Scholar of the Month
Bryan Glass of British Scholar recently sat down with Antony
Hopkins, Walter Prescott Webb Chair of History and Ideas at The
University of Texas in Austin, to discuss his rich experiences in
academia.  Antony's numerous academic works include:

-  An Economic History of West Africa (London:  Longman, 1973)

-  British Imperialism:  1688-2000, with Peter Cain, 2nd ed. (London:  
Longman, 2002)

-  Globalization in World History, ed. (New York:  W. W. Norton, 2002)

-  Global History:  Interactions Between the Universal and the Local,
ed. (Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire:  Palgrave Macmillan, 2006)
1.  Where, when, and why did you become interested in British and,
moreover, imperial history?

AH:  This is a long story. It goes back to when I became interested in history
(through historical novels) and how this interest then became directed into
serious study, as an undergraduate at London University, of the Tudors and
Stuarts. (In those distant days, the syllabus for a BA in history enabled you to
study British and continental European history, and even some American
history, but not the history of the rest of the world.)  And the Tudors and
Stuarts attracted me because of my abiding interest in the history of
capitalism. The connection to imperial history was made through the export
of capitalism, which took me first to Africa and then to a consideration of the
role of colonialism in developing or underdeveloping the Third World, as it
was then called, in general. By the mid-1970s Area Studies, which scarcely
existed when I began, were well developed, and imperial history was out of
favor. Pursuing a contra-cyclical policy (as I have tried to do), I moved further
into the study of empire. Always buy stocks at the bottom of the market,
never at the top!  

2. Who most influenced your academic development?

AH:  I have been fortunate in having helping hands at all stages of my
career and to have worked under, and with, some distinguished historians. If
I had to pick one it would be the late, memorable S. T. Bindoff, a man for
whom the word ‘gravitas’ might have been invented. But, though he was
imposing in size and forbidding in manner, he was also extraordinarily kind
and gave time to undergraduates. (In those days, the title ‘professor’ in
Britain was reserved for one person, who was also head of the department,
very busy and often necessarily removed from anything more than passing
contact with undergraduates). It was Bindoff who engaged me with the world
of the Tudors and who showed me what true scholarship was.  

3. If you hadn’t become a historian what career path would you have
chosen?

AH:  I would probably have become a civil servant, in which case I would
have become either a knight, much deserved of course, or a whistle-blower.
Given the politicization of the civil service in Britain during the last decade,
the latter is more probable. Knights are never whistle-blowers.

4. What project are you currently working on?

AH:  I am currently completing an article, which – typically at the moment of
composition – I think is original and brilliant, called ‘Rethinking
Decolonization’. My larger project, to which this article contributes, is a
comparison (or rather, I should say, a contrast) between British and
American ‘empires’. A sketch of part of the US side of the story has just
appeared in the Journal of Imperial & Commonwealth History (March
2007).

5. Of your academic projects, which one has proven to be most fulfilling?

AH:  You have to remember that I have a fatal tendency to become involved
with large, impossible projects that take many years, so my ‘achievements’
fall far short of my youthful ambitions. Finishing any one is itself fulfilling
because you have avoided failure. So, I would say that my book on the
Economic History of West Africa, which took nearly 10 years, was as
fulfilling, in its way, as my work with Peter Cain on British Imperialism, which
took nearly 15 years!

6. Where do you see the field of British imperial history moving towards in
the next few years?

AH:  As the jazz trumpeter, Humphrey Littleton, famously said, when asked
a similar question: ‘man, if I knew where jazz was going, I would be there
already!’ Predictions are difficult and usually wrong. Still, my guess is that
imperial history will continue to expand and will become an important
constituent of an even larger field of study: the history of globalization. If I
were young today and pursuing a contra-cyclical policy, I would avoid
‘representations and the postmodernist agenda generally, and look at areas
that appear to be so silent and immobile as to be dead, such as
constitutional history, which has not been in the mainstream since the days
of Mansergh and Miller in the 1950s! However, I doubt that this will happen
because enterprising students cannot always be sure that their professors
will recognize the changing nature of novelty. We, too, can be caught, as the
Marxists used to say, in an ‘outdated problematic.

7. Your recent research has centered on testing overarching theories in a
historical context (i.e. gentlemanly capitalism, globalization, global history).  
Is this a technique you think more historians should adopt?  What, in your
estimation, are the benefits of this technique versus the microhistorical
approach?

AH:  Chairman Mao got it right (for once) when he said: ‘let many flowers
bloom.’ The fascination of history lies partly in the diverse ways in which it
can be written. What is important is not technique but illumination. Micro-
studies and Big History can both be illuminating – if they are done well.
Some historians are drawn by personality and training to the former; others
take more readily to the latter. This is the distinction Darwin drew between
‘splitters’ and ‘lumpers’. It is also possible to combine the two or to adopt
them sequentially. I am best known as a ‘lumper’ but I would like to take this
opportunity to make it clear that I have also produced work of the greatest
obscurity. Indeed, I have just finished what, for me, was a wonderfully
satisfying biography of an African merchant in Lagos that plumbs depths of
detail that few other ‘splitters’ can hope to reach.     

8. If you had the opportunity to advise any Prime Minister or President in
history who would it be and what would you tell them?

AH:  No contest: I would have called President Bush after 9/11 and advised
him to stay cool, not to lash out, as instinct and public opinion demanded,
and to take the unique opportunity provided by having, momentarily, the
sympathy of the world to call for international co-operation in dealing, not just
with the immediate issue of ‘terrorism’, but with the larger challenges (of
which terrorism is a part) generated by our new globalized world. Had he
listened to me, he would not now be worried about his legacy.
March 2007
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