larger process that made sovereign independence possi-ble for many small weak states, and made it much morereal than the nominal sovereignty enjoyed by China orEgypt in the interwar years. Decolonization was a trans-formation of the international system that occurredunder conditions of a gradually intensifying bipolarrivalry. It was slow, untidy, and incomplete—leaving aPortuguese empire until the mid-1970s, two whiteminority “settler” states in southern Africa until 1980and 1994, and a Soviet empire until after 1990. As aphase in world history, decolonization may be consid-ered at an end. Empires will survive (there is a Chineseempire in inner Asia, and a Russian empire in the Cau-casus). New empires may appear, not necessarily in theform of territorial dominion. But the Europe-centeredworld order that decolonization dismantled has gone forgood.John G. DarwinSee also Colonialism; Postcolonial AnalysisFurther ReadingBetts, R. (1991). France and decolonization 1900–1960. Basingstoke,UK: Palgrave-Macmillan.Cain, P. J., & Hopkins, A. G. (2002). British imperialism (2nd ed.). Lon-don: Longman.Darwin, J. (1988). Britain and decolonisation:The retreat from empire inthe post-war world. Basingstoke, UK: Palgrave-Macmillan.Darwin, J. (1999). Decolonization and the end of empire. In R.Winks(Ed.), Oxford history of the British empire: Vol 5. Historiography.Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.Fieldhouse, D. K. (1999). The West and the Third World. Oxford, UK:Basil Blackwell.Gallagher, J. A. (1982). The decline, revival, and fall of the Britishempire. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.Hargreaves, J. D. (1996). Decolonization in Africa (2nd ed.). Harlow, UK:Addison Wesley Longman.Holland, R. F. (1985). European decolonization 1918–1981: An intro-ductory survey. Basingstoke, UK: Palgrave-Macmillan.Howe, S. (1993). Anti-colonialism in British politics: The left and the endof empire. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.Kahler, M. (1984). Decolonization in Britain and France: The domesticconsequences of international relations. Princeton, NJ: Princeton Uni-versity Press.Louis,W. R. (1977). Imperialism at bay: The United States and the decol-onization of the British empire 1941–1945. Oxford, UK: Oxford Uni-versity Press.Louis,W. R., & Robinson, R. E. (1994).The imperialism of decoloniza-tion. Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History, 22, 462–511.Mamdani, M. (1996). Citizen and subject: Contemporary Africa and thelegacy of late colonialism. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.Manning, P. (1988). Francophone sub-Saharan Africa 1880–1985. Cam-bridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.Moore, R. J. (1983). Escape from empire: The Attlee government and theIndian problem. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.Robinson, R. E. (1972). The non-European foundations of Europeanimperialism. In R. Owen & R. Sutcliffe (Eds.), Studies in the theory ofimperialism. London: Longman.DeforestationDeforestation is a wide-ranging term to cover the cut-ting, using, and elimination of trees. Subsumedunder it are other activities like fire, domestic heating andcooking, smelting metals, making ceramics, constructionof shelter and implements, and the creation of new landfor cultivation and grazing. Deforestation is so basic thatit is woven into the very fabric of human existence, andhence of world history. Ever since the emergence ofHomo erectus some 500,000 years ago the quest to pro-vide shelter, food, and warmth has resulted in the use andabuse of the earth’s mantle of forests.There is much uncertainty about the pace and locale ofdeforestation during past (and even present) ages. Thisrevolves around the multiple meanings given to threebasic questions. What exactly is a forest? What was theextent and density of trees at any past given time? Andwhat constitutes “deforestation”? Pragmatically one maysay that a forest can range from a closed-canopy treecover to a more open woodland, which affects density.“Deforestation” is used loosely to mean any processwhich modifies the original tree cover, from clear-felling,to thinning, to occasional fire. However, it should not beforgotten that forests regrow, often with surprising speedand vigor, and forest regrowth has occurred wheneverpressures on it have been relaxed.This was observed afterthe Mayan population collapse around 800 CE, after theGreat Plague in Europe after 1348, after the initial Euro-pean encounter with the Americas in 1492, and withagricultural land abandonment in post-1910 easternUnited States and post-1980 Europe.deforestation 501
The Premodern Age (to 1500 CE)Because crop domestication and the increase and spreadof people occurred in largely forested environments,ancient societies everywhere had a cumulatively severeimpact on forests. In Europe Mesolithic cultures (c.9000–5000 BCE) set fire to the woodland edges to facil-itate hunting.The succeeding Neolithic agriculturalists (c.4500–2000 BCE) had a far greater impact as they felledforests on the fertile loessic soils with stone and flint axesin order to engage in intensive garden cultivation andextensive wheat growing. In order to vary diet they alsoran large herds of pigs, sheep, and especially cattle inwoodland and cleared pastures for their meat, milk,blood, and possibly cheese. It was a stable, sedentarysociety that made full use of the many products of the for-est, one calculation being that on average it needed 20hectares of forest land to sustain one person in fuel, graz-ing, constructional timber, and food.In Asia, complex and highly organized societies flour-ished in the forests of the south and southeast parts of thecontinent. Rotational cutting and cultivation followed byabandonment (swiddening) in forests was accompaniedby intensive garden culture for fruit, spices, and vegeta-bles, and the peculiar and highly innovative developmentof wet rice cultivation, a technique that stopped erosionand leaching of the soil in the cleared forest in heavy rain-fall areas. Stock, particularly cattle and pigs, were integralto all parts of the economy.The evidence for similar processes is unfolding for theAmericas. Earliest were the swiddens in the equatorialupland rain forest areas from as early as 12,000 BCE, andfrom the tropical Gulf of Mexico lowland civilizations ofthe Olmec and Maya to the less organized tribal groupsof the Amazon basin, rain forest was being chopped,burnt, and changed or eliminated. Large patches of theAmazon forest were altered irrevocably by the selectionand propagation of useful trees and by different cycles ofcultivation, so that the mighty rain forest may be onelarge cultural artefact. In North America, the earliestfood-growing settlements (c. 10,000 BCE) were in the richbottomlands of the continent’s rivers in the South and theSoutheast. Similar to the practice of the EuropeanNeolithics, flood plains and lower river terraces werecleared, and lower slopes altered as intensive croppingexpanded, but unlike the Neolithics, hunting loomedmuch larger in the economy. The vast eastern