Perry Anderson's "The New Old World

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Essay: Perry Anderson’s “The New Old World”: a work of transnational
history?
Student Number: S1366802
Historical Research: Approaches to History
Dr David Kaufman
11th April 2014

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Perry Anderson’s “The New Old World”: a work of transnational history?
At first glance an account of European integration in the second half of the twentieth
century written by an historian seems an uncontroversial member of the category
“transnational histories.” This essay will contend that matters are more complicated
than that, and that an assessment of the extent to which Anderson’s work belongs to
that category will enable conclusions to be drawn about the nature of transnational
history and the possibility of applying a transnational paradigm to study of the
European Union and its history. Two definitional matters will require careful
distinction. First, there is an abyss between the ideal of European integration and its
reality. The ideal and the reality are frequently conflated in writing on the topic. Does
the term ‘European integration’ refer to what Gillingham calls “negative
integration…the removal of all barriers to the free movement of factors of production
within the Community” or do we mean “positive integration…the attempt to
orchestrate a set of uniform practices into being by state intervention”1 and ultimately
the creation of a federal state? The implications of this question for the usefulness of a
transnational approach to the history of European integration will be discussed at
length further; but here it is important simply to note the flexibility of the term
‘European integration’ and the dichotomy between the ideal of integration and its
reality. The second issue of taxonomy relates to the term ‘transnational history’,
which, like ‘European integration’ does not present sharp contours. Cohen and
O’Connor’s suggestion that “cross-national histories follow topics beyond national
boundaries”2is broad. This essay will attempt to show how some topics are truly
transnational (and require a transnational paradigm) whilst others are merely
posturing as transnational issues and can be better dealt with using different
approaches. Given the vastness of the area apportioned to transnational history by
standard definitions, the reader would be justified in questioning any attempted
limitation of the field. Discussion of Anderson’s work and its theoretical and
methodological conditions may at least offer some support for a refining of Cohen
and O’Connor’s definition.
1 Perry Anderson “The New Old World” London: Verso 2009 p. 91-92
2 Deborah Cohen and Maura O’Connor “Introduction: Comparative History,
Cross-National History, Transnational History- Definitions” in Comparison and
history: Europe in cross-national perspective New York: Routledge 2004 p. xii

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I
From the outset, Anderson identifies the problem facing historians and shaping their
choice of historiographical approach: “…the EU is unquestionably a polity…yet in
the life of the states that belong to it, politics…continues to be overwhelmingly
internal.”3Anderson sets himself the task of holding “both levels steady within a
single focus”4and reviews the historical literature of European integration, discerning
three types: “specialized studies of the complex institutions that comprise the EU;
broad-brush histories of the continent since the Second World War…and national
monographs of one kind or another.”5These three types are rejected by Anderson as
inadequate to the task at hand. It can be noted that none of these approaches could
claim to be ‘transnational’ even in the broadest sense of the term. In contrast,
Anderson intends to contribute towards a “republic of letters in the European
Union”6which has thus far been lacking due to the “self-satisfaction of Europe’s elites
[which] has become such that the Union is now widely presented as a paragon for the
rest of the world.”7This intellectual complacency is both cause and effect of what
Bayly alludes to in writing of “the histories of European national empires [which]
continue to command great public admiration…as the precursors of today’s
‘humanitarian interventionism.’”8Anderson’s purpose in writing is thus, to some
extent, polemical and fits- at this level- with a commonplace aim of transnational
history, the destruction of myths of ‘exceptionalism’.
Central to Anderson’s concern is the introduction of a clarifying distinction with
regard to the notion of ‘European integration’. Anderson wishes to write an account
which does not blur the distinction between the European Union as a political entity
per se and the historical processes in various European states which led to the creation
of the Union and its political and judicial instruments. The structure of the book is
3 Perry Anderson “The New Old World” London: Verso 2009 p. xi.
6 Perry Anderson “The New Old World” London: Verso 2009 p. xvii.
7 Perry Anderson “The New Old World” London: Verso 2009 p. xv.
8 Christopher Bayly “History and World History” in A Concise Companion to
History Oxford: University Press p. 14.

