Table Of ContentTHE 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.