temperatewoodlands were settled later (after c. 800 CE) but thesame imprints are evident, resulting in a mosaic of inten-sively cultivated cleared lands, abandoned fields withearly forest succession, and thinned and altered forests.The great difference between the Americas and Eurasiawas the absence of grazing animals in the Americas,which had an effect on the Eurasian forests by preventingregrowth and making clearing/firing worthwhile to pro-mote pasture.Knowledge about deforestation in Africa is sparse, andwith the exception of settlement in savanna-woodlandand adjacent belts in west Africa, it may not have beenvery extensive.The conclusion is that the impact of early humans onthe forest was far greater than expected; it may have beenone of the major deforestation episodes in history, andleft anything but the pristine forest that is such a featureof the romantic imagination of the past and the environ-mental rhetoric of the present.The classical world of the Mediterranean basin pro-vides, for the first time, rich literary detail of wood con-sumption for ship-building, urban heating andconstruction, and metal-smelting, but it is tantalizingly502 berkshire encyclopedia of world historyIn parts of Asia the Food and AgricultureOrganization of the United Nations iscarrying out comparative trials of differentfertilization treatments on experimentalfurrowed plantations of local hybrid poplars(Populus simonigra) in irrigated sandy soils.Intercropping is also carried out at intervalsbetween rows of poplars.
silent about clearing for agriculture (always the greatestcause of deforestation) that must have gone on every-where.This was to be a common story in later ages too.The chopping down of trees as a prelude to farming andproviding food was so commonplace that it simply didnot warrant a mention, but settlement patterns and cropfigures show how extensive it must have been.The Middle Ages in western and central Europe wereentirely different. Here an energetic, inventive, and rapidlyexpanding population left ample records of forest clear-ing through charters, rent rolls, court cases, field patterns,and place names. Clearing was motivated by a strong reli-gious belief that humans were helping to complete thecreation of a divine, designed earth and a desire by layand ecclesiastical lords to expand rental revenues byencouraging settlement on the forest frontier. Also, indi-viduals wanted to achieve social freedom, property, andemancipation by breaking free of the rigid feudal ties.Undoubtedly three technical innovations helped raiseagricultural production. First, the dominant system of twofields with one fallow was replaced by a three-field sys-tem, thus shortening the fallow period.This was possiblebecause new crops like oats and legumes helped to fer-tilize the soil and supplemented animal and human nutri-tion. Second, the development of the wheeled plow withcoulter and moldboard allowed cultivation to move fromthe light soils onto the heavy moist soils that were usu-ally forested.Third, plowing efficiency was improved bythe invention of the rigid horse collar and nailed horse-shoes, increasing speed and pulling power, thus favoringthe horse over the ox. A major underlying driving forcewas a sixfold increase of population between 650 and1350 and the need of more food to avert famine.Cultivation rose from about 5 percent of land use inthe sixth century CEto 30–40 percent by the late MiddleAges.The forests of France were reduced from 30 millionhectares to 13 million hectares between around 800 and1300 CE. In Germany and central Europe, perhaps 70percent of the land was forest-covered in 900 CEbut onlyabout 25 percent remained by 1900.The various elements interlocked to produce whatLynn White, historian of medieval technology, called“the agricultural revolution of the Middle Ages” (1962, 6),which asserted the dominance of humans over nature. Italso shifted the focus of Europe from south to north, fromthe restricted lowlands around the Mediterranean to thegreat forested plains drained by the Loire, Seine, Rhine,Elbe, Danube, and Thames. Here the distinctive featuresof the medieval world developed—a buildup of techno-logical competence, self-confidence, and acceleratedchange—which after 1500 enabled Europe to invade andcolonize the rest of the world. In that long process ofglobal expansion the forest and the wealth released fromit played a central part.Massive deforestation must also have happened inChina but the detail is murky.The population rose fromabout 65–80 million in 1400 CEto 270 million in1770, and land in agriculture quadrupled. Large swathsof the forested lands in the central and southernprovinces were certainly engulfed by an enormous migra-tion of peoples from the north.The Modern World (1500–c. 1900 CE)During the roughly 400 years from 1492 to about 1900Europe burst out of its continental confines with far-reaching consequences for the global forests. Its capital-istic economy commoditized nearly all it found, creatingwealth out of nature, whether it be land, trees, animals,plants, or people. Enormous strains were put on theglobal forest resource by a steadily increasing population(c. 400 million in 1500 to 1.65 billion in 1900), also byrising demands for raw materials and food with urban-ization and industrialization, first in Europe and, after themid-nineteenth century, in the United States. In themainly temperate neo-European areas, settler societieswere planted and created. Permanent settlement began inearnest by the 1650s after the near elimination of the indi-genes by virulent Old World pathogens, like smallpox,measles, and influenza. The imported Old World cropsand stock flourished wonderfully.The dominant ethos offreehold tenure, dispersed settlement, “improvement,”deforestation 503
and personal and political freedom led to a rapid and suc-cessful expansion of settlement, although much environ-mentally destructive exploitation also occurred. Treegrowth was considered a good indicator of soil fertility inall pioneer societies, and the bigger the trees the quickerthey were felled to make way for farms.The United Stateswas the classic example. The pioneer farmer, through“sweat, skill and strength,” (Ellis 1946, 73) was seen as theheroic subduer of a sullen and untamed wilderness.Clearing was widespread, universal, and an integral partof rural life; about 460,300 square kilometers of denseforest were felled by about 1850 and a further 770,900square kilometers by 1910. “Such are the means,” mar-velled the French traveller, the Marquis de Chastellux in1789,by which North-America, which one hundred years agowas nothing but a vast forest, is peopled with three millionof inhabitants….Four years ago, one might have travelledten miles in the woods…without seeing a single habita-tion (Chastellux 1789, 29).It was one of the biggest deforestation episodes ever.A similar process of the pioneer hacking out a life forhimself and family in the forest occurred in Canada, NewZealand, South Africa, and Australia. In Australia, forexample, nearly 400,000 square kilometers of the south-eastern forests and sparse