The Gun, the Ship, and the Pen: Warfare, Constitutions, and the Making of the Modern World

by Linda Colley

Filling a crucial void in our understanding of world history, Linda Colley reconfigures the rise of the modern world over three centuries through the advent of written constitutions. Her absorbing work challenges accepted narratives, focusing on rulers like Catherine the Great, who wrote her enlightened Nakaz years before the French Revolution; African visionaries like Sierra Leone’s James Africanus Beale Horton; and Tunisias’s soldier-constitutionalist Khayr-al-Din, who championed constitutional reform in the Muslim world. Demonstrating how constitutions repeatedly evolved in tandem with warfare, and how they were used to free, but also exclude, people (especially women and indigenous populations), this handsomely illustrated history—with its pageant of powerful monarchs, visionary lawmakers, and insurrectionist rebels—evokes The Silk Roads in its range and ambition. Whether reinterpreting the lasting influence of Japan’s 1889 Meiji constitution or exploring the first constitution to enfranchise women in tiny Pitcairn Island in 1838, this book is one of the most original and absorbing histories in decades.

Genres: History, Nonfiction, Politics, Law, World History, 21st Century, History and Politics

Audiobook

First published May 14, 2015

About the author

Linda 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.

Reviews

[Michael Burnam-Fink · Rating 2 out of 5]

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.

[Eren Buğlalılar · Rating 3 out of 5]

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.

[Marks54 · Rating 5 out of 5]

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.

[Jonas · Rating 1 out of 5]

Impressão Geral
É um dos livros mais objetivamente ruins que já li. Vou dar 1 estrela apenas pra não parecer que não dei nota nenhuma. Merecia zero.
Tradução
A tradução já começa a me engabelar. O título original é The gun, the Ship, and the Pen: War, Constitutions and the making of the modern World. O que já antecipa a tese. No português, nos conduz a crer que o enfoque nas constituições é o principal.
Agora, em retrospecto, o making of the modern world é de uma imprecisão histórica bizarra pra alguém que deveria ser uma historiadora profissional. Ela fala pouquíssimo da época moderna, mas sim quase que exclusivamente da segunda metade do XVIII em diante.
A Tese
O problema central é a tese absurda. Que as constituições são fruto de guerras, agressões externas ou sua ameaça.
Ela vai ao ponto de dizer que considerar as constituições como essencialmente conectadas com revoluções e suas ideias republicanas e democráticas é uma análise empobrecedora. Só aqui eu já tinha que ter largado o livro.
E por que? Pois até a 1914 a maioria das nações com constituição era monarquias e a maioria não era democrática! Olha a lógica! E o pior: o argumento é só isso. Nenhuma citação, nenhuma argumentação dialogando com o mundaréu de bibliografia. Farsante.
Mas então, se a gente concordar com a argumentação porca pra descartar toda bibliografia pra embarcar nessa tese esdrúxula, o que gente tem?

As constituições como fruto da guerra
As constituições, diz a autora, são fruto da pressão das guerras. Mas não são quaisquer guerras. Ela fala (argumentar seria algo mais refinado, que não é feito) que no início da era moderna, as guerras começam a ficar crescentemente caras. Ela faz uso do termo Guerra híbrida para guerras com uso de barcos e exércitos terrestres. E não é que ignora a conotação que esse termo tem hoje. Ela tem a pachorra de dizer que o uso dela é mais rigoroso. É muita desfaçatez. Sigamos.

A guerra híbrida (cara)
Por que a guerra no mar e na terra engendrou constituições? Porque eram caras. Com a modernização do aparato bélico, era mais caro equipar a turma toda. Ora, pra bancar tudo isso, seria necessário mais fundos, mais tributação à população. Além disso, com a necessidade de conscrição/recrutamento cada vez mais alargado, mais e mais homens seriam obrigados a prestar serviço.

A necessidade de cobrar mais e justificar dando mais direito (constituição)
Disso decorre que sendo a população [masculina] mais obrigada a prestar serviço e mais tributada, a moeda de troca seria a concessão de direitos por meio de uma constituição que justificasse todos esses novos encargos. A parte mais positivamente provocante da tese é quando ela sugere (em passant e sem lastro, como tudo nesse livro) que isso seria um indicativo do atraso em direitos femininos, já que não podiam ser recrutadas. Mas é só pensar por 10 segundos pra descartar essa bobagem. Como se a misoginia histórica fosse uma racionalidade instrumental (dê me capacidade militar e darei direitos). É uma mistura louca.

