The age of imperialism was a defining point in the course of history, putting in place political and economic conditions that drive international relations to this day. However, its effects weren’t limited to post-colonial regions such as Africa or Southeast Asia: the popular culture of the “Global North” also shows telling signs of how people view the role of power in projecting global influence. This is particularly evident through  steampunk, both the genre of science fiction inspired by adventure stories of the 19th century and the subculture known for its anachronistic take on the Victorian living and style. Efforts have been made to diversify steampunk’s European culture and move past its colonial heritage, but tales of clockwork contraptions and airship battles still have much to say about the popular perception of geopolitics and empire in the modern world.

This essay introduces the changing terminology and issues within steampunk and the role of imperialism in International Relations theory. It then looks at two anthologies of short fiction – Steampunk and Steampunk II (Ann and Jeff VanderMeer, editors) – that contain several stories set within “imperialist” worlds. One story addresses the concept of hard power, a second soft power, and a third anticolonial struggle. Through these stories, it becomes clear that while efforts to diversify steampunk are bearing fruit, the underlying factors of imperialism still drive the authors’ worldviews.

More so than most, Steampunk is a genre under constant re-evaluation. Stories that would now be considered “steampunk” have been written since the 1970’s, but the term was first coined by sci-fi author K.W Jeter in a letter to Locus magazine:

For the first few decades of its existence, steampunk’s popularity was niche; a greater public knowledge of steampunk did not come until its style was adapted by those independent of the literary science fiction community. It was in these aesthetics – elaborate costumes, computers retrofitted with brass and wood exteriors, and handmade clockwork contraptions – that the genre became a movement. This pop-culture adaptation had its commercial side; recent music videos from Panic! At the Disco (2011), Justin Bieber (2011), and David Guetta (2012) have featured whizzing gears and pseudo-Victorian outfits. But the growing popularity of steampunk has also drawn hip, idealistic professionals into the subculture. One can find scores of websites for local steampunk communities, which host conventions, promote artisans and craftsmen, and advocate a genteel, refined life inspired by our 19th century ancestors (Power 2011).

Steampunk has gained a life beyond the literature that inspired it, and consequently recent steampunk publications have been the product of their subculture rather than vice versa. Two works emblematic of this trend are a pair of fiction anthologies published by Ann and Jeff VanderMeer, Steampunk (2008) and Steampunk II (2010). The VanderMeers’ first anthology consists of rather standard steampunk fare: technology-driven mysteries, whimsical adventures, and airships abound. This general content was deliberate, meant to represent a “full range” of possibilities for beginning steampunks (Jones 2008), but by the time Steampunk II was written, the subculture’s popularity had been established and new fans had begun taking a deeper look at its historical influences. While steampunks draw from the Victorian era, they often ignore the sexual repression, colonialism, and socioeconomic inequalities of the time. The genre’s Western European tradition smarts of an antiquated mentality about culture  and class. This cognitive dissonance hasn’t gone unaddressed; in the introduction to Steampunk II, the VanderMeers write:

As science fiction has developed nuance and variety in its relatively brief history, so has the study of international relations. The historical influences in steampunk reflect greater cultural shifts in the developed world; Llewellyn and Heilmann (2013) call the tensions and cultural obsessions of the Anglophone world a “neo-Victorianism” that is inexorably reshaping our society, and one can easily see steampunk as the quirky, genre fiction arm of such a trend. While Llewellyn and Heilmann have much to say about how neo-Victorianism drives the socioeconomics and culture of the West, there is little discussion about its role for the rest of the world. Ho (2012) does explore such issues, showing how the neo-Victorian mindset has been damaging for Chinese-Western relations and how steampunk’s drive on “getting back to the way we were” contains overtones of archaic cultural and racial thought. By promoting a Western worldview based on outdated ways of thinking, Ho writes, we run the risk of isolating ourselves from the rest of the world.

