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The Gun, the Ship, and the Pen: Warfare, Constitutions, and the Making of the Modern World
A work of extraordinary range and striking originality, The Gun, the Ship, and the Pen traces the global history of written constitutions from the 1750s to the twentieth century, modifying accepted narratives and uncovering the close connections between the making of constitutions and the making of war. In the process, Linda Colley both reappraises famous constitutions and recovers those that have been marginalized but were central to the rise of a modern world.
She brings to the fore neglected sites, such as Corsica, with its pioneering constitution of 1755, and tiny Pitcairn Island in the Pacific, the first place on the globe permanently to enfranchise women. She highlights the role of unexpected players, such as Catherine the Great of Russia, who was experimenting with constitutional techniques with her enlightened Nakaz decades before the Founding Fathers framed the American constitution. Written constitutions are usually examined in relation to individual states, but Colley focuses on how they crossed boundaries, spreading into six continents by 1918 and aiding the rise of empires as well as nations. She also illumines their place not simply in law and politics but also in wider cultural histories, and their intimate connections with print, literary creativity, and the rise of the novel.
Colley shows how—while advancing epic revolutions and enfranchising white males—constitutions frequently served over the long nineteenth century to marginalize indigenous people, exclude women and people of color, and expropriate land. Simultaneously, though, she investigates how these devices were adapted by peoples and activists outside the West seeking to resist European and American power. She describes how Tunisia generated the first modern Islamic constitution in 1861, quickly suppressed, but an influence still on the Arab Spring; how Africanus Horton of Sierra Leone—inspired by the American Civil War—devised plans for self-governing nations in West Africa; and how Japan’s Meiji constitution of 1889 came to compete with Western constitutionalism as a model for Indian, Chinese, and Ottoman nationalists and reformers.
Vividly written and handsomely illustrated, The Gun, the Ship, and the Pen is an absorbing work that—with its pageant of formative wars, powerful leaders, visionary lawmakers and committed rebels—retells the story of constitutional government and the evolution of ideas of what it means to be modern.
She brings to the fore neglected sites, such as Corsica, with its pioneering constitution of 1755, and tiny Pitcairn Island in the Pacific, the first place on the globe permanently to enfranchise women. She highlights the role of unexpected players, such as Catherine the Great of Russia, who was experimenting with constitutional techniques with her enlightened Nakaz decades before the Founding Fathers framed the American constitution. Written constitutions are usually examined in relation to individual states, but Colley focuses on how they crossed boundaries, spreading into six continents by 1918 and aiding the rise of empires as well as nations. She also illumines their place not simply in law and politics but also in wider cultural histories, and their intimate connections with print, literary creativity, and the rise of the novel.
Colley shows how—while advancing epic revolutions and enfranchising white males—constitutions frequently served over the long nineteenth century to marginalize indigenous people, exclude women and people of color, and expropriate land. Simultaneously, though, she investigates how these devices were adapted by peoples and activists outside the West seeking to resist European and American power. She describes how Tunisia generated the first modern Islamic constitution in 1861, quickly suppressed, but an influence still on the Arab Spring; how Africanus Horton of Sierra Leone—inspired by the American Civil War—devised plans for self-governing nations in West Africa; and how Japan’s Meiji constitution of 1889 came to compete with Western constitutionalism as a model for Indian, Chinese, and Ottoman nationalists and reformers.
Vividly written and handsomely illustrated, The Gun, the Ship, and the Pen is an absorbing work that—with its pageant of formative wars, powerful leaders, visionary lawmakers and committed rebels—retells the story of constitutional government and the evolution of ideas of what it means to be modern.
512 pages, Hardcover
First published May 14, 2015
About the author
Linda Colley
14 books33 followersLinda Colley is Shelby M.C. Davis 1958 Professor of History at Princeton University and a Long Term Fellow in History at the Swedish Collegium for Advanced Study in Uppsala. She previously held chairs at Yale University and at the London School of Economics.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 66 reviews
November 11, 2021
The Gun, the Ship, and the Pen makes a few good points about constitutions in its covered period of 1750 to 1914, but then loses itself in a morass of irrelevant detail about constitution writing. Colley makes two major points which are often obscured by the primacy of the American Constitutional civic religion. First, constitutions are not enacted out of high-minded principals, but instead tend to arise as a response to financial and political stresses, especially the stresses incurred by imperialist 'hybrid' wars on land and sea best exemplified by the globe-spanning wars triggered by the French Revolution and ended at Waterloo. Second, most constitutions are ephemeral experiments, being replaced after a few years. Even in the United States, state constitutions are hardly sacred writ, the Alabama constitution seems to have been amended regularly, mostly to keep down African Americans. The longevity and seeming immutability of the US constitution is a massive exception to the usual life of these documents.
And then comes the irrelevant fluff. Colley begins with the 1755 Constitution of the Corsican Republic and the career of its military leader Pasquale Paoli, and then ambles through the lives of people who did constitutional writing across the world. Somewhere about 300 pages in and around Pomare II of Tahiti, I realized that what I was reading was a political version of Lomask's Great Lives: Invention and Technology which I loved when I was 10. Page after page was filled with biographical detail, and almost nothing devoted to the political thought that constitutions represent.
This barest pretense of intellectual history is the most critical flaw of this book. For all that it's brought up, the "constitution" could be an abstruse form of poetry or perhaps some kind of sport. Having declared that constitutions served to stabilize states against internal pressures caused by taxation and conscription, Colley has little to say about political stability in constitutional regimes, except that London was spared both unrest and constitutions thanks to its victory over Napoleon and centrality to global trade.
And this is a shame, because constitutions are fascinating documents full of contradictions. They're utopian designs for a more perfect union, and pragmatic attempts to stabilize unruly minorities. The American Constitution was silent on the subject of slavery and explicitly excluded Indians as part of a settler-colonial project to seize the West. Meanwhile, the post-Bolivarian constitutions of South America enshrined (male) legal equality between the castes, including African slaves, though actual power reminded in the hands of a criollo elite. And as I recall from my serious academic years, a constitution must be created and enacted by a process outside the constitution itself (Jasanoff, Agamben, Graeber? I don't care to track down the exact reference). In a legal society, a constitutional moment is one when the raw power of political violence surges close to the genteel debates of the legislature.
I'm most familiar with this period through Mike Duncan's Revolutions podcast, and Colley captures almost none of the drama or weight of the era. This was a time when people were actively redefining the nature of politics in debate, mob violence, and massive wars. Colley brings forward peripheral voices, so points for talking about non-Europeans here, but in a broader sense, the debates of the French Revolution and 1848 between liberals, autocrats, and radicals about who wields power and to what ends, are the same debates that we have today. Good history shows us what people in the past thought, and the sources and consequences of their actions. On this measure, The Gun, the Ship, and the Pen fails entirely.
I read this book thanks to a glowing review in the New Yorker. "Nobel prize in history" my ass. I may have to start skipping the book reviews along with the fiction if they're this unreliable.
And then comes the irrelevant fluff. Colley begins with the 1755 Constitution of the Corsican Republic and the career of its military leader Pasquale Paoli, and then ambles through the lives of people who did constitutional writing across the world. Somewhere about 300 pages in and around Pomare II of Tahiti, I realized that what I was reading was a political version of Lomask's Great Lives: Invention and Technology which I loved when I was 10. Page after page was filled with biographical detail, and almost nothing devoted to the political thought that constitutions represent.
This barest pretense of intellectual history is the most critical flaw of this book. For all that it's brought up, the "constitution" could be an abstruse form of poetry or perhaps some kind of sport. Having declared that constitutions served to stabilize states against internal pressures caused by taxation and conscription, Colley has little to say about political stability in constitutional regimes, except that London was spared both unrest and constitutions thanks to its victory over Napoleon and centrality to global trade.
And this is a shame, because constitutions are fascinating documents full of contradictions. They're utopian designs for a more perfect union, and pragmatic attempts to stabilize unruly minorities. The American Constitution was silent on the subject of slavery and explicitly excluded Indians as part of a settler-colonial project to seize the West. Meanwhile, the post-Bolivarian constitutions of South America enshrined (male) legal equality between the castes, including African slaves, though actual power reminded in the hands of a criollo elite. And as I recall from my serious academic years, a constitution must be created and enacted by a process outside the constitution itself (Jasanoff, Agamben, Graeber? I don't care to track down the exact reference). In a legal society, a constitutional moment is one when the raw power of political violence surges close to the genteel debates of the legislature.
