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Few
today would describe the exploits of imperial adventurers as heroic. Even the
most well-intentioned among them served as the agents of a system that
benefited a very few while causing misery for many, many more. Yet the title of
Edward Berenson's excellent study does not take an ironic stab at the
pretensions of nineteenth-century European culture. Heroes of Empire: Five
Charismatic Men and the Conquest of Africa refers to the icons produced out
of a dynamic process that excited popular enthusiasm in France and Great
Britain for empire-building, reifications of a "heroic moment" that stretched
from the 1870s to the brink of the Great War. Berenson explains the convergence
of developments that resulted in the molding of these charismatic figures
– Henry Morton Stanley, Pierre Savorgnan de Brazza, Charles Gordon,
Jean-Baptiste Marchand, and Hubert Lyautey – who personified the
imperialist enterprise for legions who had little material stake in such
undertakings. The result of Berenson's deft scholarship is a fresh critical
view of European imperialism that loses little of the compelling nature of the tales
that gripped Europeans of that era even as it breaks down the process of imperial
legend-building.
Each
chapter features a different one of the five imperial idols noted above, with
Stanley and Brazza each meriting two chapters to themselves. These chapters recount
the events that earned each his "hero" status and explain their respective
elevations to heroic status. Berenson connects the process of hero-making to the
rise of mass media and a new style of journalism, political and cultural responses
to the situation in Europe, and an updated version of Max Weber's theory of
charisma. An introductory chapter orients the reader through debates covering
such issues as popular opinion toward imperialism and the late
nineteenth-century "crisis of masculinity," establishing the relevance of the
work with regard to several historiographical discussions. Berenson displays
his scholarly acuity in the subsequent chapters through his use of a rich
variety of primary sources, the most compelling being the letters from admirers
received by several of the "heroes" that reveals just how they were appreciated
in the public's imagination. Published and unpublished poems as well as visual
representations produced for mass consumption in periodicals or for display in
museums also receive skillful deconstructions. All of this evidence produces
new impressions of how the French and British publics acquired an imperial
state of mind.
The
personal biographies of these five men had as much to do with contributing to
their legends as the external forces that lay mostly out of their control.
Whatever the consequences of their actions, however much they may have been
exaggerated or distorted to be made more palatable for public consumption, they
all possessed exceptional degrees of physical courage, personal resolve, and
authentic charisma that served as the kernel for the heroic legends that
sprouted around them. Stanley took the most active part among the five in
promoting his own heroic persona; yet, even the least sensationalized versions
of his deeds in Africa remain pulse-racing. His real life story turns out to be
more fascinating than the one he concocted for his readers. Individual
demeanors ranged from Stanley's brash exuberance to Marchand's disciplined
ambition to Brazza's saintly asceticism, showing how personal charisma may come
in a variety of guises.
As
much authentic charisma as each had, none would have achieved hero status
without the popular press shaping their images into commodities that met public
demand. By the late nineteenth century, burgeoning masses of consumers of
popular print responded to heroes who fulfilled their collective psychological
needs. French admirers from across the divided political spectrum united in
their shared patriotic enthusiasm for Brazza, the peaceful conqueror of west
Africa whose later mission to investigate claims of abuses in the Congo
exemplified the humanity that guided the French culture-mission; for Marchand,
whose retreat from Fashoda was spun into a moral victory that inspired new
confidence in the French military's integrity and spirit, even as the country
remained haunted by the débacle of 1870-71 and traumatized by the
Dreyfus Affair; and for Lyautey, whose martial and diplomatic acumen secured
Morocco for France and whose scholarly achievements earned him a seat in the
Académie Française, embodying two of French culture's traditional claims to
grandeur. Stanley and Gordon, so different from each other in so many ways,
played similar roles for British audiences eager for reassurance that peace and
prosperity had not made the country soft and decadent. Berenson adeptly reveals
how these various strands – charismatic personalities, national moods,
shifts in culture – produced the cult of the imperial hero.
By
virtue of its readability and admirable scholarship, Berenson's book has
already begun to appear on the syllabi of graduate and upper-level
undergraduate courses on European imperialism – and is likely to stay
there for some years. Most of the chapters can stand on their own and hence be served
out among students in piecemeal fashion. One essential point to note is that
Berenson focuses on European social and cultural developments and the
reverberations of imperialism in Europe – and in two European countries,
at that; consequently, those looking to explore the themes most dear to world
historians may find it of limited value: Africans generally only appear as
extras downstage from the Europeans, and the interactions depicted between
Europeans and Africans offer few if any revelations. The significant exception,
however, is the epilogue, where Berenson extends the view into the
post-colonial period and considers how the political leaders of the newly-independent
African countries used the legacies of Stanley and Brazza to their own ends.
Michael Clinton is an
associate professor of history at Gwynedd-Mercy College in Gwynedd Valley, PA.
He received his Ph.D. from the University of Notre Dame and teaches courses in
world and European history. He can be reached at clinton.michael@gmc.edu. |
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