Document Type
Article
Abstract
[First paragraph]
A recent exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum of Art cites the production of textiles as integral in establishing the power of the Mongol empire. In the accompanying notes to the exhibit, the museum curators write that, "In the creation of luxury textiles and objects for the Mongol elite, Chinese artists developed a visual language that was an effective means of establishing their rule and continuous presence throughout the vast empire." These artists used certain motifs such as the dragon and phoenix, to create tangible representations of power. The "mythical beasts integrated the ideas of cosmic force, earthly strength, superior wisdom, and eternal longevity." To read the motifs on these textiles is to read a story of empire created by a propaganda machine. These motifs and the textiles themselves are not only historical artifacts, but they record and are, in fact, archives of one civilization's attempt to materialize its power.
[Fourth paragraph]
If we are to assume that the government of the United States of America exists at the center of an empire, as Saddam Hussein has indicated, or has the desire to create an empire, what then are the "textiles" of this empire? What are its archives of power? In this essay, the notion of the archive as a transmission of power across an empire will be explored by examining a popular electronic source of information on countries around the world, the Central Intelligence Agency's The World Factbook (https://www.cia.gov/the-world-factbook/). This "factbook," an archive of data collected by the United States government, serves the empire by working to control discourse, specifically the way other nations are represented and discussed.
Repository Citation
Shuler, Jack. "The CIA World Factbook: Marriage of Archive and Empire?." Reconstruction: Studies in Contemporary Culture vol. 3, no. 3, 2003, pp. 1–16. https://digitalcommons.odu.edu/reconstruction/vol3/iss3/10