I'm most familiar with this period through Mike Duncan's Revolutions podcast, and Colley captures almost none of the drama or weight of the era. This was a time when people were actively redefining the nature of politics in debate, mob violence, and massive wars. Colley brings forward peripheral voices, so points for talking about non-Europeans here, but in a broader sense, the debates of the French Revolution and 1848 between liberals, autocrats, and radicals about who wields power and to what ends, are the same debates that we have today. Good history shows us what people in the past thought, and the sources and consequences of their actions. On this measure, The Gun, the Ship, and the Pen fails entirely.
I read this book thanks to a glowing review in the New Yorker. "Nobel prize in history" my ass. I may have to start skipping the book reviews along with the fiction if they're this unreliable.
September 1, 2022
Just as Georges Perec, in his Void, wrote a novel without using the letter ‘e’, here Colley writes the history of constitutions without using terms such as ‘class struggle’, ‘bourgeoisie’ or ‘capitalism’. I was not surprised when I found out that Colley and her partner are elite members of pro-establishment American and British history associations, which made her aversion to class politics understandable.
Elements of critical thinking, however, is not completely missing from the book. The author goes against the dominant historiographic trend of situating constitutions as the product of successful revolutions. Instead, she argues that the governments and rulers who were fighting wars used the constitutions to mobilise necessary resources such as manpower, taxes and raw material needed for the weapons and ammunition. “I give you rights and freedoms, and you’ll give me your life.” Constitutions were the weapons of the rulers not the revolutionaries. Her history has this Charles Tillyian vibe where the war, rather than the capitalism is the driving force of history. This is a half-truth, but she skilfully makes her case.
On top of the warfare and co-optation argument, Colley adds the global history methodology. We see advancing communication and transportation links, the travelling intellectuals, statesmen and their texts navigating around the globe, inspiring and getting inspired by each other’s views.
The book, though, has a huge shortcoming and that is the history of popular struggles from below. Colley’s history is mainly a history from high above, and lacks any view of radical intellectuals or of popular movements that formulated progressive arguments and thus put pressure on the governments to initiate constitutional reforms.
The book was a fun read. This is something the bourgeois historians, in collaboration with their editors do very well.
Elements of critical thinking, however, is not completely missing from the book. The author goes against the dominant historiographic trend of situating constitutions as the product of successful revolutions. Instead, she argues that the governments and rulers who were fighting wars used the constitutions to mobilise necessary resources such as manpower, taxes and raw material needed for the weapons and ammunition. “I give you rights and freedoms, and you’ll give me your life.” Constitutions were the weapons of the rulers not the revolutionaries. Her history has this Charles Tillyian vibe where the war, rather than the capitalism is the driving force of history. This is a half-truth, but she skilfully makes her case.
On top of the warfare and co-optation argument, Colley adds the global history methodology. We see advancing communication and transportation links, the travelling intellectuals, statesmen and their texts navigating around the globe, inspiring and getting inspired by each other’s views.
The book, though, has a huge shortcoming and that is the history of popular struggles from below. Colley’s history is mainly a history from high above, and lacks any view of radical intellectuals or of popular movements that formulated progressive arguments and thus put pressure on the governments to initiate constitutional reforms.
The book was a fun read. This is something the bourgeois historians, in collaboration with their editors do very well.
May 31, 2021
Linda Colley, a distinguished Princeton historian, has written a history of the genesis and distribution of written constitutions throughout the world from the 18th century up to the start of World War 1 (more or less). Written constitutions are institutions (social things) that arise in a given context as a result of varied interacting forces that influence politics and culture far beyond particular countries in particular time frames.
She has a particular framework guiding her observations. Written constitutions developed as governments engaged in various conflicts over an expanding geographic area including transoceanic realms. The prevailing hybrid technologies of warfare made engaging in these conflicts extremely expensive for states and required them to go back to their populations to obtain additional resources and exercise greater controls so that wars could be successfully prosecuted. The model for this was the Seven Years War, one of the first truly global conflicts. So constitutional government was the price that needed to be paid for governments/regimes to engage successfully at the levels of activity and resource uses that the leading states of the era required. Constitutions were not granted out of the goodness of rulers’ hearts but in exchange for binding citizens to the agendas of the rulers. Related to this, constitutions were not just provided by liberal democracies but rather by all types of government from the democratic and socialist to the most autocratic of regimes (Catherine the Great’s Russia, for example).
Where does the US constitution fit into this story? The US experience is centrally located in this story and it was both influenced by prior constitutional efforts and various Enlightenment philosophes as well as a more source of influence for subsequent constitutional experiments. So much for American exceptionalism! Our founding fathers were an active part of a period of political expansion and instrumental experimentalism. Constitutions were a critical part of politics for all the major empires as well as for the imperial domains they ruled, including Africa in the late 19th century. There were occasional exceptions, of course, but these failed to endure and the scope of European dominion grew.
This book presents a new way to think about constitutions as vehicles for attempting to address the problems that various framers were facing. I found Colley’s book insightful and fairly readable. The perspective of analyzing historical documents as embedded in a set of historical conditions and dynamics is novel and highly informative, even on matters that I thought I knew something about.
The book is clear and well referenced. The chapters are a bit on the long side, but I did not find that much of a problem. I have trouble remembering a book that staked out a clear and novel framework on a widely research topic area and then followed it through so successfully. Perhaps all the recent chatter about the US constitution made this book seem so timely, but that’s ok.
She has a particular framework guiding her observations. Written constitutions developed as governments engaged in various conflicts over an expanding geographic area including transoceanic realms. The prevailing hybrid technologies of warfare made engaging in these conflicts extremely expensive for states and required them to go back to their populations to obtain additional resources and exercise greater controls so that wars could be successfully prosecuted. The model for this was the Seven Years War, one of the first truly global conflicts. So constitutional government was the price that needed to be paid for governments/regimes to engage successfully at the levels of activity and resource uses that the leading states of the era required. Constitutions were not granted out of the goodness of rulers’ hearts but in exchange for binding citizens to the agendas of the rulers. Related to this, constitutions were not just provided by liberal democracies but rather by all types of government from the democratic and socialist to the most autocratic of regimes (Catherine the Great’s Russia, for example).
Where does the US constitution fit into this story? The US experience is centrally located in this story and it was both influenced by prior constitutional efforts and various Enlightenment philosophes as well as a more source of influence for subsequent constitutional experiments. So much for American exceptionalism! Our founding fathers were an active part of a period of political expansion and instrumental experimentalism. Constitutions were a critical part of politics for all the major empires as well as for the imperial domains they ruled, including Africa in the late 19th century. There were occasional exceptions, of course, but these failed to endure and the scope of European dominion grew.
This book presents a new way to think about constitutions as vehicles for attempting to address the problems that various framers were facing. I found Colley’s book insightful and fairly readable. The perspective of analyzing historical documents as embedded in a set of historical conditions and dynamics is novel and highly informative, even on matters that I thought I knew something about.
The book is clear and well referenced. The chapters are a bit on the long side, but I did not find that much of a problem. I have trouble remembering a book that staked out a clear and novel framework on a widely research topic area and then followed it through so successfully. Perhaps all the recent chatter about the US constitution made this book seem so timely, but that’s ok.
September 11, 2022
Positief: een interessant onderwerp, met de potentie om vanuit een nieuw internationaal, perspectief politieke geschiedenis te beschouwen. Als je specifiek over bepaalde historische figuren wilt leren, dan kan dat.
Negatief: het is duidelijk dat de auteur geen achtergrond in het recht heeft. Voor een boek dat in principe over de verspreiding van grondwetten gaat, wordt er weinig over de redenen voor de verspreiding van specifieke grondwetten en hun inhoud geschreven. Er is weinig informatie over de inhoud van de grondwetten zelf. De auteur probeert beeldend te schrijven, met het onfortuinlijke gevolg dat elk zelfstandig naamwoord minstens 2 bijvoeglijke naamwoorden ervoor heeft staan. Ook heeft het boek de neiging om in de valkuil van Big Man History te vallen. De verspreiding van grondwetten is blijkbaar niet zozeer het gevolg van complexe maatschappelijke processen, als dat het een gevolg is van de acties van een paar grote mannen (en een enkele vrouw). Bovendien staan er enkele zeer twijfelachtige gevolgtrekkingen, kromme redeneringen en objectief gezien foute uitspraken in het boek.