woodland were cleared by theearly twentieth century.In the subtropical and tropical forests, European sys-tems of exploitation led to the harvesting of indigenoustree crops (e.g., rubber, hardwoods), and in time to thesystematic replacement of the original forest by “planta-tion” crops grown by slave or indentured labor. Classicexamples of this were the highly profitable crops ofsugar in the West Indies, coffee and sugar in the sub-tropical coastal forests of Brazil, cotton and tobacco inthe southern United States, tea in Sri Lanka and India,and later rubber in Malaysia and Indonesia. In easternBrazil, over half of the original 780,000 square kilome-ters of the huge subtropical forest that ran down theeastern portions of the country had disappeared by1950 through agricultural exploitation and mining. In504 berkshire encyclopedia of world historySao Paulo state alone the original 204,500 square kilo-meters of forest were reduced to 45,500 square kilome-ters by 1952.Peasant proprietors were not immune to the pressuresof the global commercial market. Outstanding was theexpansion of peasant cultivation in lower Burma (encour-aged by British administrators) between 1850 and 1950,which resulted in the destruction of about 35,000 squarekilometers of imposing equatorial (kanazo) rain forestsand their replacement by rice.Throughout the Indian sub-continent the early network of railways meant an expan-sion of all types of crops by small-scale farmers, often forcash, that led to forest clearing everywhere.Uncolonized Asian societies exploited their forestsjust as vigorously, commercially, and uncaringly as didtheir European counterparts.There is evidence from, forexample, southwest India and Hunan province in southcentral China from the sixteenth century onward to showthat the commercialization of the forest was well estab-lished. In the former, permanent indigenous agriculturalsettlements existed side by side with shifting cultivation,and village councils regulated forest exploitation by agri-culturalists.The forest was not regarded as a communityresource; larger landowners dominated forest use locally.Scarce commodities such as sandalwood, ebony, cinna-mon, and pepper were under state and/or royal control.In Hunan, a highly centralized administration encour-aged land clearance in order to enhance local state rev-enues so as to increase the tax base and support a biggerbureaucracy and militia. State encouragement was alsogiven to migrations into the forested hill country ofsouth China later on. Simply, forests everywhere werebeing exploited and were diminishing in size as a re-sponse to increasing population numbers and increasingcomplexity of society. In the subtropical world changewas just slower than that unleashed by the Europeanswith their new aims, technologies, and intercontinentaltrade links, but no less severe. Measures of destruction arehard to come by, but in South and Southeast Asiabetween 1860 and 1950, 216,000 square kilometers offorest and 62,000 square kilometers of interrupted oropen forest were destroyed for cropland.
During these centuries deforestation was also wellunderway in Europe itself, which was being colonizedinternally. This was particularly true in the mixed-forestzone of central European Russia, where over 67,000square kilometers were cleared between around 1700and 1914.The insatiable demand in all societies for new land togrow crops and settle agriculturalists has been matchedby a rising demand for the products of the forest them-selves. For example, the European quest for strategicnaval stores (masts, pitch, tar, turpentine) and ships’ tim-bers made major inroads into the forests of the Baltic lit-toral from the fifteenth century onward and those of thesouthern United States after about 1700. Alternativeconstruction timbers like teak and mahogany were uti-lized from the tropical hardwood forests since the begin-ning of the eighteenth century.The Last Hundred YearsThe pace of transformation increased during the first halfof the twentieth century. In the Western world demandsfor timber accelerated. New uses (pulp, paper, packaging,plywood, chipboard) and relatively little substitution ofother materials boosted use, while traditional uses inenergy production, construction, and industry continuedto loom large. The indispensable and crucial nature oftimber in many Western economies gave it a strategicvalue akin to that of petroleum in economies today. In thetropical world the massive expansion of population bymore than half a billion on a base of 1.1 billion resultedin extensive clearing for subsistence, accompanied by anexpansion of commercial plantation agriculture. In allperhaps 2.35 million square kilometers of tropical forestwere lost between 1920 and 1949.The only encouragingfeature in the global picture during these years was thereversion of farmland to forest. This had begun in theeastern United States with the abandonment of “difficult”and hard-to-farm lands in New England in favor ofeasier-to-farm open grasslands, and continued with theabandonment of some cotton and tobacco growing landsin the southern States. A similar story unfolded in north-ern Europe with “marginal” farms.The most publicized deforestation—the deforestationeveryone thinks of when the word is mentioned—occurred after 1950. Since then the temperate coniferoussoftwood forests have about kept up with the demands ofindustrial societies for supplies of timber and pulp. Butthe focus of deforestation has shifted firmly to the tropi-cal world. Here, better health and nutrition have resultedin a population explosion and an additional 3.5–4.0 bil-lion people. These are often landless people who havemoved deeper into the remaining forests and farther upsteep forested slopes.They have no stake in the land andtherefore little commitment to sustainable management.In addition chain saws and trucks have moved fellingfrom the province of the large firm to the enterprisingindividual. Since 1950 about 5.5 million square kilome-ters of tropical forests have disappeared, Central andLatin America being classic examples. In addition, thetropical hardwood forests are being logged out for con-structional timber at a great rate, while wood is cut fordomestic fuel in prodigious quantities in Africa, India,and Latin America. Globally fuel wood–cutting nowroughly equals saw timber extraction—about 1.8 billioncubic meters annually compared to 1.9 billion cubicmeters. Cutting wood for fuel is forecast to rise rapidly inline with world population increase.The FutureThe history of deforestation is long and complex, and isa significant portion of world history. It is one of the maincauses of terrestrial transformation, whereby humankindhas modified the world’s surface, a process that is nowreaching critical proportions. One thing is certain: withan ever-increasing world population (another 2–3 billionby 2020), many will want to exploit resources and theprocess of deforestation will not end. Others will want todeforestation 505Forest worker felling tree at Ellakandaplantation block, a trial cable-logging site atBandarawela, Sri Lanka.