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telling in this regard; analytical studies dealing with the European Union itself entitled
‘Origins’, ‘Outcomes’, ‘Theories’, ‘Antecedents’ and ‘Prognoses’ frame national
studies (more or less in the tradition of national monographs) on France, Germany,
Italy, Turkey and Cyprus. Anderson himself acknowledges that “the movement of
analysis…which runs from the supranational to the national and back to the
supranational, is staccato rather than legato. The different levels of enquiry are
juxtaposed, not integrated.”9There is significance in this approach (whether chosen
freely or imposed by the subject itself) for consideration of a transnational historical
paradigm. The first point to discuss is a negative one: Anderson, by situating his
enquiry starkly in the “two arenas”10-supranational and national- seems to eschew the
comparative approach which is, arguably, the essential element of the transnational
paradigm. Indeed, Anderson’s decision to write chapters on particular nations has
been criticised: Philippe Schmitter “failed to understand their connection their
connection with the more analytical chapters dealing with European integration at the
beginning and end.”11Anderson’s national studies seem to operate on a vertical axis.
They describe the domestic political energies which urged the processes of European
integration culminating in the Treaty of Maastricht and the later enactment of
monetary union; but in this history, the European Union is treated (albeit with
significant qualifications) as a kind of supranational nation state. Where a
transnational approach would urge a “sceptical stance towards the nation as the chief
organizing category of history”12and furthermore propose “comparison as a heuristic
tool”13Anderson, far from scepticism about nations as organizing categories, adds yet
another ‘nation’ in the shape of the European Union into the historical mix and
contents himself with juxtaposing rather than comparing the resultant national
histories he has produced. Then does this mean that connections cannot be made
9 Perry Anderson “After the Event” in New Left Review 73 January-February 2012
p. 49
10 Perry Anderson “After the Event” in New Left Review 73 January-February
2012 p. 49
11 Philippe Schmitter “Classifying An Anomaly” New Left Review 73 January-
February 2012 p. 19.
history: Europe in cross-national perspective New York: Routledge 2004 p. xiii.
history: Europe in cross-national perspective New York: Routledge 2004 p. xvi.

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between Anderson’s work and the practice of transnational history? Anderson’s
response to this criticism- while avoiding familiar transnational language and
categories- is to point to the political aim of the book. He aims to attack “the
widespread conformism of media opinion…[and] surprising intellectual parochialism-
a lack of any genuinely European public sphere”14which will only be overcome
“when political curiosity can cross national borders in a natural to-and-fro.”15To this
answer-which seems compelling and relevant to a consideration of transnational
history, the question arises: why, then, include the chapters analysing the European
Union? Anderson himself argues that “in the life of states that belong to [the EU],
politics- at an incomparably higher level of intensity- continues to be overwhelmingly
internal.”16 That being so, why consider the EU at all except en passant in a history so
thoroughly situated in the political? These questions highlight the- unique- difficulties
of writing a history of European integration: the EU is substantially
“unprecedented.”17This granted, the comparative approach favoured by transnational
historians falters for lack of terms of comparison. The institutions of the Union can
neither be compared with similarly named national institutions (there is, for example,
no similarity except the purely nominal between the British parliament and the
European Parliament which “possesses no common electoral system: no permanent
home…no power of taxation…no say over executive appointments…no right to
initiate legislation”18) nor are there any other supranational bodies which can provide
a point of reference. Comparison fails before the sui generis. Anderson’s approach of
‘juxtaposition’ thus seems vindicated for the moment; discussion of ‘comparison’ in
transnational history will return later.
Perhaps Anderson’s chapter ‘Origins’ would come closest to explicit utilisation of
transnational approaches of following “the object [of study] between regions, cities,
2012 p. 49-50.
2012 p. 50.
18 Perry Anderson “The New Old World” London: Verso 2009 p. 23.