Conclusie: niet het lezen waard
Negatief: het is duidelijk dat de auteur geen achtergrond in het recht heeft. Voor een boek dat in principe over de verspreiding van grondwetten gaat, wordt er weinig over de redenen voor de verspreiding van specifieke grondwetten en hun inhoud geschreven. Er is weinig informatie over de inhoud van de grondwetten zelf. De auteur probeert beeldend te schrijven, met het onfortuinlijke gevolg dat elk zelfstandig naamwoord minstens 2 bijvoeglijke naamwoorden ervoor heeft staan. Ook heeft het boek de neiging om in de valkuil van Big Man History te vallen. De verspreiding van grondwetten is blijkbaar niet zozeer het gevolg van complexe maatschappelijke processen, als dat het een gevolg is van de acties van een paar grote mannen (en een enkele vrouw). Bovendien staan er enkele zeer twijfelachtige gevolgtrekkingen, kromme redeneringen en objectief gezien foute uitspraken in het boek.
Conclusie: niet het lezen waard
June 4, 2021
‘Warfare, Constitutions and the Making of the Modern World.’
I picked up this book intrigued by the role of constitutions in the modern world. I am most familiar with the Australian Constitution (an Act of the UK Parliament, passed in 1900), am aware of the American Constitution, and studied aspects of the Meiji Constitution (Japan 1889 to 1947), but apart from the Australian Constitution I have never really stopped to consider how and why constitutions are developed. I have a lot to learn.
Ms Colley’s book took me on a voyage around the world between the mid-18th century and the outbreak of World War I. There is no single way of developing a constitution and in this book both monarchs and radicals have played a role. Consider Catherine the Great and her Nakaz, which incorporates ideas of the French enlightenment. And in Tunisia, where the Ahd al-Amān, or Fundamental Pact came into effect in 1856 followed by the short-lived constitution of 1860 (the first constitution in the Arab world).
I learned, too, that constitutions are not (usually) static. I oversimplify. I see the pen (the constitution, even though not all constitutions are written) as a response to the gun (warfare) and the ship (colonial expansion). Ms Colley amplifies my understanding. I read of constitutions that are inclusive, and those that seek to exclude. I learned that in 1838, Pitcairn Island had a constitution which enfranchised all adult women (thanks to Captain Russell Elliott of HMS Fly).
And, shifting my focus from an Anglo-centric view, I read about Toussaint Louverture in Haiti, Napoleon Bonaparte in France, and Simón Bolívar in South America.
I finished this book, determined to read more about some of the constitutions mentioned. There is plenty of detail here for those who want to immerse themselves in a study of the role of constitutions in the modern world and on the factors which impact on their development and change.
Jennifer Cameron-Smith
I picked up this book intrigued by the role of constitutions in the modern world. I am most familiar with the Australian Constitution (an Act of the UK Parliament, passed in 1900), am aware of the American Constitution, and studied aspects of the Meiji Constitution (Japan 1889 to 1947), but apart from the Australian Constitution I have never really stopped to consider how and why constitutions are developed. I have a lot to learn.
Ms Colley’s book took me on a voyage around the world between the mid-18th century and the outbreak of World War I. There is no single way of developing a constitution and in this book both monarchs and radicals have played a role. Consider Catherine the Great and her Nakaz, which incorporates ideas of the French enlightenment. And in Tunisia, where the Ahd al-Amān, or Fundamental Pact came into effect in 1856 followed by the short-lived constitution of 1860 (the first constitution in the Arab world).
I learned, too, that constitutions are not (usually) static. I oversimplify. I see the pen (the constitution, even though not all constitutions are written) as a response to the gun (warfare) and the ship (colonial expansion). Ms Colley amplifies my understanding. I read of constitutions that are inclusive, and those that seek to exclude. I learned that in 1838, Pitcairn Island had a constitution which enfranchised all adult women (thanks to Captain Russell Elliott of HMS Fly).
And, shifting my focus from an Anglo-centric view, I read about Toussaint Louverture in Haiti, Napoleon Bonaparte in France, and Simón Bolívar in South America.
I finished this book, determined to read more about some of the constitutions mentioned. There is plenty of detail here for those who want to immerse themselves in a study of the role of constitutions in the modern world and on the factors which impact on their development and change.
Jennifer Cameron-Smith
June 4, 2021
The book overall presented a lot of interesting information, on a more global level then most. However, there were so many times where a theory was presented as a proven fact without sufficient supporting evidence. I come away more aware of the reach of written constitutions but not convinced of her central thesis regarding the linkage of constitutions as a basis for government and "hybrid warfare" (war conducted on land and sea).
And editing annoyance - why did so many of the images not appear in the portion of the text where they are mentioned? Several are a couple pages off, & a couple of others aren't really mentioned and then feel like an awkward add.
And editing annoyance - why did so many of the images not appear in the portion of the text where they are mentioned? Several are a couple pages off, & a couple of others aren't really mentioned and then feel like an awkward add.
December 27, 2022
Tons of interesting historical information, sometimes not quite accurate but serves for the story
February 16, 2023
In this book, Colley proposes the thesis that the rise of the modern written constitution wasn't just related to democracy or "enlightenment", but was closely linked to the total warfare that emerged in the eighteenth century, from the combination of war on land and at sea; what Colley calls "hybrid" warfare. It's an interesting thesis, with a lot to support it, and the author does provide that evidence here, jumping across the globe from Haiti, to France, to the US, to tiny Pitcairn Island, to Japan, amongst others. I must confess that the inclusion of Pitcairn surprised me, being such a small island. I wouldn't have thought it noteworthy, but Colley talks about how its lack led to increasing aggression from American fishermen and how increased interest in the subject meant that visiting British naval officer Russell Elliott was able to dash off a constitution for them based on his own knowledge and sympathies.
It's clear that many constitutions emerged as the product of warfare - either imposed by a conqueror, as Napoleon was wont to do, or as the result of a revolutionary struggle against a foreign occupying power, but it's equally clear that many (most?) written constitutions have a very limited shelf life and are revoked or replaced in a short space of time. This makes their continuing popularity, both in the period of this book, and right up into the modern era, frankly bemusing. But it's clear that if you have revolution or a coup, one of the first things you do is add a new constitution.
It's interesting to consider just how central the UK, and particularly London, was to the fad for constitutions in this period, especially given our lack of a written constitution of our own. But London was the centre of one of the great world empires at this time, had huge amounts of shipping, many, many printing presses and so people flowed through it, exchanging ideas and generally being a melting pot, that led to the new constitutions that were already being installed being pored over and armchair experts writing their own, with people coming from all over the world to compare ideas.
There's a lot of interest here, but I'm struggling to to pin the book down. It's easy enough to read, being written mostly for a general audience (although it still took me over two months to finish - but that's a me problem, not the book's fault), but I just have a vague sensation that I've come away without necessarily getting it. I learned many individually interesting things (such as that Catherine the Great penned her own proto-constitution for Russia) but I think it felt disjointed, overall. I'm still not sure if that's an issue with the book, or just my difficulty in reading non-fiction though.
It's clear that many constitutions emerged as the product of warfare - either imposed by a conqueror, as Napoleon was wont to do, or as the result of a revolutionary struggle against a foreign occupying power, but it's equally clear that many (most?) written constitutions have a very limited shelf life and are revoked or replaced in a short space of time. This makes their continuing popularity, both in the period of this book, and right up into the modern era, frankly bemusing. But it's clear that if you have revolution or a coup, one of the first things you do is add a new constitution.
It's interesting to consider just how central the UK, and particularly London, was to the fad for constitutions in this period, especially given our lack of a written constitution of our own. But London was the centre of one of the great world empires at this time, had huge amounts of shipping, many, many printing presses and so people flowed through it, exchanging ideas and generally being a melting pot, that led to the new constitutions that were already being installed being pored over and armchair experts writing their own, with people coming from all over the world to compare ideas.
There's a lot of interest here, but I'm struggling to to pin the book down. It's easy enough to read, being written mostly for a general audience (although it still took me over two months to finish - but that's a me problem, not the book's fault), but I just have a vague sensation that I've come away without necessarily getting it. I learned many individually interesting things (such as that Catherine the Great penned her own proto-constitution for Russia) but I think it felt disjointed, overall. I'm still not sure if that's an issue with the book, or just my difficulty in reading non-fiction though.
October 14, 2021
A detailed world wide survey of constitution making that shifts the focus from the ideological (and textual exegesis) to power politics, war and state organization (and reorganization). A lot of fascinating and unfamiliar detail (Pitcairn Island: who knew?) and the point is forcefully made that constitutions aren’t necessarily or ever just expressions of Enlightened reason and wisdom - frequently the American view. Nor are they immutable - also the American view and Colley argues to our detriment.