Os problemas da Tese
a. O principal problema é a falta de fundamento. É um livro que, em princípio tá lançando uma tese inovadora. Mas a gente não ganha quase nenhuma citação direta quando isso importa pra justificar a tese dela. As diretas são passagens curtas, acessórias. As indiretas, vêm apenas depois de loooongos períodos de ilações mal fundamentadas. Aí tu vai ver as fonte no fim e é uma simples menção a um livro, um artigo e não uma discussão com a fonte, como se veria em um trabalho sério.

b. Outra coisa que incomoda muito é a levada. Ela realmente escreve como alguém muito erudito, com muitas fontes. E escreve bem, de um jeito envolvente. Porém, parece a historiografia dos célebres homens e seu tempo. Processo político é quase inexistente. Insurreição e revolta das massas? Apenas e tão somente mencionada se a ver com guerra, e ainda assim não pontua sequer uma, só existe na hipótese. Todo o restante do panorama mundial é cenário no teatro onde os homens ilustres agem para buscar fazer suas constituições. Sempre protagonistas, parece que nada é feito à muitas mãos. Absurdo. A seleta de homens que ela faz segue um padrão. Homens que foram militar e se envolveram no processo de redação de textos constitucionais (seja lá o que isso signifique para ela). No começo da obra tem um agradecimento “em memória de meu pai, Roy Colley, e do pai dele, Harry Colley – vidas moldadas pela guerra”. A tara é tão grande que não me surpreenderia que um dos dois teve um esboço de constituição na gaveta antes de falecer (tendo participado da segunda e primeira guerra respectivamente). Isso explicaria o recorte sem sentido.
c. Constituição: A falta de diálogo com fontes jurídicas fica óbvia no principal elemento: A Constituição. Ora, o que é isso, uma constituição?! Ela não explica, ela não trata com nenhuma fonte, com nenhum autor sobre o que é e o que não é uma constituição. O que difere as modernas e contemporâneas (séculos 17, 18, 19) das atuais do pós-guerra (há quem diga que propriamente, só as do pós-guerra o são)? Pra um livro cujo tema central são constituições, eu só consegui extrair a seguinte passagem sobre o que ela pensa ser:
“A maioria [dos textos legais antigos] dizia respeito mais a conjuntos de regras de conduta para súditos, e aos terríveis castigos para quem os desafiasse, do que a estabelecer limites às autoridades, ou garantir direitos individuais”. Isso de largada, na segunda página do texto. E pronto. Nunca mais. Assim, sem cerimônia. Uma absurda simplificação. Que textos? Que antiguidade? De quem ela fala? Será que era mesmo assim?

Muitas perguntas ficam. Textos não constitucionais não podem limitar o poder soberano? Não seria a própria redação/publicação de leis uma limitação do poder e consequente concessão de direitos aos súditos de um soberano? Mesmo que existam respostas fáceis a essas perguntas, em nenhum momento a autora se dirige a isso. É de uma pobreza teórica horripilante. Lá na frente, apenas pra engrossar o caldo da importância do sujeito japonês que ela escolheu, menciona que ele estudou com o (sic) maior jurista alemão, Rudolf von Gneist (não era). Pra falar isso ela não sabe nada nem de jurídico e nem de alemão. Mas tinha que elevar o passe do personagem da vez. Uma página depois atribui a seguinte passagem ao “maior jurista alemão”: “Uma constituição não é um documento jurídico” mas, acima de tudo, a encarnação do “espírito e das capacidades da nação”. Que chacota. Que pobreza. Nem um aluno da graduação faria tão pouco caso de direito constitucional.

d. Guerra
Se ela faz tão pouco caso de entender do que fala em matéria de constituição, por que seria diferente sobre história militar? A mesma pobreza e leviandade. Guerra híbrida? Oi? Apenas porque o povo/nação emprega marinha e exército num mesmo conflito? Mas qual marinha? Só de transporte? Tem que ter canhão? O combate tem que ser marítimo ou bastar o navio de transporte?
Isso pra não falar na enorme frequência que ela sequer menciona as guerras, marinhas e exércitos de uma nação, quando falando de tal ou qual povo. Simplesmente esquece da tese. Se perde nos detalhes inúteis, triviais, das biografias dos seus heróis.

