Empire (Key Concepts)

Alejandro Colas is Lecturer in International Relations at Birkbeck College, University of London and University of Sussex.

Cols draws on interdisciplinary debates surrounding the notion of empire, and offers a survey of different imperial experiences across time and place. Successive chapters consider the imperial organisation of political space, the role of markets in sustaining imperial rule and the contradictory expressions of imperial culture.

Preface and Acknowledgements. 1. Empires in History. The Meanings of Empire. Contrasting Empires. The Distinctiveness of Empire. 2. Empire as Space. The Spatial Imagination of Empire. Cosmology, Cartography and Government. The Spatial Organisation of Empire. Frontier, Conquest and Administration. The Ottoman Empire. Spain's American Empire. Imperial Legacies: Nation and Citizenship in a Post-Colonial World. 3 Empire as Market. Trade and Empire. Towards A World Market. Imperial Transformations at the Centre and Periphery. The Consequences of Capitalist Imperialism. Explaining Capitalist Imperialism. 4 Empire as Culture. Culture and Imperial Domination. Imperial Culture and the End. of the State of Nature in Spanish America. Colonial Racism and the Perils of Miscegenation. Nativism and the Invention of Tradition in Africa Culture and the Subversion of Empire. Cultural Imperialism or Global Culture?. 5 After Empire. American Empire. Postmodern Empire. Liberal Empire. The End of Empire?. Notes. References. Index.