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groups, and traditions, crossing national borders whenever this [is] necessary.”19In
this chapter, Anderson critically engages with scholarly interpretations of the origins
of European integration. Briefly, Anderson reviews the neo-functionalist account,
“dominant in early scholarship,” which argued that “the forces underlying post-war
integration of Western Europe should be sought in the growth of objective…
interdependencies between the states.”20He moves on to a lengthy engagement with
the neo-realist description which stresses “the structural resilience of the nation-state
and see[s] the post-war integration of Western Europe…as the means of
reinvigorating effective national power.”21Alan Milward’s neo-realist account
receives particular attention, seeing as it does European integration as the “pursuit of
narrow self interest”22 on the part of nation states. Finally, Anderson gives his own
synthesis in which he identifies four main “forces behind the process of
integration,”23namely, Monnet’s intention to create a framework to avoid future
European wars, American desire for a strong Western Europe in the face of Soviet
expansion, French desire for superiority vis a vis Germany and German determination
to reprise its place as a European power.24In adverting to the role of nation states
(both within and without Europe) is Anderson at last on transnational ground? Is it
comparison of domestic policies and privileging of these (he speaks approvingly of
Milward’s axiom “Primat der Innenpolitik”25) that would allow a reader to construe
his work in transnational terms? Some caution is required here:
“transnationalism…clearly goes beyond a repackaged diplomatic or international
historical approach. It brings a whole range of new actors and extends its field of
vision from the political to the social.”26Accepting for the sake of argument this rather
peremptory stipulation, Anderson’s work would be discounted from the genus
‘transnational history.’ Anderson’s narrative casts politicians, diplomats and other
elites as the protagonists in European integration; and when he diverts from these it is
19 Pierre-Yves Saunier “Learning by Doing: Notes about the Making of the
Palgrave Dictionary of Transnational History” p. 8.
20 Perry Anderson “The New Old World” London: Verso 2009 p. 3-4.
24 Perry Anderson “The New Old World” London: Verso 2009 p. 21
25 Perry Anderson “The New Old World” London: Verso 2009 p. 7
26 Matthew Hilton and Rana Mitter “Introduction” Past and Present (2013)
Supplement 8 p. 14.

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to examine and attribute principle causative power to traditional abstractions like the
economy. For all that, however, Anderson’s thesis remains plausible. Supiot takes
Anderson’s argument that the economic interests of global elites lie behind or are the
motive of the four ‘forces of integration’ he has previously identified and places them
in a global-historical perspective. Europe, Supiot argues-following Anderson- is
aiding the creation of a global economy which “combines limitless economic freedom
for the ruling class with a dramatic curtailment of democracy and working-class
rights.”27Hilton and Ritter’s interest in seeing ‘a whole range of new actors’ play their
part in transnational history and an extension of ‘the field of vision from the political
to the social’ presupposes a particular political viewpoint-and one which does not- in
spite or because of the breadth and width of vision of the transnational vision-
necessarily correspond to the identification of historical causes. This will be discussed
in more depth later; suffice to say that thus far we have been able to see something of
the extent to which Anderson makes common cause with the transnational historians.
This can perhaps be summarised (crudely) by saying that insofar as Anderson is
concerned with ideas and forces which cross borders (the ideal of European
integration, the economic inducements for it, the structures of political and diplomatic
motivations, the wellbeing of global economic elites and so on) there is a sympathy
between the transnationals and Anderson. But where transnational theorists become
prescriptive- demanding comparison as a privileged methodology, requiring the
identification of ‘new actors’, insisting on a distinction between the political and the
social- Anderson’s work stands in contradiction to the transnational paradigm.
Assuming that, notwithstanding this opposition, Anderson’s history is a valid account
of European integration, his work may provide signposts towards a radical critique of
transnational historical paradigms.
27 Alain Supiot “Under Eastern Eyes” New Left Review 73 January-February 2012
p.34.