June 21, 2021
Linda Colley books always bring a new perspective, not just to the age they describe, but the assumptions of our own as well. Clearly an academic historian, she able to tell a great story as well.
July 29, 2023
This is an occasionally interesting and more often frustrating book. The basic premise is that the need for more soldiers and sailors, as well as for more money to pay for those soldiers and sailors, required governments from the mid-18th century onwards to offer their populations some sort of promise, which most often came in the form of a constitution. Thus the pen followed the gun and the ship. The first two chapters detail the rapid increase in warfare up to the late 18th century. A top "ship of the line" in the 1650s would carry 30 guns, but by the Seven Years War it was 60 guns, and Horatio Nelson's ship "Victory" at Trafalgar carried 100 guns. In the War of Austrian succession 62,000 men served in the British Army, by the Seven Years War it was 93,000, and by the American Revolutionary War it was 108,000. But there is a problem for the author's thesis, in that few national constitutions were issued until the American one in 1787, long after that war was over, and long after these 18th century wars were finished. Many despots in the 18th century issued things that weren't quite constitutions: like Catherine the Great's 1767 "Nakaz," heavily copied from Montesquieu's Spirit of the Laws and Cesare Beccaria's On Crimes and Punishments, with a 564 deputy commission to discuss it; Frederick II's "Frederician Code" in 1751, or, closer to a constitution, the Instrument of Government forced on the Swedish King in 1719 and reformed to be more monarchical in Gustaf III's "Form of Government" in 1772. Many or all of these were issued during periods of peace, albeit, often an armed peace with heavy taxes as a result of previous wars. The closet to the author's thesis in this period is Pasquale Paoli of Corsica's 10-page self-styled constitution in 1755, which created a General Diet and the council of state with the branches of political, military, and economic affairs. But here again, the constitution was established in the wake of wars. Haiti's Constitution of 1801 is more the exception than the rule the author wants it to be.
The author is at her best when she describes the culture of constitution writing at the turn of the 18th century, where the combination of the American example and the Napoleonic Wars did create a genuine groundswell of interest. This is shown when Edmund Burke mocks Abbe Sieyes for having "whole nests of pigeon-holes full of constitutions readymade, ticketed, sorted, and numbered; suited to every season and every fancy" or when Gouvernor Morris was staying in France and writing a proposed constitution for that country, only to having a French intruder burst into his room with a constitution for the United States. Or the French provincial form in this period that allowed people to fill out their own constitution. This was clearly a movement, but it's also clear that it was the examples of the United States and, to some extent, Napoleon were paramount, the latter since he imposed new constitutions wherever he went, such as the Statue of Bayonne in 1807 for Spain, or his constitution for the Duchy of Warsaw, which he dashed off himself in an about an hour, with a handful of Poles barely questioned as to their needs in this period.
Even if the thesis is debatable or sometimes absent in these parts of the book, at least it is interesting. More baffling is the author's desire to regularly point out that these constitutions were printed, as if that carried some surprising weight. Most concerningly, the book is so eager to placate contemporary historical tropes that by the second half of the book it loses the thread completely. The interesting case of British Capitan Russell Elliott creating a constitution in 1838 for the Pitcairn Islanders, one which included women as voting citizens, of course leads down the rabbit hole into a focus on women and “non-white” constitution makers. Not that these aren’t worthwhile and important stories, but most seemed completely unmoored from the book’s thesis, which suddenly becomes about proving that women and non-whites liked constitutions too. The obsession with telling history “from the bottom up,” strange especially when talking about big political constitutions, means occasionally we get two-page stories like that of Chiba Takusaburo, a small-town teacher that wrote an uninteresting argument about the need for a Japanese constitution that wasn’t discovered until the 1960s. In a book that tries to encompass two hundred years of political global history in 400 pages, such regular segues are dispiriting.
And sometimes too, the author's political judgment gets the better of her. Her argument that the Soviet constitution of 1936, which justified one of the most horrific totalitarian regimes in human history, was “put into practice with an unprecedented degree of mass involvement” is gobsmaking. Despite regularly celebrating the masses, as is typical for academics, when discussing United States she balks, noting that our current constitution needs “sustained and expert amplification.”
There are truly interesting stories and arguments here, and even if they aren't all born out, they do make one think. I just wish they weren't buried under a mass of irrelevant and questionable side-notes.
The author is at her best when she describes the culture of constitution writing at the turn of the 18th century, where the combination of the American example and the Napoleonic Wars did create a genuine groundswell of interest. This is shown when Edmund Burke mocks Abbe Sieyes for having "whole nests of pigeon-holes full of constitutions readymade, ticketed, sorted, and numbered; suited to every season and every fancy" or when Gouvernor Morris was staying in France and writing a proposed constitution for that country, only to having a French intruder burst into his room with a constitution for the United States. Or the French provincial form in this period that allowed people to fill out their own constitution. This was clearly a movement, but it's also clear that it was the examples of the United States and, to some extent, Napoleon were paramount, the latter since he imposed new constitutions wherever he went, such as the Statue of Bayonne in 1807 for Spain, or his constitution for the Duchy of Warsaw, which he dashed off himself in an about an hour, with a handful of Poles barely questioned as to their needs in this period.
Even if the thesis is debatable or sometimes absent in these parts of the book, at least it is interesting. More baffling is the author's desire to regularly point out that these constitutions were printed, as if that carried some surprising weight. Most concerningly, the book is so eager to placate contemporary historical tropes that by the second half of the book it loses the thread completely. The interesting case of British Capitan Russell Elliott creating a constitution in 1838 for the Pitcairn Islanders, one which included women as voting citizens, of course leads down the rabbit hole into a focus on women and “non-white” constitution makers. Not that these aren’t worthwhile and important stories, but most seemed completely unmoored from the book’s thesis, which suddenly becomes about proving that women and non-whites liked constitutions too. The obsession with telling history “from the bottom up,” strange especially when talking about big political constitutions, means occasionally we get two-page stories like that of Chiba Takusaburo, a small-town teacher that wrote an uninteresting argument about the need for a Japanese constitution that wasn’t discovered until the 1960s. In a book that tries to encompass two hundred years of political global history in 400 pages, such regular segues are dispiriting.
And sometimes too, the author's political judgment gets the better of her. Her argument that the Soviet constitution of 1936, which justified one of the most horrific totalitarian regimes in human history, was “put into practice with an unprecedented degree of mass involvement” is gobsmaking. Despite regularly celebrating the masses, as is typical for academics, when discussing United States she balks, noting that our current constitution needs “sustained and expert amplification.”
There are truly interesting stories and arguments here, and even if they aren't all born out, they do make one think. I just wish they weren't buried under a mass of irrelevant and questionable side-notes.
January 11, 2022
Colley has two main arguments. The first is that constitutions are usually at least partially driven by concern about war. In order to get people to make sacrifices for war in blood and treasure, they need to feel they have a stake in society. The other is that the written word was essential is the making of the modern world by allowing the promulgations of ideas and especially constitutions.
Colley starts off looking at attempts in writing to codify laws and the form of government. She starts out in Corsica in the mid-1700s with an early attempt at a constitution aimed at driving out the Genoese. This was a constitution in the sense that Colley mainly uses it, meaning it binds both the governors and the governed to certain rules and responsibilities. It failed fairly quickly, perhaps because there were no printing presses on the island. She then goes to the Qing Dynasty, where one emperor tried to codify the structure of government, but without any restrictions on himself. Catherine the Great did something similar with her Nakaz. It was trying to create a rationale and orderly government, but also without limiting her power. Gustav in Sweden tried something similar but at least claimed that he was bound by it also. Colley uses these early attempts to show the interest in writing down how government should work to make it work more effectively.
She the switches to the American Constitution, but doesn't go into much detail on what it says. Instead, she focuses on how it was formed a why. Although armed threats were clearly a concern, Colley stretches the evidence here to fit her thesis. She talks about the appeal of a federal state to later constitutions, but doesn't talk about the weaknesses of that system for war. She also argues that the Declaration of Independence was less influential than the Constitution in the 19th century. Again, I see her point in that it was rarely directly referenced, but it did directly inspire the French Declaration of the Rights of Man, which was cited constantly throughout the 19th and 20th centuries. So she may be right on citations, but less so on overall influence.
When she discusses Napoleon, she makes a lot of sense in showing that Napoleon was not interested in curbing his own power, but in getting the people to buy into making sacrifices for society. Creating citizens meant creating more willing soldiers and tax-payers, which is one reason why only men were citizens most of the time. Napoleon created countries and constitutions to go with them, with mixed results. She also emphasizes his failure on the sea undermined his overall effectiveness is war and ultimately contributing significantly to his downfall.
