing of the official stories of the nation, development of identity through elite led processes), many of the terms and concepts are new to me. 
2.  I do find particularly interesting the notion that artificial (re-)construction of national identities and its concomitant segregation of historical context may lead to increased fratricidal conflicts.  What I would interested to see more of is an exploration of what these historical contexts were that have been "segregated" away.  Are you pointing to pre-colonial identities that are not easily confined to colonial borders?  Are you referring to older elite colonial identities that broke down along with decolonization? 
3.  It seems that the theory would benefit from an explicit geographic element.  That particular elites and ideologies take the upper hand in constructing exclusive national identities is a given; how this identity is extended and solidified over what territory is another question altogether.  If fratricidal conflicts following decolonization truly follow from notions of what constitutes the physical manifestation of the nation and not simply from economic greed or elites striving for greater power and dominance, the space under contest must itself have meaning.
 I have no doubt that I missed many of the nuances of the piece in my quick read, so my comments are likely more reflective of my own interests as I saw them expressed in the piece.  That said, this seems like a very fruitful and interesting project, and I would love to hear more about it as it develops.
Best wishes!

Ariel Zellman, M.A.
Ph.D. Student
Department of Political Science
Northwestern University

Hi Eduardo,

I apologize for my late response.  Things have been more than a little crazy here in Chicago as of late.  Just for the record, I am not a professor yet, just a Ph.D. student.  I am far from an expert in Latin American politics, but the comparison seems sound.  However, my understanding is that borders particularly in South America have been only weakly contested and barely contested at all in the modern period. 
Aside from folks like Simon Bolivar who sought to unite several of the newly independent states, I am not aware of any outstanding border disputes, etc... this is of course not to say that there are none.  It's just not information in the realm of my knowledge.  One book I found to be particularly interesting regarding latin American state development was Miguel Centeno's book: Blood and Debt: War and the Nation-State Latin America. In this book he makes the argument that persistant state weakness in Latin America is best attributed to the absence of the serious threat of interstate war.  Admittedly there are a number of problems to this theory.... many of my Latin Americanist friends have pointed out a number of historical issues as well as the obvious cause-effect issues inherent to the Tillyesque bellicist approach.  An interesting read nonetheless that may relate to your topic of interest.
My particular interest is in examining prolonged territorial disputes that cannot be readily explained by standard realist or liberal economic/cooperation models.  I make the argument for disputes that exist in Israel, Serbia, Armenia, and the like, questions over who has what right to what territory is as much informed and prolonged by questions of national identity as they are determined and guided by strategic moves by government, state, and military.  I suspect that geographic notions of collective self are not limited to these conflicts but rather lie latent in most collectively imagined nations.  These cases in particular pop out largely because their borders are contested.
In any event, I'll try to peruse your draft today and send comments in a timely fashion.  I apologize again for the delay, but do hope we can correspond again soon.
best wishes,

Ariel Zellman, M.A.
Ph.D. Student
Department of Political Science
Northwestern University

Eduardo:

Un fraternal abrazo. Te envío dos artículos que sé que te van a interesar. Uno es de Daniel Yépez quien analiza el movimiento juntero español pero desde la óptica que proporcionan las fuentes inglesas. El otro es el texto de la conferencia que diera el estudioso peruano Edgar Montiel en Argentina, el año pasado, durante el II Congreso Internacional Extraordinario de Filosofía. Encuentro un enfoque bastante novedoso del proceso separatista hispanoamericano y que tiene algunos puntos que se asemejan al enfoque que últimamente estás enfatizando en el sentido de encontrar lo que tienen en común los diversos procesos separatistas que se han dado en el mundo a partir del siglo XIX y que de una u otra manera están realmente imbricados toda vez que son procesos históricos que se han dado cuando ya estaba en plena marcha el proceso de mundialización o globalización, cuyos inicios se retrotraen a los siglos XV y XVI. La historia-mundo exige perspectivas integradoras.
Seguimos en contacto

Jorge Paredes

Dear Dr. Saguier,

Thank you so much for contacting me.  Spain and its empire has long been one of my academic interests (my paternal ancestry is Castilian) and I very much share your scholarly interest in the role that nation states have played in the current turbulence in Africa, the Middle East and Eastern Europe.  I am, however, less knowledgeable about the Latin American statebuilding experience except for Benedict Anderson's important Imagined Identities.  I will, however, discuss the parallels with my friend and colleague Ariel de la Fuente, who just returned from Argentina last week.