The legacy of imperialism in international relations is a subject under much dispute within academia. To use Destradi’s (2011) definition of the term, an “empire” is a state whose external relations are purely realist in nature and who relies on military and economic force to subdue weaker states. Destradi believes that the age of imperialism is over, and that the great powers of our time are “hegemons” who rely on political coercion and mutual goals to project international influence. This academic clarification hasn’t made the term lose its appeal – since the invasion of Iraq and the United States’ increasing drone presence around the world have become popular topics, it’s in vogue to call the US and its allies a new empire. Indeed, some scholars believe that we may as well adapt the term to modern issues because it doesn’t seem to be going away (Kettell 2013). Other scholars also adopt this idea, saying that while states no longer launch imperial ventures as the Persians, Romans, or Spaniards did, they still think of themselves in the same way (Maier 2009).

The “imperial” criticism of developed nations also draws inspiration from the oft-maligned Dependency Theory. Marxist circles point to Dependency Theory as the guiding principle for the post-imperial world system – ideologues from communist states (Lenin 1917) had long painted imperialism and capitalism as two sides of the same coin, and so it seemed natural that even when political controls were severed from a mother country and its colonies, the underlying economic ties would remain. Its allure as a lens of global analysis is understandable: Prashad’s The Darker Nations (2008) paints a vivid picture of how  post-colonial  and  developing  states  struggled  to  escape  the  legacy  of imperialism, but then fell victim to economic collapse, totalitarian regimes, or internal chaos. His analysis, while it attributes stagnation in the developing world to political forces within individual nations, also acknowledges that these forces were established as a legacy of imperialism.

Despite such issues, a dependency theory explanation for global inequality is inherently flawed. Friedmann and Wayne (1977) already saw this flaw during the Cold War, saying that Dependency Theory’s emphasis on production and exploitation hampered analysts from exploring individual states’ trade and political relations with the developed world. When states such as South Korea and Singapore experienced rapid economic development during the late 80’s, these flaws became clear. The rising middle classes in India, Nigeria, and Malaysia have further reinforced the idea that dependency is not a system which may only be broken by revolution, as Marxist scholars had suggested. Indeed, a combination of free-market policies and effective accountable government, as advocated by Oxford Economist Paul Collier (2007), may be the best way out.

What remains to change is the way the public views this relationship. The perception of developing world as a charity case for the developed world may actually be damaging in the long-run – Collier (2007) estimates that some nations have actually become poorer due to their reliance on foreign aid (p. 9). “Imperial” critiques of the United States abound, and historical parallels to Rome and Britain color how our endeavors abroad are seen by the public (Kettell and Sutton 2013 p. 246). These perceptions extend into our popular fiction, and a genre as influenced by the age of imperialism as steampunk has much to show in this regard.

The drive to shake up established cultural trends in steampunk is best encapsulated by two stories in Steampunk II: Stephen Baxter’s “The Unblinking Eye” (2009) and Chris Roberson’s “O One” (2003). Each presents distinctly non-Western points of view as a focal point of the story, but they also betray a way of thinking dominated by the way of empire.

“The Unblinking Eye” speculates on what may have happened if our position in the Milky Way was different, and the subsequent effects this would have on navigation and exploration. It concerns the first state visit of Huayna Capac XIII, emperor of the Inca, to the backwards Frankish Empire and the intrigues which ensue. Over the course of the story we are given various details surrounding the Incan dominance: even though the year is 1966, Europeans never gained the astronomical knowledge to venture beyond familiar shores, while their Andean neighbors to the south have charted the globe. While the Franks tinker with lumbering contraptions driven by steam and coal, the Inca fly sleek flying vessels and communicate via “farspeaker”, presumably driven by electricity. While the West is divided between stagnant feuding kingdoms, the Inca control much of the southern hemisphere – Capac’s aide, who befriends the Franks, is what we would call an Australian Aboriginal. Much of the story’s dialogue, between Capac and the Frankish bishop Darwin, is a role reversal of classic intellectual conversations between the industrial and primitive worlds. There are echoes of The Man Who Would be King (Kipling 1888) and Shogun (Clavell 1975) as Capac explains Incan astronomy to the ignorant Frank, and while they may speak Quechua instead of English or French, the air of superiority held by the dominating power is drawn from Western texts. It is no surprise, then, that the Incan crewmembers look “on the Europeans with amused contempt” (Baxter 2009 p. 56).