The French Revolution and Napoleon Wars sparked constitution writing across the world. This was most immediately felt in Latin America, where main Spanish colonies declared independence as was weakened by Napoleon. As Europe expanded outward in trade, the ideas of constitutionalism spread as well, but what spread it further was European conquest. Some countries, such as Japan, saw constitutional government as a way to strengthen the country, but others used it as a defense against European aggression. A constitution meant "civilization" to Europeans, so they could less easily justify aggressive acquisition of territory. It was a nice idea, but Europeans were flexible in their rationalization for empire. This include the United States, which swallowed up Hawaii (and other Pacific islands) despite its constitutional government.
The overall argument is a good one and I will use it in my classes. There are a few places where it gets stretched, but that is what historians do. This was interesting and useful, so give it a shot if you are interested in the history of constitutions and how/why they were created.
Colley starts off looking at attempts in writing to codify laws and the form of government. She starts out in Corsica in the mid-1700s with an early attempt at a constitution aimed at driving out the Genoese. This was a constitution in the sense that Colley mainly uses it, meaning it binds both the governors and the governed to certain rules and responsibilities. It failed fairly quickly, perhaps because there were no printing presses on the island. She then goes to the Qing Dynasty, where one emperor tried to codify the structure of government, but without any restrictions on himself. Catherine the Great did something similar with her Nakaz. It was trying to create a rationale and orderly government, but also without limiting her power. Gustav in Sweden tried something similar but at least claimed that he was bound by it also. Colley uses these early attempts to show the interest in writing down how government should work to make it work more effectively.
She the switches to the American Constitution, but doesn't go into much detail on what it says. Instead, she focuses on how it was formed a why. Although armed threats were clearly a concern, Colley stretches the evidence here to fit her thesis. She talks about the appeal of a federal state to later constitutions, but doesn't talk about the weaknesses of that system for war. She also argues that the Declaration of Independence was less influential than the Constitution in the 19th century. Again, I see her point in that it was rarely directly referenced, but it did directly inspire the French Declaration of the Rights of Man, which was cited constantly throughout the 19th and 20th centuries. So she may be right on citations, but less so on overall influence.
When she discusses Napoleon, she makes a lot of sense in showing that Napoleon was not interested in curbing his own power, but in getting the people to buy into making sacrifices for society. Creating citizens meant creating more willing soldiers and tax-payers, which is one reason why only men were citizens most of the time. Napoleon created countries and constitutions to go with them, with mixed results. She also emphasizes his failure on the sea undermined his overall effectiveness is war and ultimately contributing significantly to his downfall.
The French Revolution and Napoleon Wars sparked constitution writing across the world. This was most immediately felt in Latin America, where main Spanish colonies declared independence as was weakened by Napoleon. As Europe expanded outward in trade, the ideas of constitutionalism spread as well, but what spread it further was European conquest. Some countries, such as Japan, saw constitutional government as a way to strengthen the country, but others used it as a defense against European aggression. A constitution meant "civilization" to Europeans, so they could less easily justify aggressive acquisition of territory. It was a nice idea, but Europeans were flexible in their rationalization for empire. This include the United States, which swallowed up Hawaii (and other Pacific islands) despite its constitutional government.
The overall argument is a good one and I will use it in my classes. There are a few places where it gets stretched, but that is what historians do. This was interesting and useful, so give it a shot if you are interested in the history of constitutions and how/why they were created.
July 24, 2023
Interesting and provocative book.
Her main argument, in my view, is that previously, the history of constitutions has been tied in with nation building, and driven by the ultimate shift to greater liberty. A anti-monarchy movement in many places that was driven by the poor or cruel governance of the previous regime.
Colley enters the debate regarding why these constitutions sprung up, as they did, in such quick succession. Indeed, hundreds across the globe in all different societies - western, eastern, muslim, island nations - appeared from the late 18th century onwards with a peak in the 1810s to 1850s.
Reasons for this often are surrounded by the technological changes that aloud the printing industry to takeoff in an unparallelled way than previously possible, and enlightenment thought was becoming more established, and that poor governance by motherlands were causing resistance from their colonies.
Colley does not necessarily disagree with this but asks us to take one step further back, drawing our attention to the fact that the scale of warfare -that had now, more than ever, become completely hybrid on land and sea - was drawing in humans and societies on a scale simply unseen before. Starting properly with the Seven Years War, the rest of the century was plagued by unfathomably large scale wars, and this cause huge shifts in peoples thinking.
It shifted geo politics with different kingdoms taking and retaking places, it encouraged greater globalisation than before, but most importantly, it led to governance spiralling into huge debts, and consequently requiring the raising of huge taxation. Huge taxation caused resistance and in order to keep nations together the idea of written constitutions was brought in and in those documents, concessions to the people were propelled forward as a way of easing the pain of tax.
One interesting example was that when Britain took canada of the french, USA felt less threatened and were in less need of Britains military protection.
She then excellently links the constitutions around the world, and also doesnt link others. shwoing that they weren't all influenced by others, but actually an isolated factor was also involved - this being great scale wars that cause huge political and social shifts. She argues that Britain didn't have a constitution because it was, throughout this period, on the motherland, relatively stable and void of any on home territory warfare.
I like her arguments but don't entirely agree. I think these ideas make sense and undoubtedly she has showed that large scale warfare shifted the politics of the time, and definately led to many poltiical changes. But i still think that the printing press developments are more important. They aloud the people with the ideas to let others know about them. which is significant. War was certainly a catalyst, but I don't think it was the critical factor. without the printing press it could not have been articulated in such a fashion.
I like Colley's writing style though. and there are some great quotes to attach to this post at a later date that I liked from her book.
Her main argument, in my view, is that previously, the history of constitutions has been tied in with nation building, and driven by the ultimate shift to greater liberty. A anti-monarchy movement in many places that was driven by the poor or cruel governance of the previous regime.
Colley enters the debate regarding why these constitutions sprung up, as they did, in such quick succession. Indeed, hundreds across the globe in all different societies - western, eastern, muslim, island nations - appeared from the late 18th century onwards with a peak in the 1810s to 1850s.
Reasons for this often are surrounded by the technological changes that aloud the printing industry to takeoff in an unparallelled way than previously possible, and enlightenment thought was becoming more established, and that poor governance by motherlands were causing resistance from their colonies.
Colley does not necessarily disagree with this but asks us to take one step further back, drawing our attention to the fact that the scale of warfare -that had now, more than ever, become completely hybrid on land and sea - was drawing in humans and societies on a scale simply unseen before. Starting properly with the Seven Years War, the rest of the century was plagued by unfathomably large scale wars, and this cause huge shifts in peoples thinking.
It shifted geo politics with different kingdoms taking and retaking places, it encouraged greater globalisation than before, but most importantly, it led to governance spiralling into huge debts, and consequently requiring the raising of huge taxation. Huge taxation caused resistance and in order to keep nations together the idea of written constitutions was brought in and in those documents, concessions to the people were propelled forward as a way of easing the pain of tax.
One interesting example was that when Britain took canada of the french, USA felt less threatened and were in less need of Britains military protection.
She then excellently links the constitutions around the world, and also doesnt link others. shwoing that they weren't all influenced by others, but actually an isolated factor was also involved - this being great scale wars that cause huge political and social shifts. She argues that Britain didn't have a constitution because it was, throughout this period, on the motherland, relatively stable and void of any on home territory warfare.
I like her arguments but don't entirely agree. I think these ideas make sense and undoubtedly she has showed that large scale warfare shifted the politics of the time, and definately led to many poltiical changes. But i still think that the printing press developments are more important. They aloud the people with the ideas to let others know about them. which is significant. War was certainly a catalyst, but I don't think it was the critical factor. without the printing press it could not have been articulated in such a fashion.
I like Colley's writing style though. and there are some great quotes to attach to this post at a later date that I liked from her book.
November 8, 2022
Linda Colley wrote this insightful and enjoyable history of the written constitution, starting from the point in the middle of the 18th century when it became common to set the fundamental laws and agreements of a state down in writing. She describes the written constitution as a political technology that was invented on behalf of states that needed to win the support of their citizens, usually for purposes of warfare. Colley thus links the birth of constitutionalism intimately with an increase in the cost of warfare, which in this period developed a tendency to spread intercontinentally thanks to the growing involvement of professional navies, and involved larger and larger number of soldiers.
