The Statesman’s Year-Book Historical Companion PDF
Preview The Statesman’s Year-Book Historical Companion
THE STATESMAN'S YEAR-BOOK HISTORICAL COMPANION THE STATESMAN'S YEAR-BOOK HISTORICAL COMPANION EDITED BY JOHN PAXTON M PALGRAVE MACMILLAN ©The Macmillan Press Ltd, 1988 Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1st edition 1988 978-0-333-43659-2 All rights reserved. No reproduction, copy or transmission of this publication may be made without written permission. No paragraph of this publication may be reproduced, copied or transmitted save with written permission or in accordance with the provisions of the Copyright Act 1956 (as amended). Any person who does any unauthorised act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages. First published 1988 by THE MACMILLAN PRESS LTD London and Basingstoke Associated companies in Auckland, Delhi, Dublin, Gaborone, Hamburg, Harare, Hong Kong, Johannesburg, Kuala Lumpur, Lagos, Manzini, Melbourne, Mexico City, Nairobi, New York, Singapore, Tokyo. British library Cataloguing in Publication Data Paxton, John The statesman's year-book historical companion.--(Macmillan reference books) I. History, Modern-19th century 2. History, Modern-20th century I. Title 909.8 0358 ISBN 978-1-349-19450-6 ISBN 978-1-349-19448-3 (eBook) DOI 10.1007/978-1-349-19448-3 CONTENTS Title page of the fiCSt edition of The Statesman's Year-Book VI The First 125 Years of The Statesman's Year-Book vu Preface xi History ofC ountries and Federated States 1 Index including Index of Name Changes 347 v THE STATESMAN'S YEAR-BOOK A STATISTICAL, GENEALOGICAL, AND IDSTORICAL ACCOUNT OF THE STATES AND SOVEREIGNS OF THE CIVILISED WORLT> FOR THE YEA..R 1864 BY FREDERICK MAR'l,IN Jon.b.on anb 'amllribgc MACMILLAN AND en 1864 MACMILLANM ACMILLANO F THE FIRST ONE HUNDRED AND TWENTY-FIVE YEARS OF THE STATESMAN'S YEAR-BOOK The summer of 1988 sees the publication of the 125th edition of The Statesman's Year-Book. Since the firSt edition in 1864 there have been dramatic changes in the political systems and the frontiers of the countries of the world. Two world wars have hastened economic and social change. All these evolutionary and sometimes revolution ary events are recorded in the 125 annual volumes of The States man's Year-Book. In this long period there have been only ftve editors; Frederick Martin 1864-1883, Sir John Scott-Keltie 1883-1926, Mortimer Epstein 1911/27-1946, Henry Steinberg 1946-1969, and the present editor who joined the publication in 1963 and became editor on the death of Henry Steinberg. Throughout this period, five generations of the Macmillan family, Alexander (who commis sioned the ftrst edition), Sir Frederick, Harold (the firSt Earl of Stockton), Maurice and again Alexander (the second Earl of Stock ton) have shown <:onsiderable interest and have given encourage ment to the successive editors of The Statesman's Year-Book. Richard Clay of Bungay have been the printers throughout most of the years and John Bartholomew of Edinburgh have undertaken the cartography. The originator and first editor of The Statesman's Year-Book was Frederick Martin who was amanuensis to the historian, Thomas Carlyle. It seems that Carlyle and W. E. Gladstone, then Chancellor of the Exchequer, introduced Martin to Alexander Macmillan and an agreement for 'A Statistical, Genealogical and Historical Account of the States and Sovereigns of the Civilised World' was signed in Dec. 1862. The fust edition appeared on 20 Jan. 1864 running to 684 pages and selling at 8s. 4d. The ftrst edition was divided into 2 parts, one dealing with 15 European states- the 33 members of the German confederation receiving separate consideration -and the other dealing with 'Prin cipal States not in Europe', the USA, the Confederate States, Mexico, the Argentine Republic, Chile, Brazil, Canada, China, Japan, India, New Zealand and the 5 separate colonies in Australia. Numerous pages at the beginning and end of the volume were given over to advertisements for other Macmillan publications and for The Statesman's Year-Book's continental model and rival, the Vll Vlll Almanach de Gotha 'Annuaire Genealogique, Diplomatique et Statistique', then more than 100 years old, and now unfortunately extinct. When Frederick Martin retired from the editorship in 1883, The Statesman's Year-Book was well-established and had built the foundations of its international reputation for accuracy, impartiality and usefulness. Whatever changes The Statesman's Year-Book has undergone at the hands of his successors, the basic features established by Martin have been preserved, although, of course, there have been countless minor changes and improvements. Martin's main bequests to all subsequent editors have been his dissociation from any party political and denominational considerations, his firm resistance to pressure groups of any description and his co-operation with governmental and other official agencies while always preserving the editor's fmal right of decision. The 'official' documents which provided much of the information for the early editions gave way about 1870 to the issuers of these documents-government depart ments, embassies, learned societies, statistical offices - on whose help the accuracy and reliability of The Statesman's Year-Book has rested ever since. The editors however have always shown a healthy scepticism about official statistics provided by governments whose motives they consider to be suspect. In the very first issue Frederick Martin rejected the official estimate of expenses at the Tsarist court as ridiculously low in view of the 'boundless pomp and splendour dis played on all occasions'. Attempts, too, have been made to influence The Statesman's Year-Book in the interest of particular political or economic groups. Frederick Martin, while possessing the ideal qualifications for the establishment of a great reference book, showed increasing instabi lity towards the end of his editorship, and for a time The States man's Year-Book's continued existence was threatened when he mislaid the revised proofs of the 1883 edition in a railway carriage. Macmillans called on John Scott-Keltie, who saved the situation