Most of the story progresses in the same manner, with the reader and Incan dignitaries repeatedly thrown off guard by how painfully ignorant the Europeans appear. This light tension escalates, however, when the Franks discover that over the course of their diplomatic visit the Inca placed a “sunbomb” in London. While the implications of this move are clear to the reader, Capac explains that the outcome of any prolonged war between his people and Europe is “beyond doubt” and a quick resolution, showcasing his people’s inherent technological superiority and the futility of armed resistance, is ideal. Before the situation can escalate too far out of hand, a Frankish prince gets a warning out to Europe on the “farspeaker” that allows the bomb to be disabled and the ensuing tension between Incan and Frank to be WMD-free. The story ends with an uncertain future for both sides, as the Inca devise other means to dominate the world and the shocked nations of Europe have no choice but to operate under the watchful eye of a great power. While the extremity of Capac’s scheme is shocking even to the reader, his methods are  not completely out of the realm of possibility. Before the USSR developed its first atomic bomb in 1949, the United States held absolute control over Weapons of Mass Destruction, had allies across the globe, and had established an international order that, for the time being, bent to its will. Had the US government wished to defeat the Soviet Union through a nuclear force of arms, they very well could have, but the suffering of World War II was such a recent memory that another war between great powers was not to be (Cox 1990). Moral judgments aside, the US government and the fictional Inca of Baxter’s story had the ultimate in hard power at their disposal, and the latter’s  willingness to use it exemplifies a commitment to global dominance through force that is highly imperial (see Destradi 2010; Kettell and Sutton 2013; Maier 2009; Mommsen 1977).

Chris Roberson takes a more subtle look at the perks of imperial power in “O One” (2003). Set in a world where dynastic China is the leading empire, this story concerns a competition between Chief Computator Tsui, a master of the abacus, and Proctor Napier, an inventor from the vassal land of Britain whose Analytical Machine threatens to upset the harmony of imperial court life. As the emperor’s expert in all things mathematical, it Tsui’s responsibility to defend the Imperial House of Calculation and its traditional methods from the British contraption. While the simplest of calculations are solved by Tsui with a scholar’s grace, the Analytical Engine begins to outperform the human mind as the numbers and operators involved become more complex. Napier emerges victorious and appears to have won the emperor’s favor, but after Tsui and the Lord Chamberlain voice their displeasure at the idea the unlucky Briton is thrown to a pool of piranhas (a gift from the emperor’s South American vassals). If not for its place in an anthology of steampunk literature, one would almost label Roberson’s work as “anti-steampunk.”

Such a label would be deceptive, however, as the fictional China in this story demonstrates one of imperialism’s most enduring qualities: soft power. vanGoudoever (2010) claims that this is one of the least-explored aspects of what makes an empire truly powerful. Languages, customs, and ways of thinking have a habit of lasting longer than any colonial garrison. It becomes clear throughout the story that the emperor’s grip on his subjects is slipping in this very regard; Napier’s device uses Arabic numerals and is powered by the binary system of Gottfried Leibniz, and outperforms the wholly Chinese abacus. While the Chinese are able to save face through unsavory methods, the power shift to those who they assumed subdued remains an issue. Such an issue is emblematic of the hubris all empires face; Ford (2012) writes that the United States’ waning “soft power” might be their most overlooked issue abroad, as they fight to maintain goodwill and cultural influence around the world. The Roberson story focuses on a particularly Chinese aspect of this problem; Niall Ferguson (2012) writes that the greatest advantage Western Europe had over states of greater size and population were their “killer applications” of science, technology, and law. While such “apps” could be learned, many states did not do so for a myriad of reasons. In China’s case, it was anathema to the scholarly elite that a foreign way of doing things might be better than their own. Roberson’s China has done an excellent job of overwhelming the world through some ambiguous sort of force, but the soft power they so harshly maintain is showing signs of wear.