I found myself thinking of Livy! Titus Livius, who lived all of these 18 centuries earlier, also described how the development of the constitution of Rome was tied up with its wars and its stepwise conquest of much of the known world. The intent of Livy was to write a teleological history that found its culmination in the new imperial regime of Augustus, which very much operated by unwritten rules. Indeed his refusal to formalise his grip on power has been considered a sign of the political genius of Augustus, although it almost certainly contributed to the later instability of the Julio-Claudian dynasty.
That aside serves to say that I am not entirely convinced of the causal link that Colley argues for. That an increasing stress of warfare will lead to changes in the structure of society seems inevitable. That this necessarily leads to the development of written constitutions, even in the context of the 18th century with the presence of some necessary preconditions (such as literacy and printing) is not evident. The big example to the contrary was of course the British Empire, as the UK still does not have a written constitution, and Colley struggles with this big outlier.
That said, whether you are convinced by the argument or not, Colley leads us on a fascinating global journey. For the idea of the written constitution travelled. And the creation of constitutions all over the world resulted in a lot of constitutional creativity, sometimes on behalf of freshly created states and sometimes for ancient communities seeking to defend their independence against encroaching colonialism. The mixture of traditional ideas and freshly imported concepts formed a fertile ground for new ideas, and the results are very interesting to read about, even if the outcome was often tragic.
I found myself thinking of Livy! Titus Livius, who lived all of these 18 centuries earlier, also described how the development of the constitution of Rome was tied up with its wars and its stepwise conquest of much of the known world. The intent of Livy was to write a teleological history that found its culmination in the new imperial regime of Augustus, which very much operated by unwritten rules. Indeed his refusal to formalise his grip on power has been considered a sign of the political genius of Augustus, although it almost certainly contributed to the later instability of the Julio-Claudian dynasty.
That aside serves to say that I am not entirely convinced of the causal link that Colley argues for. That an increasing stress of warfare will lead to changes in the structure of society seems inevitable. That this necessarily leads to the development of written constitutions, even in the context of the 18th century with the presence of some necessary preconditions (such as literacy and printing) is not evident. The big example to the contrary was of course the British Empire, as the UK still does not have a written constitution, and Colley struggles with this big outlier.
That said, whether you are convinced by the argument or not, Colley leads us on a fascinating global journey. For the idea of the written constitution travelled. And the creation of constitutions all over the world resulted in a lot of constitutional creativity, sometimes on behalf of freshly created states and sometimes for ancient communities seeking to defend their independence against encroaching colonialism. The mixture of traditional ideas and freshly imported concepts formed a fertile ground for new ideas, and the results are very interesting to read about, even if the outcome was often tragic.
September 15, 2022
A thesis that, reduced to its essence, is one that modern written constitutions tend to be the product of war and upheaval is hardly a new one. But Colley's The Gun, the Ship and the Pen is so much more than this. In a similar fashion to her exceptional Britons, Colley takes a long view of a big subject and threads common themes throughout. Each chapter begins with an example of a person and an event, proceeding to build up the wider significance over the following pages.
Colley in particular highlights the move to "hybrid warfare" from the mid-eighteenth century onwards. Hybrid in this case meaning land and sea. The vast investment required to build up a fleet of men-of-war (3000 mature oak trees per ship) along with standing armies and the mass mobilisation of the Napoleonic wars, meant that war could no longer simply be a courtly matter. The Seven Years war is given added significance here, forcing Britain to overstretch itself in defending its newly won American colonies, and France to reach bankruptcy. The American and French revolutions, with their attendant constitutions quickly followed.
This by no means a Eurocentric book. Colley is careful to spend time looking at the Haitian revolution, the Meiji restoration and the constitution given to the Pitcairn Islands in 1838 - the first to allow women full enfranchisement. One very interesting point she makes concerns the rush to constitutionalise by nations in Africa and the Pacific in order to present themselves as modern and established, and therefore not appropriate victims for colonisation. For the most part it didn't work, although the Maori's appear to have had some success. As such this is far from a dry constitutional history but one alive with people and voices from across the globe. In her conclusion Colley seems to accept that the heyday of written constitutions may have passed with the fragmentation of society and the diffusion of media. She glumly points out that at the time of writing, written and unwritten constitutions, both failed to prevent the rise of populists and strong men.
Colley in particular highlights the move to "hybrid warfare" from the mid-eighteenth century onwards. Hybrid in this case meaning land and sea. The vast investment required to build up a fleet of men-of-war (3000 mature oak trees per ship) along with standing armies and the mass mobilisation of the Napoleonic wars, meant that war could no longer simply be a courtly matter. The Seven Years war is given added significance here, forcing Britain to overstretch itself in defending its newly won American colonies, and France to reach bankruptcy. The American and French revolutions, with their attendant constitutions quickly followed.
This by no means a Eurocentric book. Colley is careful to spend time looking at the Haitian revolution, the Meiji restoration and the constitution given to the Pitcairn Islands in 1838 - the first to allow women full enfranchisement. One very interesting point she makes concerns the rush to constitutionalise by nations in Africa and the Pacific in order to present themselves as modern and established, and therefore not appropriate victims for colonisation. For the most part it didn't work, although the Maori's appear to have had some success. As such this is far from a dry constitutional history but one alive with people and voices from across the globe. In her conclusion Colley seems to accept that the heyday of written constitutions may have passed with the fragmentation of society and the diffusion of media. She glumly points out that at the time of writing, written and unwritten constitutions, both failed to prevent the rise of populists and strong men.
November 5, 2023
I'm really not sure why my local library chose to buy this book, or, after reading it, why I thought it was a good idea to check it out.
OK, the title is intriguing, as it implies the book will discuss the "making of the modern world," but unless you believe that written constitutions have an enormous impact on the reality of daily life and larger geopolitical considerations, this is much more a footnote than even a paragraph in the book of how we came to be where we are.
Essentially, "The Gun, the Ship and the Pen" is a history of written constitutions, beginning in Corsica (who knew?) in 1755, and examining their growth and development ever since. Linda Colley is an academic, and that is precisely how this book reads -- it is the textbook for a class on the history of written constitutions.
For those not taking a class, "The Gun, the Ship and the Pen" would have been much better as a long essay, without the long digressions into such topics as the history of America's Civil War. Colley's thesis that the cost of modern warfare caused constitutions to be written that gave more power to the people makes sense, but the brute fact is that such constitutions were immediately discarded when the balance of power shifted back to the politicians in charge. (The USSR and Nazi Germany both had constitutions that had little to do with how those nations actually worked.)
I confess I skimmed much of the second half of the book, as aside from Colley's historical digressions, she also spent a lot of time discussing the lives of the mostly obscure authors of various failed constitutions.
Oh, and why is there a "ship" in the title? Navies were very expensive, and caused wars to be very expensive, and thus politicians had to pacify the people with a written constitution. The "pen" is also misleading, as Colley points out it was really the printing press that spurred the spread of constitutional ideas.
In short, this book simply did not live up to its title. But if you ever take a class in constitutions, get ready to read it.
OK, the title is intriguing, as it implies the book will discuss the "making of the modern world," but unless you believe that written constitutions have an enormous impact on the reality of daily life and larger geopolitical considerations, this is much more a footnote than even a paragraph in the book of how we came to be where we are.
Essentially, "The Gun, the Ship and the Pen" is a history of written constitutions, beginning in Corsica (who knew?) in 1755, and examining their growth and development ever since. Linda Colley is an academic, and that is precisely how this book reads -- it is the textbook for a class on the history of written constitutions.
For those not taking a class, "The Gun, the Ship and the Pen" would have been much better as a long essay, without the long digressions into such topics as the history of America's Civil War. Colley's thesis that the cost of modern warfare caused constitutions to be written that gave more power to the people makes sense, but the brute fact is that such constitutions were immediately discarded when the balance of power shifted back to the politicians in charge. (The USSR and Nazi Germany both had constitutions that had little to do with how those nations actually worked.)
I confess I skimmed much of the second half of the book, as aside from Colley's historical digressions, she also spent a lot of time discussing the lives of the mostly obscure authors of various failed constitutions.
Oh, and why is there a "ship" in the title? Navies were very expensive, and caused wars to be very expensive, and thus politicians had to pacify the people with a written constitution. The "pen" is also misleading, as Colley points out it was really the printing press that spurred the spread of constitutional ideas.
In short, this book simply did not live up to its title. But if you ever take a class in constitutions, get ready to read it.
