Outsourced Empire

The way that imperial power is enacted around the world today has changed, but it has received little attention. Outsourced Empire aims to change that, re-evaluating the history of empire from the Cold War to the present by looking at the influence of para-state actors. A para-state is a region that seeks or claims, but does not officially have, the status of an independent state. From the Guatemalan coup to the Bay of Pigs, from Syrian rebel factions to the Soviet-Afghan War, Andrew Thomson pulls together seemingly disparate events and groups to reveal the ways that para-states have become central to US imperialism, enabling the United States to influence political and economic conditions abroad in secret. Drawing on a wide range of sources, including US training manuals, CIA communiqu s, and National Security Agency archives, Thomson reveals the hidden workings of contemporary empire.

How chartered company-states spearheaded European expansion and helped create the world’s first genuinely global order From Spanish conquistadors to British colonialists, the prevailing story of European empire-building has focused on the rival ambitions of competing states. But as Outsourcing Empire shows, from the seventeenth to the twentieth centuries, company-states—not sovereign states—drove European expansion, building the world’s first genuinely international system. Company-states were hybrid ventures: pioneering multinational trading firms run for profit, with founding charters that granted them sovereign powers of war, peace, and rule. Those like the English and Dutch East India Companies carved out corporate empires in Asia, while other company-states pushed forward European expansion through North America, Africa, and the South Pacific. In this comparative exploration, Andrew Phillips and J. C. Sharman explain the rise and fall of company-states, why some succeeded while others failed, and their role as vanguards of capitalism and imperialism. In dealing with alien civilizations to the East and West, Europeans relied primarily on company-states to mediate geographic and cultural distances in trade and diplomacy. Emerging as improvised solutions to bridge the gap between European rulers’ expansive geopolitical ambitions and their scarce means, company-states succeeded best where they could balance the twin imperatives of power and profit. Yet as European states strengthened from the late eighteenth century onward, and a sense of separate public and private spheres grew, the company-states lost their usefulness and legitimacy. Bringing a fresh understanding to the ways cross-cultural relations were handled across the oceans, Outsourcing Empire examines the significance of company-states as key progenitors of the globalized world.

Three years have passed since the second edition of this book was published. The field of IT outsourcing continues to grow in practice as well as in academia and draws further attention in both domains. Aspects of traditional outsourcing (Part II) have remained pronounced but are becoming more mature. While o- sourcing determinants are still important, they are now of less interest to researchers. Relationship management (Chap. 1) and capability management (Chap. 2) continue to be of interest; so too are outsourcing outcomes (Chap. 3) and, as a new focus, innovation aspects (Chap. 4). These are motivating more and more research activities, complementing the lifecycle of traditional o- sourcing. We note significant growth in the field of IT offshoring (Part II). In our third edition, we offer research results on offshoring patterns and trends (Chap. 5), the crucial aspect of knowledge sharing (Chap. 6), vibrant examples for offshoring dynamics (Chap. 7), and some new contributions on the deter- nants of offshoring success (Chap. 8). The last part of our book investigates the field of business process outsourcing (Part III). In this section, issues such as standardization, process outsourcing to India and deinstitutionalization patterns in the health-care sector are presented. Given these new subjects, we believe that Enduring Themes, Global Challenges, and Process Opportunities is an appropriate subtitle for this third edition of the monograph. Again, we have thoughtfully compiled contem- rary outsourcing research as a primer and a platform for scientific discourse.

Patterns of Empire comprehensively examines the two most powerful empires in modern history: the United States and Britain. Challenging the popular theory that the American empire is unique, Patterns of Empire shows how the policies, practices, forms and historical dynamics of the American empire repeat those of the British, leading up to the present climate of economic decline, treacherous intervention in the Middle East and overextended imperial confidence. A critical exercise in revisionist history and comparative social science, this book also offers a challenging theory of empire that recognizes the agency of non-Western peoples, the impact of global fields and the limits of imperial power.

"This book covers a wide range of topics involved in the outsourcing of information technology through state-of-the-art collaborations of international field experts"--Provided by publisher.

"In this extraordinary volume, Krishan Kumar provides us with a brilliant tour of some of history's most important empires, demonstrating the critical importance of imperial ideas and ideologies for understanding their modalities of rule and the conflicts that beset them. In doing so, he interrogates the contested terrain between nationalism and empire and the legacies that empires leave behind."--Mark R. Beissinger, Princeton University "This is an excellent book with original insights into the history of empires and the discourses and rhetoric of their rulers and defenders. Kumar's writing is lively and free of jargon, and his research is prodigious. He manages to bring clarity and perspective to a complex subject."--Ronald Grigor Suny, author of "They Can Live in the Desert but Nowhere Else": A History of the Armenian Genocide "A masterly piece of work."--Anthony Pagden, author of The Burdens of Empire: 1539 to the Present

"This book explores the issues of supply chain management with new perspective providing examples of integrated framework for global SCM, novel ways of improving flexibility, responsiveness, and competitiveness via strategic IT alliances among channel members in a supply chain network, and techniques that might facilitate improved strategic decision making in a SCM environment"--Provided by publisher.

This is the first world history of empire, reaching from the third millennium BCE to the present. By combining synthetic surveys, thematic comparative essays, and numerous chapters on specific empires, its two volumes provide unparalleled coverage of imperialism throughout history and across continents, from Asia to Europe and from Africa to the Americas. Only a few decades ago empire was believed to be a thing of the past; now it is clear that it has been and remains one of the most enduring forms of political organization and power. We cannot understand the dynamics and resilience of empire without moving decisively beyond the study of individual cases or particular periods, such as the relatively short age of European colonialism. The history of empire, as these volumes amply demonstrate, needs to be drawn on the much broader canvas of global history. Volume I: The Imperial Experience is dedicated to synthesis and comparison. Following a comprehensive theoretical survey and bold world history synthesis, fifteen chapters analyze and explore the multifaceted experience of empire across cultures and through the ages. The broad range of perspectives includes: scale, world systems and geopolitics, military organization, political economy and elite formation, monumental display, law, mapping and registering, religion, literature, the politics of difference, resistance, energy transfers, ecology, memories, and the decline of empires. This broad set of topics is united by the central theme of power, examined under four headings: systems of power, cultures of power, disparities of power, and memory and decline. Taken together, these chapters offer a comprehensive and unique view of the imperial experience in world history. Volume II: The History of Empires tracks the protean history of political domination from the very beginnings of state formation in the Bronze Age up to the present. Case studies deal with the full range of the historical experience of empire, from the realms of the Achaemenids and Asoka to the empires of Mali and Songhay, and from ancient Rome and China to the Mughals, American settler colonialism, and the Soviet Union. Forty-five chapters detailing the history of individual empires are tied together by a set of global synthesizing surveys that structure the world history of empire into eight chronological phases.