While many of the VanderMeers’ selected stories are set in empires, acting well in accordance to standard IR theories, one narrative sticks out in its attempt to stop such a process dead in its tracks. The very first story in Steampunk is an excerpt from the novel The Warlord of the Air, Michael Moorcock’s “Benediction” (1971). It’s one of the earliest works of steampunk fiction and, on the surface, the most hostile to steampunk tropes. The excerpt describes an alternate universe where the great empires of the 19th century never fell, and a battle between them and the anti-imperialist coalition of Dawn City is imminent. Moorcock describes the oncoming imperial armada, flying sleek and powerful over rural China, as “… exacting fierce vengeance on the upstarts who had sought to question the power of those [they] served.” The ships of individual nations are also singled out for criticism: the French airships are “an affront to the ideals of the French Revolution” while the American ones “[bear] the stars and stripes, no longer the banner of liberty” (Moorcock 1971, pgs. 13- 14). The ensuing battle is brief, tactical, and heroic: by launching small, agile fighter planes against their lumbering foes, the anti-imperialists win a crushing victory with minimal losses. The wounded imperial fleet turns back, and the voice of defiance against empire lives another day. The scene is a stirring introduction to the airship battles and roguish characters that have drawn so many to the genre, although it also pushes the reader back to the darkest parts of steampunk’s lineage. Contrasting the splendor of an imperial airship armada with the ragtag army of freedom fighters is a concise way to tip the iconic imagery of the genre on its head, but the way in which it’s done betrays the author’s bias about how imperialism is most effectively dismantled.

The direct, militant aspect of the story speaks to many experiences the author had with anti-imperialism. Moorcock wrote Warlord of the Air around the same time as the Vietnam and Rhodesian Wars, two conflicts that showcased the bloody cost of empire in the modern world. The messy process of decolonization had given Marxist thought a second wind during the waning days of the Cold War; the struggle against imperialism became a highly militarized one, with advocates of anti-imperialism being armed and trained by the Soviet Union. Some argue that the Cold War itself turned cultural tensions into polarized, militant camps, since hegemonic powers required such a state of affairs for their own success (Duara 2011). While dominant theories at the time of Warlord’s writing suggested that violent struggle was the only way to break free of imperialism, we now know this is not the case: South Africa’s peaceful transition from white rule has been shaky, but not disastrous, while Zimbabwe and Angola’s revolutions left their countries impoverished and their governments unstable. Scholars agree that today’s “American empire” will not end because of military setbacks; it must be the diplomatic efforts of other states and social movements within the empire that finally bring it to a stop (Gindin 2003, Pieterse 2006). The airship captains of Dawn City might win a battle, but unless they gain wider political support they seem destined to lose the war.

The makeup of Moorcock’s anti-imperial movement reveals much about the perception of who can, and ought to, challenge the status quo. The named characters in the story are all western (Mr. Bastable, Una Persson, Korzeniowski, and so on), though their defiant stand against the imperial coalition is fought in China, with a presumably Chinese army. While  this cultural blend appears to be a touch of the cosmopolitan, it implies that the struggle against Western imperialism may only be won by westerners. Such a view is antithetical to academic analysis of the colonial period in our own history; Kaempf (2009) writes that one of the greatest weaknesses of the colonial system was its “Manichean” nature, which is to say that the dualistic relationship between colonizer and colonized could be exploited in the anti- imperialist’s favor, while Williams (1998) attributes colonialism’s slow death to the “vision” of Europeans that they alone could end the process which their ancestors had begun. While such thought had not been fully refined at the time Warlord was written, he still does a disservice by placing the onus of anticolonial struggle onto the Europeans. Their defiance against imperialism does not meaningfully involve those for whom it should truly be done.

The steampunk community’s eclecticism extends to their written works: where there is cultural diversity the political structures of the 19th century remain, and where the imperial status quo is challenged it is done with a white face and a gun. Steampunk will, of course, change with the world around it. As the Global North becomes more diverse and multi-polarity grows to dominate international politics, the genre and its fans will undoubtedly diversify as well. But will this come to pass soon enough? The German essayist Peter Schneider wrote that America’s greatest weakness was its “multicultural unilateralism,” an unwillingness to hear anything but its own opinions and follow its own traditions (2004). In the age of information and pop culture, an uninformed perception held by many can have the same effects on American society as government policy. But can the same not be said for the Global North, only writ large? The steampunk movement’s great strength has always been to make the past something new. But if its followers and creators are unwilling to break from that past, in a meaningful, less-than-cosmetic way, they risk becoming as obsolete as the Victorians themselves.