December 26, 2021
So, I guess this is a 3–3.5/5 rounded down. I was already pretty interested in reading this given subject matter and the reviews it has already gotten. Overall, it’s pretty readable and I definitely learnt a lot from reading the book — it’s also just generally refreshing the read something that doesn’t fetishise the 1787 American Constitution and tries to include some non-Western history.
Frustratingly though, the whole thing just seemed a bit too thin and weak. The book never really presented an overwhelming load of new evidence for anything, and there were several claims which seemed very tenuous and unconvincing to me. In particular, there was one place where the evidence was essentially “these two people were in Paris within a decade of each other”, and another where it seemed as though finding a concrete link was left as an exercise for the reader — it’s not as though other histories don’t also do this, but I hoped this one wouldn’t.
The subject matter also felt very narrow in the end: it was literally just about the spread of written constitutions and their relationship with warfare (and even this relationship seemed secondary to the mere idea of written constitutions spreading), with relatively little about the content of these constitutions besides who was enfranchised. The evidence for direct influence of constitutions on one another was also rather patchy — it seemed as though the focus on the mere idea of a ‘written constitution’ and the people who came up with them, rather than what was included, rather limited the analysis here.
The epilogue was also really strange; it felt like a really long conclusion to a high school essay, and sort of hinted at a (completely justified) critique of British political/legal thought which wasn’t really actually outlined anywhere else in the book.
Overall — interesting, well-written, but a bit too thin and patchy.
Frustratingly though, the whole thing just seemed a bit too thin and weak. The book never really presented an overwhelming load of new evidence for anything, and there were several claims which seemed very tenuous and unconvincing to me. In particular, there was one place where the evidence was essentially “these two people were in Paris within a decade of each other”, and another where it seemed as though finding a concrete link was left as an exercise for the reader — it’s not as though other histories don’t also do this, but I hoped this one wouldn’t.
The subject matter also felt very narrow in the end: it was literally just about the spread of written constitutions and their relationship with warfare (and even this relationship seemed secondary to the mere idea of written constitutions spreading), with relatively little about the content of these constitutions besides who was enfranchised. The evidence for direct influence of constitutions on one another was also rather patchy — it seemed as though the focus on the mere idea of a ‘written constitution’ and the people who came up with them, rather than what was included, rather limited the analysis here.
The epilogue was also really strange; it felt like a really long conclusion to a high school essay, and sort of hinted at a (completely justified) critique of British political/legal thought which wasn’t really actually outlined anywhere else in the book.
Overall — interesting, well-written, but a bit too thin and patchy.
November 6, 2023
"Navi, penne e cannoni – Guerre, costituzioni e la creazione del mondo moderno”; titolo originale: “The gun, the ship and the pen”; di Linda Colley; traduzione di Lucilla Rodinò; edizioni Rizzoli; Isbn 978-88-17-16259-3.
Il Saggio traccia una relazione fra le esigenze degli Stati moderni e la nascita dei movimenti e delle rivoluzioni costituzionali.
Soprattutto a partire dal diciottesimo secolo prosperano gli studi, le discussioni e, sempre più spesso l’affermarsi di svariate carte costituzionali; quali furono le radici profonde di questo fenomeno?
L’Autore ritrova le ragioni principali di tale fioritura culturale nelle mutate esigenze degli Stati moderni e, in particolare, nelle crescenti necessità di organizzare e reggere sul piano delle risorse i confitti militari sempre più dispendiosi e globalizzati.
In estrema sintesi, per combattere guerre diffuse su grandi estensioni geografiche servono mezzi e risorse imponenti; grandi flotte, eserciti bene armati ed addestrati e un numero consistente di cittadini-soldato ideologicamente coinvolti anche in virtù dell’interiorizzazione di una serie di diritti che avrebbe fatto da contraltare ai propri doveri (quello del servizio militare innanzitutto!).
La cosa veramente interessante però è lo scoprire che la crescita delle Costituzioni effettivamente applicate o, anche semplicemente ipotizzate, non fu per nulla un fenomeno incentrato unicamente sull'Europa, ma fu pervasivo di ogni parte del globo.
Un libro che esprime sostanzialmente un solo concetto, e questo ne costituisce anche il principale limite … ma pieno di aspetti curiosi!
Il Saggio traccia una relazione fra le esigenze degli Stati moderni e la nascita dei movimenti e delle rivoluzioni costituzionali.
Soprattutto a partire dal diciottesimo secolo prosperano gli studi, le discussioni e, sempre più spesso l’affermarsi di svariate carte costituzionali; quali furono le radici profonde di questo fenomeno?
L’Autore ritrova le ragioni principali di tale fioritura culturale nelle mutate esigenze degli Stati moderni e, in particolare, nelle crescenti necessità di organizzare e reggere sul piano delle risorse i confitti militari sempre più dispendiosi e globalizzati.
In estrema sintesi, per combattere guerre diffuse su grandi estensioni geografiche servono mezzi e risorse imponenti; grandi flotte, eserciti bene armati ed addestrati e un numero consistente di cittadini-soldato ideologicamente coinvolti anche in virtù dell’interiorizzazione di una serie di diritti che avrebbe fatto da contraltare ai propri doveri (quello del servizio militare innanzitutto!).
La cosa veramente interessante però è lo scoprire che la crescita delle Costituzioni effettivamente applicate o, anche semplicemente ipotizzate, non fu per nulla un fenomeno incentrato unicamente sull'Europa, ma fu pervasivo di ogni parte del globo.
Un libro che esprime sostanzialmente un solo concetto, e questo ne costituisce anche il principale limite … ma pieno di aspetti curiosi!
August 12, 2021
Linda Colley certainly "goes big" in this book that explores warfare and constitutions and the making of the "modern world". It's a big modern world, that includes Corsica, Tahiti, Japan, Tunisia as well as Britain, France, Russia and America. It's only when I read such an expansive book as this that I realize how rarely I read a history that spans such a broad canvas....
Each of her chapters starts up close with an individual or an episode before she draws back to take a wider perspective. These individuals, each with their own lived history and cultural context, form a touchstone in that chapter and she returns to them at various stages throughout the text to highlight the distinctions and commonalities between different constitutional responses...
What a journey across time and place! Who would have thought that a history of constitution-writing could take us across so much territory? I must confess that I find it hard to become exercised over constitutional discussions - although we are often glad of robust constitutions and rules when they are challenged. I feel that historians have to use their very best narrative skills to breathe life into a study of constitutions, as Colley has here.
For my complete review, please visit:
https://residentjudge.com/2021/08/12/...
Each of her chapters starts up close with an individual or an episode before she draws back to take a wider perspective. These individuals, each with their own lived history and cultural context, form a touchstone in that chapter and she returns to them at various stages throughout the text to highlight the distinctions and commonalities between different constitutional responses...
What a journey across time and place! Who would have thought that a history of constitution-writing could take us across so much territory? I must confess that I find it hard to become exercised over constitutional discussions - although we are often glad of robust constitutions and rules when they are challenged. I feel that historians have to use their very best narrative skills to breathe life into a study of constitutions, as Colley has here.
For my complete review, please visit:
https://residentjudge.com/2021/08/12/...
January 3, 2023
Somewhat trudging but with just enough interesting trivia to lift it out of turgid territory. The work evidently involves abundant research and the case that constitutions and warfare were important in making the modern world is strong, if truistic.
Where Colley really excels is in examining the organic and near-proselytised spread of written constitutions; how those who created their own would print, translate, print again and distribute internationally.
Key failures are in the book-ends - constitutions of the ancient and modern worlds. There's so much meat to be had in the wave of independence movements in the 1940s-1970s, as well as the post-2000s, where constitutions were challenged and changed (often forcefully). These are hinted at but not really explored. To what extent are they organic growths, the same or rejections of the 18th and 19th Centuries? And ancient constitutions - the first law codes, the religious aspects and writing that served as constitutions? For Muslim states, the Quran and various other aspects of Islam inform directly and indirectly constitutions across the world. All predominantly-Christian states have huge religious influence (either in adoption or rejection). There's so much here left sadly unexplored.
Some good stuff here but nothing profoundly new or forceful.
Where Colley really excels is in examining the organic and near-proselytised spread of written constitutions; how those who created their own would print, translate, print again and distribute internationally.
Key failures are in the book-ends - constitutions of the ancient and modern worlds. There's so much meat to be had in the wave of independence movements in the 1940s-1970s, as well as the post-2000s, where constitutions were challenged and changed (often forcefully). These are hinted at but not really explored. To what extent are they organic growths, the same or rejections of the 18th and 19th Centuries? And ancient constitutions - the first law codes, the religious aspects and writing that served as constitutions? For Muslim states, the Quran and various other aspects of Islam inform directly and indirectly constitutions across the world. All predominantly-Christian states have huge religious influence (either in adoption or rejection). There's so much here left sadly unexplored.