and brought the 1883 edition out on time. In 1884 Scott-Keltie succeeded Martin as editor, a position he held actively until about 1917, and in name until 1927. This remarkable man had consider able gifts as a writer, an organizer and a scholar, and was a liberal imperialist and an ardent promoter of Anglo-American co operation. He was a regular contributor to The Times, inspector of geographical education to the Royal Geographical Society, the creator and editor of the Geographical Journal, as well as an accepted expert on the geographical aspects of imperial expansion, IX especially in Africa. He was awarded many medals by learned societies, was decorated by foreign governments and was knighted in 1918. It is hardly surprising, then, that under his editorship The Statesman's Year-Book was expanded to include every country 'that can be regarded as a state, however rudimentary', and to take account of political developments all over the globe. Maps were introduced in 1892 illustrating, as Scott-Keltie put it, 'subjects of great moment'. An important milestone in the history of The Statesman's Year-Book came in 1906, when the USA was given a section of its own. The increasing interest of Macmillan in the American market, especially after the foundation of the Macmillan Company of New York in 1896, fortified by marriage bonds, had in 1898 made Frederick Macmillan suggest a special American edition. Scott-Keltie received this news with enthusiasm: 'several US correspondents', he said, 'have written to me suggesting that larger space might be given to so great a country'. Beginning in 1906 each of the then 46 states of the Union was allotted a special chapter, and the co-operation of the state governors and the state secretaries was warmly acknowledged. The phrase used in the preface, that the reorganization of the USA section was done 'in compliance with influential suggestions from America', discreetly veils a friendly hint Scott-Keltie had received from the then occupant of the White House, Theodore Roosevelt. The third editor, appointed in 1927, was Mortimer Epstein, who had been joint-editor with Sir John Scott-Keltie since 1911. Born in Lithuania in 1880, Epstein had come to England and settled in Manchester. He joined The Statesman's Year-Book, but was also editor of the Annual Register, and ran both annual publications with undiminishing vigour until the day of his death. Whereas Frederick Martin had been able to undertake the compilation of early editions with only casual assistance, the greatly increased scope of The Statesman's Year-Book, and the flood of information pouring into the office of the editor now made the task far beyond the ability of one man. Scott-Keltie had begun to employ regular assistants, and Mortimer Epstein now reorganized them into a regular team. The Second World War inevitably caused a disruption in the organization of The Statesman's Year-Book, and on the death of Mortimer Epstein in 1946, the fourth ed;'or, Henry Steinberg, was faced with the task of making entirely new arrangements with the host of new countries, old countries under new regimes, and newly created international agencies. Henry Steinberg was an exile from Nazi Germany and his books included Five Hundred Years ofP rint ing and a History of the Thirty Years' War. His astonishing gift of acquiring the friendship as well as the professional services of people X he never met helped considerably in re-establishing the vast network of correspondents following the war. The present editor joined Henry Steinberg in 1963, the year that The Statesman's Year-Book was celebrating its centenary. He became assistant editor in 1964 and editor in 1969, and the main editorial changes in the last 25 years have been to rearrange the layout to give even quicker accessibility to facts. Previously the publication was divided into four parts: International Organiza tions, the Commonwealth, the United States of America, and Other Countries. Changing over from hot metal printing to computer set ting gave the opportunity to move to alphabetical order for the independent countries of the world and with this The Statesman's Year-Book lost its imperialistic feel and became truly international. Also the opportunity was taken to rearrange the sections within each country into a more logical sequence and to add new sections such as tourism and climate where felt necessary. The aim has always been to produce a one-volume encyclopaedia of the nations of the world and with judicious planting and weeding this is achieved in just over I, 700 pages. It is obviously impossible to give many details of individual towns and regions and this is why in 1975 The Statesman's Year-Book World Gazetteer was published as a companion to the main volume. The Gazetteer is now in its third edition. Continuity has been the great strength, continuity of publishers, editors, printers and cartographers. However, thousands of people have helped to make The Statesman's Year-Book what it is today and a mention oflong-serving assistants is not out of order in what is, in fact, a publishing celebration. From 1900 untill916 Fred T. Jane of Jane's Fighting Ships was the expert adviser on the navies of the world, and for the last 40 years, R. V. B. Blackman, MBE, a former editor of Jane's Fighting Ships, has undertaken this task. Between the two world wars the late Sir Basil Liddell Hart gave advice on the armies, and the advisers on the Arab world were St John Philby and Edward Atiyah. The index has been compiled by Dora Fetherstonhaugh for over 25 years and many of the eastern European countries are 'looked after' by Brian Hunter who has worked for The Statesman's Year-Book for 28 years and who last year compiled the name index to add to the 50 pages or so of general index. Sheila Fairfield, the editor's chief assistant, has put up with the editor for 20 years. Without these wonderful people and the many, many others who write in with constructive and informed criticism The Statesman's Year-Book would not have reached its I 25th birthday and now be found in most reference libraries of the world. J.P.
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