Mas mais importante que isso. Se o alto preço de manter tais ou quais máquinas militares é tão central à tese… por que existe uma absoluta ausência desse cálculo financeiro? Não existe nada, nem na experimentação teórica para dizer “nessa época, botar tantos e tantos homens adequadamente equipados custava X, nessa outra época, com mais novas tecnologias, custava Y. Se fizermos uma correção monetária segundo estimativas de tais e tais autores, obtemos consistentemente que estava mais caro”. Mas não tem NADA disso. E outra? Quais os indícios que a chegada de uma nova constituição engendrou maior tributação? Cita indiretamente apenas o caso do Japão Meiji e ainda assim mal e porcamente. Antes da existência de constituições os governos do mundo não conseguiam elevar o encargo tributário? O que ela tem a dizer sobre isso? Absolutamente nada. Tese vazia.
Mesmo a sugestão de que as populações precisariam de mais direitos pra aguentar tributo e conscrição (justificando, assim, as constituições) é podre pois ela não cita praticamente nada das supostas insurreições. Ela não tá interessada na política interna nem no que as massas têm à dizer sobre o que acontece. Apenas foca na vida de seus protagonistas. E mesmo assim, nunca entramos na cabeça deles. Não temos quase nada das preocupações deles, das suas cartas por exemplo, dos seus motivos. Apenas ilações da autora, que partem da premissa da tese como fato consumado e não algo a ser provado.

Pra encerrar
Depois das parcas e pobres 10-15 páginas de introdução que ela diz a que veio, vem os textos onde eu, estarrecido com a proposta inicial, imaginava que ela iria desdobrar os casos de exemplo pra mostrar por que a tese faz sentido. Mas não. Ela quase nunca fala de constituição, de revolta por guerra. Seja quando fala da Córsega, da Rússia, da França (pouquíssimo tratada, pra importância que teve), do Taiti, da ilha de Pitcairn (sim, deve disso), do Havaí… Entre outros exemplos pitorescos. Ela mirou no “vão me dar pontinho por falar do mundo não europeu” e acertou no esotérico, no anedótico (e vá lá, se estivessem bem usados os exemplos, estaria show de bola). Guerra? Quase nunca aparece. Revolta popular? É uma fantasmagoria que ela usa pra justificar a menção a tal ou qual povo/personagem. Acho que o único caso em que ela realmente tenta fazer um conjugado da tese, com todos elementos essenciais é o do Japão, no último capítulo. E ainda assim faz de uma maneira muito muito pobre, que não renderia um artigo, que dirá um livro.
A narração é muto mais centrada nas personagens que ela elege como motor dos países. Daria pra citar muitos outros incômodos, mas acho que já falei demais. Nem pra calço serve.

[Stijn Jager · Rating 2 out of 5]

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

[Jennifer (JC-S) · Rating 4 out of 5]

‘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

[Shoshi · Rating 3 out of 5]

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.

[Konstantin · Rating 3 out of 5]

Tons of interesting historical information, sometimes not quite accurate but serves for the story

[Raj · Rating 3 out of 5]

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.

[Fahad Ali Khan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Although 400+ pages and relentless biographical digressions were not necessary to make the book’s central points about constitutions as means of statecraft, it is nevertheless an important one. Among its survey of the spread of written constitutions, I especially appreciated its focus on uncelebrated, underdiscussed constitutions such as in Tahiti, Hawaii, and the Pitcairn Islands.

[David C Ward · Rating 4 out of 5]

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.

[Stephen Harrison · Rating 4 out of 5]

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.

[Frizzo · Rating 3 out of 5]

Sie macht es gut und ich habe das Buch insgesamt gerne gelesen, aber eine gute geschichtswissenschaftliche Arbeit kann nicht nur Anekdoten aneinander hängen.

[Nicholas Little · Rating 4 out of 5]

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.