restrict forest use and preserve it. The tensions betweenexploitation and preservation will be intense.Michael WilliamsFurther ReadingBechmann, R. (1990). Trees and man: The forest in the Middle Ages (K.Dunham, Trans.). St. Paul, MN: Paragon House.Bogucki, P. I. (1988). Forest farmers and stockholders: Early agricultureand its consequences in north-central Europe. Cambridge, UK: Cam-bridge University Press.Chastellux, F. J., marquis de. (1789). Travels in North America in the Years1780, 1781, and 1782 (Vol. 1). New York: White, Gallacher andWhite.Darby, H. C. (1956). The clearing of the woodland in Europe. In W. L.Thomas (Ed.), Man’s role in changing the face of the Earth (pp. 183–216). Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Dean, W. (1995). With broadax and firebrand: The destruction of theBrazilian Atlantic forest. Berkeley: University of California Press.Ellis, D. M. (1946). Landlords and farmers in Hudson-Mohawk Region,1790-1850. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.Meiggs, R. (1982). Trees and timber in the ancient Mediterranean world.Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.White, L., Jr. (1962). Medieval technology and social change. Oxford, UK😮xford University Press.Williams, M. (1989). The Americans and their forests. Cambridge, UK:Cambridge University Press.Williams, M. (2003). Deforesting the earth: From prehistory to global cri-sis. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Delhi SultanateThe Delhi sultanate (1192–1526) was establishedwith the victory in 1192 of Muhammed of Ghor (d.1206), a Turkic ruler, over the Rajput king PrithvirajChauhan, the ruler of Ajmer and Delhi; it represented theemergence of a ruling power that was not indigenous tothe region. A new religion (Islam) and culture began topervade the northern portion of Indian subcontinent asthe Delhi sultanate came to control major areas ofpresent-day India, Bangladesh, and Pakistan. Gradually,Indian culture, which was pluralistic in nature, wasenriched by this new cultural infusion. It would be wrong,however, to think of the period of rule by the Delhi sul-tans as a period of Muslim rule, as categorizing historicalperiods according to the ruler’s religion is against histor-ical norms and as in any case the whole of the Indian sub-continent was never controlled by the sultans.HistoryThe lure of wealth, religious zeal, and a desire for terri-torial aggrandizement were factors behind the Turkicconquest from Central Asia.TheTurks’ advanced militarytechnology, lack of unity among the regional powers, pre-vailing social tensions, and the apathetic attitude of thecommon folk facilitated theTurkic conquest. Muhammadof Ghor was succeeded by his slave and general, Qutb-ud-Din Aybak (d. 1210), and because a number of formerslaves ruled during the period 1206 to 1290, this periodis sometimes called the slave dynasty, though in reality nosultan was a slave at the time he became ruler, and therewere actually three dynasties during this period (1206–1290).Under the third sultan, Iltutmish (reigned 1211–1236), a permanent capital was established at Delhi; healso expanded the territory controlled by the sultanate.Iltutmish bequeathed a strong form of military despotismto his successors. Raziya Sultana, his worthy daughterand the first Muslim woman ruler of India, became em-broiled in the conspiracy of the Group of Forty, a groupof Turkic nobles who wished to control the throne. Thelatter held sway until the coming of Ghiyas-ud-Din Bal-ban (reigned 1266–1287), who destroyed the Fortyruthlessly, strengthened the army, and suppressed anyform of dissent.The establishment of the Khalji dynasty marked thebeginning of the ascendancy of Indian (as opposed toTurkic) Muslims.The most important ruler of the dynasty,‘Ala’-ud-Din Khalji (reigned 1296–1316) extended theboundary of Delhi sultanate into southern India. Hismarket reforms, taxation policy, and military administra-tion earned him recognition as one of the efficient rulersof the period. By contrast, the ill-fated experiments ofMuhammad ibn Tughluq (reigned 1325–1351), oneruler of the Tughluq dynasty, which included attemptingto shift the capital from Delhi to Daulatabad and intro-ducing token currency—copper coins, which the Sultanmade as legal tenders. Although without intrinsic value,506 berkshire encyclopedia of world history
their value was kept at par with gold and silver coins.These experiments brought misery to his subjects.The Mongol chief Timur (1336–1405) invaded Delhiin 1398, leaving a trail of devastation and weakening thesultanate.The Delhi sultanate was finally overthrown byBabur (1483–1530), founder of India’s Mughal dynasty(1526–1857), at the first battle of Panipat in 1526.Administration and CultureIn the beginning, the Delhi sultanate was divided intounits called iqtas. The owner (iqatadar) of each iqta col-lected revenue and supplied army contingents to thesultan. The iqatadars became hereditary owners andafterward, abuses crept into the system. Later, a differentadministrative set-up came into being, with the sultan atits head. The sultan was head of the state enjoyingabsolute power. The sultan’s vizier was the prime minis-ter, and there were several different ministries. Religiousscholars enjoyed special privileges, and Hindus, as non-Muslims, had to pay a special tax. Despite that burden,the Hindu upper classes led a comfortable life. Althoughthere were conflicts between the Hindu and Muslim rul-ing elites, common people of both religions lived in har-mony, and the aristocracy enjoyed a life of luxury. Therewas growth of urban centers, and the volume of tradewith western Asia, Southeast Asia, and China increased.The sultanate was very much a part of internationaltrade, and Muslim traders from the region helped spreada liberal brand of Islam to Southeast Asia.The Delhi sultanate oversaw the flourishing of a newcultural era. A new style of architecture emerged thatincorporated both Hindu and Muslim motifs. Notablecontribution of the Delhi sultans to architecture includethe Quwat-ul-Islam mosque, the Qutab Minar, the Sirifort, Alai Darwaza, the cities of Tughluqabad and Firuz-abad, and the tomb of Firuz Shah Tughluq (reigned1351–1388). Nor did the art of painting die out; it wasat home in the murals, painted textiles, and manuscriptsof the period. Music was patronized by some sultans andprovincial rulers; the most important figure in Indianmusic