In the meantime, I have attached my curriculum vitae with an offer to send you offprints (or e-files) of any of my scholarly articles that interest you.
Regards,

Charles Ingrao
Purdue University
Autor de: State and Society in Early modern Austria. West Lafayette, Indiana Purdue University Press 1994,

Eduardo,

Quisiera que incluyeras al historiador costarricense Dennis Arias como investigador en el proyecto de El Orden Instituyente y el Mito del Héroe. Arias es un excelente historiador costarricense que se ha estado especializando en el estudio del totalitarismo, en nazismo, en discurso histórico y en historia política. Le comenté a Dennis este interés y él se encuentra muy motivado de participar en el asunto. Te mando este corrreo con copia a la cuenta de Arias, para que la tengas entre tus contactos.
Un abrazo,


David Díaz-Arias

Dear Dr. Saguier,

Thank you for your mail and the attached draft article. I am not an expert in this field at all though I do think that you are raising some interesting questions of comparative history. If you are not familiar with it already, I would advise you to look at A. G.Hopkins (ed), Globalisation in World History (2002)where questions about the relations between empires, globalisation and the nation state are all discussed especially in Hopkins' own chapter  'The History of Globalisation - and the Globalisation of History?'
Yours sincerely,

Peter Cain
(Sheffield Hallam University, UK);
Autor de: British Imperialism, 1688-2000

Hola Eduardo:

Informo que el "Laboratório de Estudos do Tempo Presente" en el Instituto de Filosofia e Ciências Humanas (UFRJ) a cual soy afiliada acepta su invitación para colaborar o prestar su adhesión por favor hágamelo saber. El Tempo Presente (www.tempopresente.org) es un centro de investigación muy prestigiado en el Brasil. Su director el profesor Francisco Carlos Teixeira coloca a su disposición del evento el espacio el Fórum Cultural de la UFRJ, ubicado en la Praia Vermelha/Urca/ Rio de Janeiro. Un espacio muy amplo, bonito e con buenas instalaciones para sediar el simpósio, puede mirarlo en na página www.ufrj.br .
Gustaría de saber con más clareza como podemos participar de la obra de investigación colectiva e escala mundial propuesta por ustedes, pues nosotros, somos vários investigadores, nos interesamos mucho por el tema.
Aguardo su contacto.
Un abrazo.

Raquel Paz.
IFCS/UFRJ, Brasil
Autora deNova Argentina: imaginário de uma nação. ... así como de
“Refletindo sobre relacoes Brasil-Argentina a partir da diplomacia. cultural (1930-1950)”. ...

Caro sr. Saguier,
Muito obrigado pelo convite. Gostaria muito de participar e saber mais detalhes sobre esta investigação. Afora o congresso e a página web, que outros tipos de atividades vocês desenvolvem?
Cordialmente,

João Maia
Maia, João Joao Marcelo Ehlert (Fundação Getulio Vargas, Brasil);
Autor de: A terra como invenção. O espaço no pensamento social brasileiro

Dear Eduardo

Thank you again! It is a very interesting and ambitious piece of work. However, I think it is a bit too nostalgic for the old orders; for example racial categories were rife in the medieval Islamic empires, because they went along with the institution of slave labour; the Roma could testify to the same problem with the old Austro-Hungarian Empire, where they were enslaved and dehumanised. And so far as I know, "limpieza de sangre" is a medieval Spanish term, coined in the context of the Reconquista and Inquisition; or am I wrong? So yes, I agree that there are political problems to be solved in nation states all over the world, concerning citizenship and rights, but that does not warrant looking for models in the past.
Best wishes,

Ulrika Martensson
The Norwegian University of Science & Technology, Norway
Autor de: Trondheim: "The Covenant: A Pre-Modern Islamic Contract-Theory?" (SMI, Dept. History of religion)

Dear Eduardo Saguier,

You ask very interesting questions.  
Certainly, on the first one I think that there are not only parallels between the crisis of the nation state in South America in the last century and the other parts of the world, but I think that it is also one connected process that first showed itself in Latin America and has now moved on around the globe.  I think that it will continue to move and plague even more countries in the near future.  It may have already begun in China as well.
On the second issue, I think that there are always parallels among empires -- both in the rise and the fall.  Yet, each one is slightly unique.  I immediately see a few with the Spanish empire and the Ottomans and Soviets, but they may not be the same that you intend, and I would have to think more deeply about it. 
 Right now I am away from home and office -- slowly making my way back to Mongolia where I will be working  for a few months finishing this book on the daughters of Genghis Khan. Keep up the good works!  keep me informed as you progress with this line of thought.  If I were seated right now or in my office I might have more to say, but maybe another time I will have clearer thoughts.

Jack Weatherford
Macalester College, St. Paul, Minnesota, USA
Jack Weatherford is a professor of Anthropology at Macalester College, specializing in Mongolia. He recently received media spotlight for his 2004 book, Genghis Khan and the Making of the Modern World. In 2006, he was awarded the Order of the Polar Star, Mongolia’s highest national honor.

