(^424) THE WEALTH AND POVERTY OF NATIONS
conquered. (The tests are intermarriage, language, and personal
names.)* Thus the Normans defeated the Anglo-Saxons (1066 and
after), who had earlier chased out the Romans and subdued the native
Britons (a Celtic people who had themselves conquered the native in
habitants), driving many of the Celtic speakers before them into Wales
and across the Channel into what came to be known as Brittany. To this
day speakers of Breton can listen to radio broadcasts in Welsh and un
derstand much of what is said.^1 "
The whole island of Britain, in other words, is a palimpsest of suc
cessive invasions and seizures, most of which have blurred into a uni
tary society; although some members of the conquered Welsh and
Scots populations still dream of earlier independence and distinctive
identity. One can find similar foci of grievance in the Basque country
of Spain (but less in that of France), in Catalonia and Corsica, in the
debris of the old Habsburg and Romanov empires; and the current
tragedy of Bosnia reminds us that memories of defeat and conquest do
last, or can be reawakened and manipulated, and that life is short but
revenge long. The Turks defeated the Serbs at Kossovo in 1389; the
Turks have long forgotten, but the Serbs have made reversal of this de
feat the lodestone of their national aspirations.
One can continue around the world. Over long centuries, the Chi
nese drove to the south, subjugating and absorbing non-Han peoples.
The Japanese conquered their "home" islands from the Ainu, reduc
ing them to a relic in the far north. The Burmese migrated from their
original home in Mongolia and gave their name to a land far to the
south, absorbing most of the natives but leaving a number of peoples
to fight with to the present day. The Arabs burst out of the desert into
the Fertile Crescent, then swept across North Africa, converting most
of their subjects to Islam. They carved out Muslim states, and their lan
guage became the common definer of these diverse populations. (As of
1998, the only official language in once-French Algeria will be Arabic.)
As a result, our Eurocentric term Middle East extends to the African
shores of the Atlantic.
Clearly, the common view of imperialism as a Western invention and
- Cf. the Polyptique of Irminon, a census of the population of the estates of the abbey
of Saint-Germain (just outside of Paris) in the early ninth century. Who bears a Frank-
ish name and who a Gallo-Roman one?
(^1) Later incursions and invasions by Danes led in the ninth century to cession of a sub
stantial area in eastern England that was known as the Danelaw (Danelagh). The Dan
ish invaders intermarried with the residents, and a half-century later the area was
reabsorbed into the English kingdom.