during this period, who is also considered one ofIndia’s greatest Persian-language poets, was Amir Khus-rau (1253–1325). Credit goes to him for introducingseveral forms of singing and new ragas. Linguistically,amalgamation of dialects of Hindi and Persian resultedin beginning of the Urdu language. The contemporaryhistorical writings of Minhaj-us-Siraj, Amir Khusrau,Ziauddin Barani, Shams Siraj Afif, and Yahya bin AhmadSirhindi are important source materials for studying dif-ferent aspects of the Delhi sultanate.The Sufi (Islamic) and bhakti (Hindu devotional) saintsof the period dedicated themselves to the cause ofhumanity and emphasized the cooperation between thetwo religious communities. Both preached equality andwere against rituals and a caste-based social system.Bhakti saints such as Kabir (1440–1518) and Caitanya(1485–1533) stressed the union of the individual withGod through acts of devotion. This period also saw theestablishment of a new religion, Sikhism, formalized byGuru Nanak (1469–1539). The Sufi religious mysticsoffered a common meeting ground for Muslims andnon-Muslims. Striving for Hindu-Muslim unity, they cre-ated a liberal atmosphere.Their tombs still attract peopleof both religions.In sum, the period of the Delhi sultanate was impor-tant for Indian history, culture, and society.The new, com-posite culture that began to emerge laid the groundworkfor the cultural achievements of the Mughal period.Patit Paban MishraFurther ReadingChandra, S. (1998). Medieval India: From sultanate to the Mughals.Delhi, India: Har Anand.Chattopadhyaya, B. (1998). The making of early medieval India. Delhi,India: Oxford University Press.Islam, R. (1999). Sufism and its impact on Muslim society in South Asia.Karachi, Pakistan: Oxford University Press.Kulke, H., & Rothermund, D. (1994). History of India. Calcutta, India:Rupa.Majumdar, R. C. (Ed.). (1989). The Delhi sultanate. Bombay (Mumbai),India: Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan.Mishra, P. P. (2002). India—medieval period. In D. Levinson & K. Chris-tensen (Eds.), Encyclopedia of modern Asia (Vol. 3, pp. 22–25). NewYork: Charles Scribner’s Sons.Mujeeb, M. (1967). The Indian Muslims. London: George Allen &Unwin.delhi sultanate 507History is not a web woven with innocent hands. Among all thecauses which degrade and demoralize men, power is the mostconstant and the most active.•Lord Acton (1834–1902)
Nehru, J. (1991). The discovery of India (3rd ed.). New Delhi, India:ICCR.Qamaruddin, M. (1985). Society and culture in early medieval India(712–1526). New Delhi, India: Adam Publishers.Thapar, R. (1977). A history of India (Reprint ed.). Aylesbury, UK😛enguin.Democracy,ConstitutionalAs an organizing principle, constitutional democracydesignates a large political community and definesit as inclusive, open, and free. Nations governed by sucha democracy are bound by widely accepted guidelinesthrough a written public consensus.The shared core val-ues include civil liberties, pluralism, tolerance, and wideaccess to expression in all forms of the media. Sometimesentrepreneurial markets and social rights are also em-braced. Constitutional democracy is the most sensiblecountermeasure to authoritarian and dictatorial regimes,which owe their legitimacy to dynastic tradition, affir-mation by religious establishments, or sheer coercion.How best to conduct the public affairs of human soci-eties has been a challenge throughout history. Whethersuch affairs are conducted through providential inspira-tion, dictatorial rule, or a social contract, no system hasbeen perfect. Any system that has emerged has neededreform to cultivate the goodwill of those governed in adynamic world in which challenges and needs alwayschange. The most effective way of quantifying publicopinion is through popular elections held periodically ina free and fair manner.These elections sanction delegatesthrough a widespread mandate to discuss and resolveimportant contemporary political, social, and economicissues of power and authority.Democracy is rule by the people who reside in a par-ticular political unit (such as the city-state, the Greekpolis, especially during the eighth through fourth cen-turies BCE). However, if democracy is taken to its logicalconclusion, a majority of those people assembled in ameeting can reverse long-held traditions or, in extremecases, arrest and even kill those people who oppose thewill of the preponderance of participants. Therefore, theshared interest of free people, especially in entrepreneur-ial and peaceful settlements, dictates the establishment, ina document, of a set of fundamental principles that legit-imizes and secures the continuity of liberty and civil,political, social, economic, and cultural rights and servesas the foundation of a viable state. Such a document artic-ulates the standards and goals of a defined communitywith a publicly expressed affinity to certain human valuesand philosophical norms.The viability of constitutional democracy is dependenton a deliberative body, for example, a congress or a par-liament. In such a body the citizens of a country haverepresentatives—in at least one legislative branch for eachlevel of government within federal or unitary states—whoare elected in free, fair and periodic elections and vestedwith the essence of sovereignty. This deliberative bodyengages in debates that routinely decide the level of taxa-tion, allocation of budgets, domestic measures, securityconcerns, foreign relations, and all other matters of pub-lic policy. Constitutional democracy also endorses lobby-ing and petitioning of those people who hold electedpositions.Constitutional democracy is an antidote to both theoppressive, nondemocratic nature of rule by decreeapparent in authoritarianism and the unlimited controlinherent in unchecked forms of democracy such as major-itarianism (the practice according to which decisions ofa group should be made by a numerical majority of itsmembers). Constitutional democracy is a tolerant andpluralistic framework that prevents laws from deprivingminorities or individual citizens or circumventing moralnorms through positive law—statutes and ordinancesthat govern a state. Fundamental rights—such as free-doms of opinion, association, expression, religion andworship, due process in trial, and the ability to pursuepersonal choices—are guaranteed. This guarantee ismade without discrimination on the basis of gender,508 berkshire encyclopedia of world history