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II
Comparison first. As we have seen, Anderson avoids comparison as a method in
favour of a ‘juxtaposition’ of case studies and analytical accounts.28There are two
main arguments in favour of Anderson’s approach. The first is an argument grounded
in the specifics of the subject matter and has already been rehearsed above: in
essence, the indeterminacy of the European Union and its institutions and their
uniqueness in global terms make comparison impossible. There are some further,
complex theoretical reasons militating against the availability of a comparative
approach in this case. Firstly, on a theoretical level, comparison can be regarded as
part of the process of self definition; institutions, no less than individuals, proceed
along a sort of via negativa with regard to other institutions and organisations and this
leads to a self-definition. Indeed, “comparison is the process of relational self-
definition.”29That comparison can (and perhaps should) be rejected as a technique
applicable to the history of European integration and the construction of the European
Union is suggestive therefore of an amphibology present in the identity of the
institutions themselves. There is a cleft between the idea of European integration (as
in for example, Monnet’s vision of a federal Europe) and the reality of the institutions
of such integration. It is not that the institutions of Europe (European parliament,
Commission, legal instruments such as the Treaty of Maastricht and so on) do not live
up to the ideal: it is rather that the institutions do not really live at all as political
realities. Hence Anderson’s concern to include national studies- for it is at the level of
the nation that politics really take place. “European institutions have been
characterized not by the separation but by the confusion of powers”30and this
confusion has the effect of halting the ‘process of self definition.’ Hence these
Potemkin institutions, unreal as they are, are not patient of comparison.
28 For the purposes of this writing I assume that there is a difference between
‘comparison’ and ‘juxtaposition’ although I am aware that others, for example
Micol Seigel, regard juxtaposition as part of a comparative process.
29 Micol Seigel “Beyond Compare: Comparative Method after the Transnational
Turn” Radical History Review 91 Winter 2005 p. 64.
p.31.

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The second argument in favour of Anderson’s approach is a more general questioning
of comparative approaches in transnational history. Seigel and Michael Miller
enumerate the pitfalls of comparison on a theoretical level. For Miller, the chief
problem of comparison is that it “substitutes static categories for an accurate depiction
of time and place…relies upon ‘orthodox versions’ of national histories and…cannot
challenge the conventional wisdom.”31For Seigel “comparisons obscure the workings
of power.”32On the contrary, Anderson’s juxtapositionary account of European
institutions lays bare the workings of power by identifying behind the unreality of the
institutions “Hayek’s ultraliberal ‘catallaxy’…[which] is…the special kind of
spontaneous order produced by the market.”33Comparisons necessarily suppose some
standard against which two things are compared; it is for this reason that comparisons
can tend to provide a false picture- they imply a greater similarity and equality than
actually exist. Anderson’s ‘juxtapositions’ are able to provide a clear-eyed account of
the actual workings of power in post-war Europe, demonstrating the force of Seigel’s
admonitions about comparison in transnational history. His method, in this case,
justifies itself and adds wait to more general scepticism about the value of
comparative method. Transnational historians of the European Union may find it
valuable to position their methodologies in dialogue with Anderson’s ‘juxtaposition’
both on account of general problems with comparison and because of the singular
nature of the European Union.
In identifying the European Union’s real governance as lying in ‘the special kind of
spontaneous order produced by the market’ and by his insistence throughout The New
Old World on giving accounts of traditional elites, Anderson appears to transgress the
requirement that a transnational historical approach bring in ‘a whole range of new
actors’ to his narrative.34Again, the justification of Anderson’s approach must be
history: Europe in cross-national perspective New York: Routledge 2004 p. xvi.
32 Micol Seigel “Beyond Compare: Comparative Method after the Transnational
Turn” Radical History Review 91 Winter 2005 p. 65
p.31.
34 This stipulation is not confined to Hilton and Mitter; Bayly speaks of historians
being “constrained to write big works on wars and great statesmen” (p.15) as if
the ‘real’ history is taking place among other, neglected actors; the thrust of