[Andre Nascimento · Rating 4 out of 5]

Uma forma interessante de falar sobre história geral do séc XVIII e XIX, tendo as constituições como o fio condutor. Interessante que a autora não fica somente na Europa, todos os continentes são abordados. Esse mundão véio tem muitas histórias...

[Frank Stein · Rating 3 out of 5]

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.

[Josh Crabtree · Rating 4 out of 5]

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.

[Emmanuel Gustin · Rating 4 out of 5]

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.

[Toby · Rating 4 out of 5]

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.

[Clay Kallam · Rating 2 out of 5]

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.

[Thomas Foster · Rating 3 out of 5]

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.

[Dario Varese · Rating 3 out of 5]

"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!

[Lawrence Roth · Rating 4 out of 5]

Linda Colley has assembled a fascinating look at the history of the rise of constitutions as perhaps the world's most important political technology during the 1700s-1800s. Critically, she explores not just western constitutions, in particular the heavily covered American and French developments in the republican experiment, but in very little known and acknowledged constitutions which nonetheless deserve their day in academic scrutiny.

Pacific islands like Pitcairn and independent Hawaii, Turkey, Japan, South America, Catherine's Russia, and many others are covered in this book. Colley's thesis to explain the explosion of single document constitutions as vehicles for political reform rests upon her analysis of the revolutions in printing technology as well as the rise of what she calls hybrid warfare (utilizing both land and sea forces to engage in empire building). The destabilizing effect of remarkably consistent and protracted armed conflict gave rise to ideas and movements, many times from former soldiers, that resulted in national reforms, solidified conquests, and open rebellion. Colley does not only focus of course on the independent nations. Napoleon, for example, drafted constitutions for several regions he conquered. Also notable is that England, or rather the United Kingdom, despite being a belligerent among many global conflicts and colonial wars, never adopted a constitution itself.

Genuinely a fascinating history of the technology of the constitution, and a generally great history book as well! A high recommend to anyone interested in political history and geopolitics.

[Andy Dorsey · Rating 3 out of 5]

I'm not entirely sure I entirely understood and support Colley's arguments about written constitutions -- something to the effect that we shouldn't underestimate the importance of military conflicts to their creation. Certainly wars can exert pressure on the people in power, who then feel obligated to further include their subjects politically by issuing a written constitution. But I wouldn't say that war is exactly an under-researched topic in history (though not always linked to constitutions), and I think communication technology must have been just as important of a factor.

Nonetheless, I did take away a few points from this book. It never occurred to me that written constitutions are such a modern phenomenon, something we've had to any significant degree for just about the last 400 years. I also never realized just how short-lived most constitutions are, and I never considered the post-American Civil War amendments to the US constitution as changing the document so fundamentally as they did. Nor was I aware of the sheer amount of enthusiasm for the creation of new constitutions across the globe over the last 200 years.

Still, aside from these valuable and interesting considerations, this book didn't do too much to change the way I view the world. The experience of reading it was a bit like going down a rabbit hole on Wikipedia -- usually entertaining, but somewhat disjointed.

[Janine · Rating 5 out of 5]

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/...

[Hamid · Rating 3 out of 5]

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.

[John · Rating 3 out of 5]

Written constitutions are not so much the product of a bunch of high-minded political philosophers sitting around in a room pondering how to create inclusive, participatory political systems as they are the products of societies that have either recently gone through or foresee going through political and military turmoil. As a result of that actual or anticipated turmoil, they need both the appearance and the reality of stable systems to (a) offer something to their supporters in exchange for the willingness of those supporters (particularly the men) to hand over their money and often their lives to the state, and (b) demonstrate to the rest of the world their power and stability, in large measure to convince potential conquerors and adversaries that these are not people you want to mess around with.

The book places the U.S. Constitution in the historical context of other constitutions, both earlier and later, and makes the point that constitutions are often not bulwarks against authoritarianism or monarchy, as they have been adopted by countries that no one would consider to be democracies.

It was interesting and informative. Unfortunately, it was also turgid, prolix, and meandering—a real slog, at least for the non-academic. I was glad to have read it, and particularly glad to have finished it. The book could have benefited from a very assertive editor.

[Paul · Rating 5 out of 5]

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.

[Arran Douglas · Rating 3 out of 5]

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.

[Larkin H · Rating 4 out of 5]

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.