class, nationality, creed, political opinion,sexual orientation, or other personal char-acteristics that are irrelevant to individualmerit.AdvantagesBritish Prime Minister Winston Churchill(1874–1965) famously said that democ-racy, for all its faults, is still better than otherpolitical systems. Constitutional democracyis a manageable alternative to the chaosnecessitated by bringing every decision tothe scrutiny of numerous people and also isan antidote to the potential tyranny ofdecrees issued by kings, queens, or presi-dents without the advice and consent ofthose in whose name they presume to gov-ern. The balancing act of parliaments andthe judiciary check the absolute powers thatexecutive privilege might otherwise conferupon rulers.In a constitutional democracy a legitimateregime can rightfully claim a monopoly onthe publicly accepted use of coercion, includ-ing violence. Societies in which parliamen-tarianism prevails are governed by a rela-tively open political culture with electionscontested by multiple parties and individu-als. (In parlimentarianism, the executivebranch’s political party must have a workingmajority in the legislature to remain in power.) Compro-mise is preferred over confrontation. Rules of conductand debate and respect for fundamental human rightsfacilitate basic civil rights such as freedoms of expression,speech, assembly, ideology, affiliation, and religion.John LockeJohn Locke (1632–1704), an influential English politicaltheorist of the Enlightenment (a philosophic movementof the eighteenth century marked by a rejection of tradi-tional social, religious, and political ideas and an empha-democracy, constitutional 509sis on rationalism), argued that the proper function ofsocieties and states must be based on compromise andfreedoms, that is, civil equality. Deeming human civi-lizations as having emerged voluntarily from an idyllicstate of nature, he would not lend credence to coercionor dynastic authority. Government originates in the con-sent of the people it presumes to lead and for their ben-efit alone; its legitimacy is dependent on continuousadherence to such principles.Locke thus advocated sovereignty based on reciprocalequality—a balance of powers and jurisdiction betweenIndependence Hall inPhiladelphia, a symbol of democracy.
the judicial, legislative, and executive branches, prohibit-ing the subordination of any branch. He opposed vio-lence that merely enhances the authority of oppressiverulers rather than protect public order.These ideas, beingthe modern foundations of constitutional democracy,affected subsequent practices in the Western world,including British, French, and U.S. practices.HistorySince people first assembled in their poleis during theArchaic Age (800–500 BCE) in Greek colonies to decidematters of public policy, people have faced the dilemmaof how best to maximize participation while introducinga convenient forum for managing affairs efficiently. Directdemocracy sounds ideal. Reality, however, may be quitedifferent. A deliberative, representative polity (politicalorganization) may gain viability by establishing an insti-tutional body for regular legislation by a limited amountof members, elected periodically and fairly.AthensIn Greece the Athenian lawmaker Solon (c. 630–560BCE) presented an early version of a participatory consti-tutional democracy, blended with elements of social jus-tice, in a commercial and cultural center. Earning hisdistinction as a poet, he purported to correct the excessesof exclusive and oppressive aristocratic control of gov-ernment. Wealthy landowners used their leverage toexploit a severe economic crisis to deprive poorer towndwellers and peasants of their property and freedom orto force them into exile. Solon was chosen as a chief mag-istrate with broad authority in 594 BCEby the ruling classthat he subsequently challenged. His reforms aimed toimprove a flawed system, with roots in the Draconiancode (a severe code of laws held to have been framed bythe Athenian lawmaker Draco) of 620 BCE, by limitingthe absolute power of the upper class.Solon introduced a more humane and balanced legalcode to help debtors and curtailed the influence of therich. By enhancing the Assembly of the People by creat-ing the Boule (a multiethnic council of middle-income cit-izens), he limited the influence of the aristocratic Coun-cil of the Best Men (Areopagus) and enabled all adultmale Athenians to vote and be elected. This partialempowerment was a compromise between variousclasses and contesting interests and was in contrast to theconservative ways of Athens’s main rival, Sparta. Never-theless, because he did not please a certain constituency,Solon became so controversial that he left Athens, andtyranny prevailed for decades.Cleisthenes (c. 570–507 BCE) continued Solon’s con-stitutional reorganization. He made the Assembly of thePeople the sole legislative body, subordinating magis-trates to its jurisdiction, increased the influence of theBoule, deprived the Areopagus of effective power, andensured wide and deep participation in public life. Cleis-thenes made Athenian government more accountable toan inclusive, active political community and thus a rolemodel for subsequent civilizations.BritainCenturies later Britain’s Westminster tradition involvedunwritten conventions, coupled with the constitutionalmonarchy variant of parliamentarianism. Beginning withthe Magna Carta of 1215–1225 and culminating withthe Glorious Revolution during the seventeenth century,a growing degree of universal suffrage for the middleclass, independent judiciary, civil rights, and more openpolitical practices replaced the rule of the monarchy andthe aristocracy.From a system prevailing only in Western countries,British (and, to a much lesser extent, Dutch, French, Por-tuguese, and Spanish) colonialism spread constitutionaldemocracy in communities of European settlers to NorthAmerica, Oceania (lands of the central and south PacificOcean), and southern Africa, although indigenous resi-dents were usually deprived of its benefits. European co-lonialism also introduced constitutional democracy toAfrica,Asia, and Latin America. However, due to the hard-ships of economic exploitation endured by the colonized,ideas of freedom and human rights reflected by constitu-tional democracy were tinged by suspicions of hypocrisy.510 berkshire encyclopedia of world historyDemocracy gives every man a right to be his ownoppressor.•James Russell Lowell (1819–1891)