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found in the results. If an account of the historical causation of European integration
is indeed the story of the centripetal forces of market economies (and Anderson’s use
of Hayek’s ‘catallaxy’ arguably provides his thesis with “validity and heuristic
power”35) then it seems arbitrary to insist on introducing ‘new actors.’ A political
intent can perhaps be discerned here; Anderson writes from the Marxist tradition and
thus privileges economic causes whilst upholding what could crudely be called a
social bifurcation between classes. It is precisely Anderson’s point that ‘new actors’
are unable to become historical protagonists whilst the kind of economics practised by
the European Union prevail. Transnational historians, by contrast, seem to speak from
a liberal perspective in which polyphonic histories attempt to give voice to a
multiplicity of nonelite actors as well as stressing social issues as distinct from
political concerns (whether this distinction is possible is itself a political question).
The New Old World stands as a reprimand to this kind of transnational approach’s
ability to correctly construe historical causation. Like comparison, the introduction of
‘new actors’ can be a valuable addition to historical understanding; but there is always
the danger that insistence on this kind of approach can occlude the real sources of
power. Thus Anderson’s approach can be seen to highlight a certain liberal naivety in
some transnational historiography which tends to write the world more democratically
than it really is.
III
What solutions have been found to the definitional questions outlined at the beginning
of this essay? To return to Gillingham’s distinction between ‘negative’ and ‘positive’
European integration (the first concerning the removal of barriers to transnational
movement of money, things and people, the second concerning the development of
institutions to promote the first), Anderson, by juxtaposing the motivations of both
European and non-European states has accounted for both concepts of integration by
Seigel’s approach is to identify the activity of ‘nonelites’. Subaltern studies, of
course, have an especial focus on giving voice to ‘new actors’.
p.31.

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appeal to the primacy of the market. In this sense, Anderson has identified the market
as the chief ‘actor’ in the historical process. The market- and economic forces more
broadly- is an object which clearly lends itself to a transnational approach. Thus far,
Anderson’s work lies unproblematically within the transnational category, at least as
broadly defined by Cohen and O’Connor. But Anderson does not cleave to the
strictures of transnational methodologies as conventionally conceived. He does not
compare; his account is concerned with social elites (although his work is situated in
antagonism to them) and the way in which economic imperatives direct diplomatic
relations. In this sense, Anderson’s work does not sit comfortably within the
transnational tradition. Because The New Old World does offer a valid historical
account of the forces of European integration, adepts of transnational history are
confronted with a work that can offer some useful correctives to their paradigm for
fruitful engagement with post-war Europe. Whether or not one accepts The New Old
World as a work of transnational history, it poses questions about the place of the
comparative method in transnational history. If, as has been argued, avoidance of the
comparative method has proved revelatory of sources of power in the European
Union, there must be greater advantages to persisting with comparison to make it
worthwhile. Similarly, a fetishisation of ‘new actors’ need not necessarily benefit
transnational historical approaches. Perhaps Cohen and O’Connor’s definition of
transnational history is more useful than most because it avoids detailed prescription.
The New Old World leaves us with two possibilities: either the European Union itself
is not a subject suitable for a transnational approach (perhaps because it is
supranational rather than transnational) or the definition of what the transnational
paradigm is needs to be adjusted in light of a successful- but unorthodox- engagement
with it.

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Bibliography
Anderson, Perry The New Old World (London: Verso 2009).
Bayly, Christopher “History and World History” in Ulinka Rublik (ed) A Concise
Companion to History (Oxford: University Press 2012).
Cohen, Deborah & O’Connor, Maura “Introduction: Comparative History, Cross-
National History, Transnational History- Definitions” in Deborah Cohen and Maura
O’Connor (eds) Comparison and history: Europe in cross-national perspective (New
York: Routledge 2004)
Hilton, Matthew and Mitter, Rana “Introduction” Past and Present
Supplement 8 2013
Saunier, Pierre- Yves “Learning by Doing: Notes about the Making of the Palgrave
Dictionary of Transnational History” Journal of Modern European History 6, 2 2008
Schmitter, Philippe “Classifying An Anomaly” New Left Review 73 January-
February 2012.
Seigel, Micol “Beyond Compare: Comparative Method after the Transnational Turn”
Radical History Review 91 Winter 2005.
Supiot, Alain “Under Eastern Eyes” New Left Review 73 January-February 2012.

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