Estimado colega,

Gracias por su mensaje. Me parece que sí puede ser interesante enfocar el proceso de formación de los estados nacionales soberanos a partir de la descomposición  de los imperios. A veces se tiende, casi inconscientemente, a suponer que los estados son la forma primordial de organización política y que los imperios no pueden ser más que el resultado de la expansión de los estados. Pero esto sólo es medianamente cierto para algunos imperios coloniales. Lo que ustedes sugieren puede ser más realista y más fructífero analiticamente; sería algo así: La forma de organización tradicional es un conjunto de unidades locales, diversas y dispersas, bajo un amplio paraguas imperial. Cuando éste se deshace, las piezas fragmentadas tienden a aglutinarse en unidades relativamente más pequeñas, aunque extensas, a las que llamamos estados, los cuales, en contraste con los imperios, implican un intento de fijar fronteras y forzar la homogeneidad interna. En muchos casos este intento ha fracasado, efectivamente, tanto tras la descomposición del imperio español en las Américas, como tras la del imperio británico en Africa y Asia, como tras la disolución del imperio soviético en Europa y Asia.
Estaria bien que, para empezar, pudieran desarrollar algo así como una 'narrativa analítica' de estos procesos.
La discusión contra la literatura previa siempre se puede dejar para un apéndice.
Atentamente,

Josep M. Colomer
Research Professor, Higher Council of Scientific Research.
Affiliated profesor, Barcelona-Graduate School of Economics.
Elected member, Academia Europaea.
Life member, American Political Science Association.

Eduardo,

The kinds of comparisons you are suggesting are exactly what the book is about -- especially the
fall of the Spanish and Ottoman empires, plus those of Eastern Europe and then the Soviet Union.  There are also some interesting chapters that speak to the problems of the Latin American nations in the post-colonial period.  I hope you get a chance to read the book and would be interested in your comments.

Joe Esherick
University of California, San Diego (UCSD).
Autor de  Empire to nation. Historical perspectives on the making of the modern world By Joseph Esherick, Hasan Kayali and Eric van Young, eds., London: Rowman and ...

Dear Dr. Saguier:

You may wish to consult an excellent edited volume:   Joseph Esherick, Hasan Kayali, and Eric Van Young, editors, Empire to Nation:  Historical Perspectives on the Making of the Modern World (Rowman and Littlefield, 2006).  This work makes exactly the comparisons between Latin America and other post-imperial societies that you describe.
Sincerely,

Miles Kahler
University of California, San Diego (UCSD). 
Autor de Territoriality and Conflict in an Era of Globalization (co-edited with Barbara Walter, Cambridge University Press, 2006); Governance in a Global Economy (co-edited with David Lake, Princeton University Press, 2003) and Leadership Selection in the Major Multilaterals (Institute for International Economics, 2001). 

Eduardo

    An interesting essay, in a quite postmodern style, based on wide reading. I commend it, but I think it is difficult to compare the ethno-territorial fracturing of states in Africa or the breakup of multinational empires with the more homogeneous Spanish and Portuguese empires where ethnic divisions, where they exist, are largely based on non-territorial racial divides.
Best

Eric Kaufmann
(Birkbeck College, University of London, UK);
Autor de:  Unionism and Orangeism in Northern Ireland since 1945: the decline of the loyal family (Manchester University Press, May '07)

Prof. Eduardo R. Saguier

He recibido toda la información acerca del Simposio así como del libro que ustedes  preparan y me han parecido muy interesantes. Ante todo le explico que mis líneas de investigación actuales se circunscriben al estudio de la América colonial, la Iglesia, el mundo indígena y su resistencia a los procesos de dominación. No obstante, como profesora de Historia de América me vinculo a los procesos por ustedes apuntados. Por tanto presto mi adhesión personal a su proyecto pero me gustaría tener más información sobre el Simposio que pretenden realizar.
Quiero agregarle que he notado en la propuesta enviada una escasa participación de los cientistas sociales cubanos en la misma. Si esto se debe a falta de comunicación con este mundo académico me brindo para facilitarle los vínculos con el mismo porque, aunque soy argentina, laboro actualmente en Cuba. Para ello enviaré a varios colaboradores su propuesta y espero que respondan también a la convocatoria.
Reciba mis cordiales saludos y quedo a la espera de sus noticias:

María Victoria Guevara
Colegio Universitario San Gerónimo de La Habana
Universidad de La Habana
C/ O’Reilly nº 104 Habana Vieja, Ciudad de La Habana, Cuba
Tel. 866-3736

Dear Eduardo,

Thank you for your initiative in the Research Program.  I just came back from Ghana and did not read your previous e-mail.
I would be happy to contribute in any capacity.
Best,

Edmund Abaka
University of Miami at Coral Gables
AFRICA AND AFRICAN DIASPORA Edmund Abaka ... RACE AND ETHNICITY Edmund Abaka ... ECONOMIC, BUSINESS, AND LABOR HISTORY Edmund Abaka ...