Some good stuff here but nothing profoundly new or forceful.
August 6, 2021
B: This is an excellent overview of global constitutional history. The author has an agenda and I do not necessarily agree with all aspects of it but she does show many good points regarding the progress of human rights associated with the documentation of rights in the many documents reviewed in this book. Top down and bottom up constitutions are addressed as well as the purposes to which they are used. Just as said in Starship Troopers (1997) Directed by Paul Verhoeven and written by Edward Neumeier, “Join the Mobile Infantry and save the world. Service guarantees citizenship.” Some constitutions were vehicles used to induce greater participation in war in exchange for buy in to government.
If all politics is local, as attributed to Tip O’Neil, then so are constitutions, reflecting the aspirations of the drafters and, if they succeeded, by sufficient powerful stakeholders to ensure it is followed. These documents may be aspirational or a mission statement, but in all cases they deal with power, who holds it, and the constraints on it’s use.
If all politics is local, as attributed to Tip O’Neil, then so are constitutions, reflecting the aspirations of the drafters and, if they succeeded, by sufficient powerful stakeholders to ensure it is followed. These documents may be aspirational or a mission statement, but in all cases they deal with power, who holds it, and the constraints on it’s use.
October 17, 2022
I feel like there is a lot here that is very interesting but it also leaves a lot to be desired. I think this serves as a great index, perhaps, of world constitutions and shows quite clearly the progression that they have undergone in the last three centuries.
BUT. I think there is a question of critiquing constitutions as a whole and where they fail. There were brief mentions of the introduction of women's rights into constitutions and how great that was, swiftly followed by the mass exclusion of women in many cases. But it was brief. The question of race received a similar glance and, as some have already suggested, little to no examination of class or class-struggle.
I understand that it may be hard to carefully examine all of these factors in a topic and period quite so broad but then, if that is the case, that is also a failing. However, I think this book does emphasise the importance of the written constitution to modern history even if it does overlook or omit some key features.
BUT. I think there is a question of critiquing constitutions as a whole and where they fail. There were brief mentions of the introduction of women's rights into constitutions and how great that was, swiftly followed by the mass exclusion of women in many cases. But it was brief. The question of race received a similar glance and, as some have already suggested, little to no examination of class or class-struggle.
I understand that it may be hard to carefully examine all of these factors in a topic and period quite so broad but then, if that is the case, that is also a failing. However, I think this book does emphasise the importance of the written constitution to modern history even if it does overlook or omit some key features.
July 16, 2021
Good but not great. Colley’s scope is impressively broad, spanning truly the entire world. She pulls examples from the America’s, Europe, Tunisia, the Gold Coast of Africa, India, New Zealand, Japan, Tahiti, and I am likely forgetting a few others. Her thesis that the combination of increasing hybrid warfare (land and sea), the increasing manpower it required, and the devastation it caused helped lead to a spread of written constitutions is interesting but not surprising. It is an enjoyable read with enough details for even the most astute historian to learn something new. She highlights some of history’s less remembered influencers such as Catherine the Great, and some completely forgotten including Khayr al-Dīn and James Africanus Horton. The journey of further research on those characters that this book led me on is enough to recommend Colley’s work for anyone interested in the development of politics via written constitutions in 18th and 19th centuries.
March 5, 2022
The book succeeds in addressing “some of the forces that once helped these instruments to function and command attention.” This is by no means an exhaustive book and as such suffers from absences (the impact of the humanists is woefully absent especially when looking at France and italy), and the relevance of certain examples (the constitution of Pitcairn) can seem irrelevant in light of the broader argument.
Nevertheless, the book demonstrates that legal-philosophical considerations were not the sole bedrock of constitution-building, the important cross-cultural exchanges that took place in the thinkers that produced these documents and the flexibility which they conveyed. In an era of “constitutional originalism” this book makes a case for considering constitutions as living documents. I will definitely take pleasure in rereading parts and parcels of the book and perhaps, time provided, the whole thing.
Nevertheless, the book demonstrates that legal-philosophical considerations were not the sole bedrock of constitution-building, the important cross-cultural exchanges that took place in the thinkers that produced these documents and the flexibility which they conveyed. In an era of “constitutional originalism” this book makes a case for considering constitutions as living documents. I will definitely take pleasure in rereading parts and parcels of the book and perhaps, time provided, the whole thing.
May 18, 2021
A deeply researched and very readable (even for the non-academic) overview and analysis of the interconnection of hybrid war and literacy in the development of worldwide constitutional states. Colley covers much ground - from Napoleon to Jeremy Bentham to the United States Civil War to Pitcairn Island. Literary critics have called this a unique perspective; a major theme for me is how the development of the printing press and the increasingly easy dissemination of the printed word via technology and increased global transportation accelerated changes in both developed and isolated worlds. Traditionally oral cultures of the Pacific and Africa have been forever modified. I enjoyed this book, but with one caveat; I wish she had included a select bibliography.
July 6, 2021
This is a fascinating book about the importance of constitutions. It also explains how constitutions are the outgrowth of devastating acts of warfare. However, there is a bit of an ominous note for the United Stated and it’s constitution left in the epilogue. Colley writes, “It is arguable that one reason for the political dysfunctionality and hampering divisions that have characterized the USA in recent decades is that the iconic constitution that so many former men at arms labored over in Philadelphia back in 1787 is, by this stage, simply too old and too limited, and in need therefore of sustained and expert amplification and revitalization. Yet, without the external massive pressures of something like a major war how are such alterations ever to be brought about and agreed upon?”
July 10, 2023
An interesting history of constitutions *as a political technology* used to accumulate power, either by those seeking it through revolution or reform, or those who already have it seeking to bolster it. Prof. Colley makes an interesting and well-proved claim that constitution-making stems from significant pressures faced by a polity, namely the advent of expensive hybrid warfare (in this case sea and land) or by external threats.
Her claims about constitution making as mainly a Protestant phenomenon would, however, due with greater scrutiny.
The book’s numerous vignettes of constitutional development across all continents makes for a fascinating set of historical set pieces, even if the reader is left wanting for stories about some other prominent constitutions.
Gift from Mom.
Her claims about constitution making as mainly a Protestant phenomenon would, however, due with greater scrutiny.
The book’s numerous vignettes of constitutional development across all continents makes for a fascinating set of historical set pieces, even if the reader is left wanting for stories about some other prominent constitutions.
Gift from Mom.
November 18, 2021
A magpie's nest of facts arranged more or less in chronological order intended to further a theme that constitution making is often the result of the stressors imposed by warfare and/or violence. But the book is at once to long and too short. It is too short because it devote only a few pages to each of its examples. It's too long because there is a fair amount of repetition of its theme. The author is a classic example of Isaiah Berlin's prototype of the person who knows a little about a lot of things. Carlie seems to know at least a little, and undoubtedly more, about almost everything. But it doesn't make the book more readable.
July 11, 2022
The book presents a history in a unique framework as directly related to the book's title.
Much of the book covers "old turf" and seems redundant, yet there is enough material reviewed
in fresh perspectives that makes this history a must read.
The review of "Constitutional World History " and how the author emphasis events in relation to the creation of particular constitutions creates a fresh look at old events that is very welcome.
The book is well researched and has earned and belongs in a special interest category. The writing is consice and comprehensive. The book is large and may seem a bit long....however, it is recommended.
Much of the book covers "old turf" and seems redundant, yet there is enough material reviewed
in fresh perspectives that makes this history a must read.
The review of "Constitutional World History " and how the author emphasis events in relation to the creation of particular constitutions creates a fresh look at old events that is very welcome.
The book is well researched and has earned and belongs in a special interest category. The writing is consice and comprehensive. The book is large and may seem a bit long....however, it is recommended.
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December 8, 2022“Princeton history professor Linda Colley’s new book tells the story of how written constitutions began to take off as an idea roughly 250 years ago, and key to that narrative is the role the changing nature of warfare played in the need for new systems of governance. To tell this story, Colley weaves in examples from across the globe. Some of these examples will be familiar, but others have been largely overlooked or forgotten. While doing so, Colley’s book offers insights into both world history and contemporary American legal debates about how to understand our constitution.”
— Adam Chilton, Professor of Law, Walter Mander Research Scholar
— Adam Chilton, Professor of Law, Walter Mander Research Scholar
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