United StatesThe formative era of the U.S. version of an effective con-stitutional democracy is identified primarily with ThomasJefferson (1743–1826). His agenda of civil nationalismemphasized individual freedoms and the separation ofchurch and state. The core of the 1776 Declaration ofIndependence was “life, liberty and the pursuit of happi-ness.” The apex of the formative era was the drafting of a constitution in 1787. The Constitution vested sover-eignty in the U.S. people (excluding nonwhites, whoseability to be citizens was in doubt well into the twentiethcentury) through a hybrid of federal authority and indi-vidual states, created the presidency, and granted the fed-eral government the ability to tax citizens and commandtroops.The 1791 Bill of Rights assured individual rights andcivil liberties such as freedoms of speech, peaceful assem-bly, and due process.The balance of powers (checks andbalances) between the three branches of federal govern-ment (executive, legislative, and judicial) was consoli-dated in 1803 with the Marbury v. Madison decisionrendered by the Supreme Court.That decision enshrinedthe doctrine of judicial review in U.S. law, providing animpartial judiciary with the ultimate authority.CanadaIn Canada the Charter of Rights and Freedoms of 1982shows how a country with more than a century of open-ness and liberty transforms its legal mechanism toaddress a political crisis. Canada has had a semblance ofa constitutional democracy since the 1867 British NorthAmerica Act.That act ushered in a degree of sovereignty,which gradually strengthened to amount to a full author-ity of the Canadian government, within a federal struc-ture, ending British colonial rule. Nevertheless, during the1970s a secessionist movement in Quebec, a primarilydemocracy, constitutional 511W. E. B. Du Bois on the Town Meeting and DemocracyIn his autobiography, African-American scholar andcivil rights pioneer, W. E. B. Du Bois recounted how theGreat Barrington, Massachusetts, town meetings in the1880s influenced his views about democracy andcivic life.From early years, I attended the town meeting everySpring and in the upper front room in that little redbrick Town Hall, fronted by a Roman “victory” com-memorating the Civil War, I listened to the citizensdiscuss things about which I knew and had opinions:streets and bridges and schools, and particularly thehigh school, an institution comparatively new. Wehad in the town several picturesque hermits, usuallyretrograde Americans of old families. There wasCrosby, the gunsmith who lived in a lovely dale withbrook, waterfall and water wheel. He was a frightfulapparition but we boys often ventured to visit him.Particularly there was Baretown Beebe, who camefrom forest fastnesses which I never penetrated. Hewas a particularly dirty, ragged, fat old man, who usedto come down regularly from his rocks and woodsand denounce high school education and expense.I was 13 or 14 years of age and a student in thesmall high school with two teachers and perhaps 25pupils. The high school was not too popular in thisrural part of New England and received from thetown a much too small appropriation. But the thingthat exasperated me was that every Spring at TownMeeting, which I religiously attended, this huge,ragged old man came down from the hills and for anhour or more reviled the high school and demandedits discontinuance.I remember distinctly how furious I used to get atthe stolid town folk, who sat and listened to him. Hewas nothing and nobody. Yet the town heard himgravely because be was a citizen and property-holderon a small scale and when he was through, theycalmly voted the usual funds for the high school.Gradually as I grew up, I began to see that this wasthe essence of democracy: listening to the other man’sopinion and then voting your own, honestly andintelligently.Source: Du Bois, W. E. B. (1968). The autobiography of W. E. B. Du Bois (pp. 91–92).New York: International Publishers.
French-speaking province, challenged the legitimacy ofCanada, a primarily English-speaking country, for al-legedly excluding French-speaking citizens from basicrights on linguistic and ethnic bases.On the eve of the 1980 referendum that would haveallowed Quebec to commence on a path of indepen-dence, Canadian Prime Minister Pierre Elliot Trudeau(1919–2000) felt compelled to promise all Canadian cit-izens, especially those living in Quebec, that he would ini-tiate comprehensive constitutional reforms that wouldenshrine a form of pluralistic democracy. Indeed, in1982 Trudeau’s government revised substantially theCanadian constitution, guaranteeing federally, throughthe Charter of Rights and Freedoms, all basic civil liber-ties while allowing provinces a strong degree of provin-cial autonomy.To date, this strategy has helped maintainCanadian unity.IndiaPostcolonial India, the most populous country ever tohave a constitutional democracy, is an example of howconstitutional democracy can shape an emerging nation.After a painful struggle with the British and a war withIslamic communities, India rose to independence in1947. Jawaharlal Nehru (1889–1964) was India’s firstprime minister (1947–1964). Although Nehru deployedmilitary force against opponents, he championed aninclusive, pluralistic, polyethnic, multicultural state.Nehru largely endorsed the nonviolent practices of theIndian nationalist Mohandas Mahatma Gandhi (1869–1948).By proclaiming a constitutional democracy, Nehrupositioned himself, and the Congress Party he led, as thecustodian of federal identity, mediating between contest-ing castes and ethnic, religious, and regional constituen-cies. The guarantee of freedoms played a major role insecuring India’s viability in the face of internal separatistethnic nationalism and external adversity. In particularNehru tried to enlist the support of vulnerable groups ofpeople such as women and untouchables through writ-ten rights that improved their legal status, although prac-tical changes were slow to come.Nehru’s daughter, Indira Gandhi (1917–1984), servedas prime minister from 1966 to 1977. Concerned aboutIndia’s population growth, she pursued harsh steriliza-tion policies. That pursuit led her to subvert democracyby introducing a state of emergency in 1975. Neverthe-less, trying to legitimize her deeds, she felt compelled twoyears later to call parliamentary elections, which shelost. Gandhi surrendered power freely to her opponents;she returned to office in 1980. She was murdered in1984 by Sikh extremists who purportedly acted to avengethe desecration of their holy sites in her fight to assert hercontrol over all segments of Indian society.United States afterSeptember 11, 2001As part of the U.S. war on terrorism after the terroristattacks against New York City and Washington, D.C., onSeptember 11, 2001, the U.S. Congress in November2001 enacted the controversial Patriot Act. The act cur-tailed civil liberties for a limited time because of nationalsecurity concerns, causing some people to be concernedabout the long-term impact on constitutional guaranteesof freedom of speech and expression. The United Statesalso attempted to introduce constitutional democracy toAfghanistan and Iraq after liberating the two nationsfrom oppressive rule in 2001 and 2003, respectively.Itai SnehSee also Parliamentarianism; Revolution—United States Further ReadingBlack, J. (2000). New history of England. Stroud, UK: Sutton Publishers.Bumsted, J. M. (1998). History of the Canadian peoples. New York😮xford University Press.Carey, C. (2000). Democracy in classical Athens. London: Bristol Clas-sical Press.Freeman, M. (2003). Freedom or security: The consequences for democra-cies using emergency powers to fight terror. Westport, CT: Praeger.Gordon, S. (1999). Controlling the state: Constitutionalism from ancientAthens to today. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Iadicola, P., & Shupe, A. (2003). Violence, inequality, and human free-dom. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield.Keay, J. (2000). India: A history. New York: Atlantic Press.Manin, B. (1997). Principles of representative government. Cambridge,UK: Cambridge University Press.512 berkshire encyclopedia of world historyJustice is the end of government. It is the end of civil society. It everhas been, and ever will be pursued, until it be obtained, or untilliberty be lost in the pursuit.•James Madison (1751–1836)
Mueller, D. C. (1996). Constitutional democracy. New York: Oxford Uni-versity Press.Narveson, J. (2003). Respecting persons in theory and practice: Essays onmoral and political philosophy. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield.Principe, M. L. (2000). Bills of rights: A comparative constitutional analy-sis. Dubuque, IA: Kendall/Hunt.Schwartz, B. (1995). A history of the Supreme Court. New York: OxfordUniversity Press.Descartes, René(1596–1650)French philosopherRené Descartes was the leading French philosopherof the seventeenth-century scientific revolution.Although now best known, and commonly vilified, forhis defense of mind/body dualism and for his quest forcertainty in the theory of knowledge, Descartes was pri-marily interested in studying the natural world and thehuman body. His global influence as the intellectualpoint of origin of modern Western subjectivity, the evildemon of modern philosophy, is undeniable; but it masksthe stranger work of the historical figure, who was as puz-zled by meteors and by medicine as by metaphysics andmethod, and more interested in passion, psychosomatics,and perception than in rationality and the soul.Born in La Haye (now Descartes) in Touraine, and edu-cated at the Jesuit college of La Flèche, Descartes decidedin his early twenties on a life of inquiry after studyingmechanics and music, and after a series of powerfuldreams. He developed a systematically mechanicalaccount of nature, modeling his cosmology and physicson the behavior of fluids, which also play a key role in hisremarkable physiological theories. Descartes settled inHolland in the late 1620s; by 1632 he was in Amster-dam,“dissecting the heads of various animals,” to “explainwhat imagination, memory, etc. consist in” (Descartes1985–1991, 40). But when he heard of Galileo’s con-demnation in 1633, Descartes abandoned plans to pub-lish works on the nature of matter and the body.Descartes definitively rejected the Christian-Aristotelianidea that biological matter has intrinsic powers or built-in ends, claiming that its capacities, rather, arise from thecomplex configurations and combinations of physicalparticles in motion. He was concerned to defend theorthodox picture of the soul as nonphysical and immor-tal, but denied that life was also due to immaterial pow-ers. His posthumous work L’homme (theTreatise on Man)describes a fictional world of soulless “earthen machines,”mobile automata like the hydraulic statues in “the gardensof our kings.” Descartes’ physiology relied heavily on “ani-mal spirits,” fast-moving but material fluids that flowthrough the nerves and the pores of the brain.Descartes notoriously claimed that the human soulinteracts with the body-machine by way of the pinealgland, swaying on its supporting network of arteries anddirecting the flow of animal spirits through the tubes ofthe brain tissue. Even in creatures without souls, heposited, ordinary cognitive processing involves the con-struction and reconstruction of patterned traces on thesurface of this gland. Descartes had seen in dissection thatnonhuman animals also had a pineal gland. So althoughhe did argue that beasts are machines, he thought thatthese machines are capable of representation, memory,and even sentience and dreams. Despite the old story thathe vivisected a dog on his kitchen table, Descartes offeredno justification for cruelty to animals. Far from exclusivelyprivileging the rational soul, his work substantiallyrestricted its role and scope.The bodies of the Cartesianautomata are not mere objects cut off from the world,responding passively to the whim of the soul, but are fullyand holistically embedded in the buzzing whirl of thefluid-filled cosmos.Many readers encounter Descartes only through hiswritings on metaphysics and epistemology. In the Dis-course on the Method (1637) and the Meditations (1641),Descartes concocts a sequence of radically skeptical sce-narios to challenge our trust in traditional beliefs, and to conclude that he can know with certainty his own ex-istence as a “thinking thing” (res cogitans). These workshave considerable literary and psychological power: the Discourse offers an autobiographical fable aboutDescartes’ individualistic path to knowledge, while theMeditations brilliantly uses the jargon of scholasticdescartes, rené 513
