Empire: A Very Short Introduction

Citation

Howe, S. (2002). Empire: A Very Short Introduction. Oxford University Press. Very Short Introductions.

Chapter Summary

A pocket-sized book of eight chapters (139 pages, with references on pp. 132–134 and an index). The publisher's description sets out its starting point: much of world history is the history of empires, the great land-based and seaborne empires collapsed during the second half of the twentieth century, but their legacies shape almost every aspect of life, and there is fierce argument about what, if anything, has replaced them. Howe sets out to interpret the idea of empire through the ages, to disentangle the uses and abuses of labels such as "empire" and "colonialism", and to examine the aftermath of imperialism in the contemporary world. The chapter titles show the plan: a chapter on definitions, a history in four movements (ancient empire, land empires, sea empires, and the deaths of both), and two closing chapters on afterlives and on how empires are studied.

Chapter 1: Who's an Imperialist?

The opening chapter takes up the definitional question at the heart of the book: what the words "empire", "imperialism" and "colonialism" mean, and why they are used so loosely and so polemically.

Chapter 2: Ancient Empire

The first of the book's historical chapters turns to empire in the ancient world, so that later empires can be set against the earliest imperial states.

Chapters 3–4: Empire by Land; Empire by Sea

Two chapters divide later empires by their geography. The publisher's description contrasts the land-based Russian empire with the seaborne empires of western European powers, the two types these chapter titles name.

Chapters 5–6: Death of the Seaborne Empires; Death of the Land Empires

The same division is carried into the end of empire: one chapter on the collapse of the European maritime empires and one on the end of the land empires, including, as the description indicates, the Russian imperial system.

Chapter 7: Afterlives and Rebirths of Empire

This chapter addresses the question the publisher puts at the centre of present-day debate: whether the United States and its allies, transnational companies, financial and media institutions or the forces of globalization amount to a new imperial system.

Chapter 8: Studying Empires: Prejudice and Progress, Cash and Culture

The final chapter is about how empires have been studied. Its subtitle pairs prejudice with progress and cash with culture, the terms in which it surveys the field.

Key Concepts

Chapters 1–2: Definitions and origins

• Empire and imperialism: contested terms whose meanings the book sets out to disentangle.
• Colonialism: a related but distinct label, often used interchangeably with empire.
• Ancient empire: the early imperial states against which later empires are compared.

Chapters 3–6: Types of empire and their ends

• Land empire: an empire expanding across contiguous territory, as in the Russian case.
• Seaborne empire: the overseas empires of western European powers.
• Imperial collapse: the end of both kinds of empire, treated in parallel chapters.

Chapters 7–8: Afterlives and scholarship

• New imperialism debate: the argument over whether American power or globalization forms a new empire.
• Studying empires: the historiography of empire, framed in the final chapter's title as "prejudice and progress, cash and culture".

Critical Analysis

Strengths

• Clarity about terms. By starting with "Who's an Imperialist?", the book makes definitions its first task, which helps students handle a vocabulary that is often used polemically. The publisher's description places this disentangling of labels at the centre of the book.
• A long, comparative range. In a short space the book moves from ancient empire to the present and sets land and sea empires side by side, both in their rise and in their fall.
• Attention to the present and to historiography. Chapters 7 and 8 connect imperial history to contemporary debate and to the ways historians have studied empire; the publisher quotes Megan Vaughan of Oxford University praising Howe's grasp of the issues and the way the book puts the modern history of imperialism into perspective.

Limitations

• Dated on the present. Published in 2002, the book discusses debates about American power and globalization as they stood at the turn of the century; it predates later scholarship and events.
• Very compressed narrative. With eight chapters in about 130 pages of text, each historical period receives only a sketch; students will need longer works for any particular empire.
• Thematic rather than regional. The organisation by type of empire means that individual empires and regions are not treated in their own chapters.

Where It Fits in the Course

This is the course's shortest introduction to the concept of empire as a whole, and a natural first reading. It pairs well with Jan C. Jansen and Jürgen Osterhammel's Decolonization: A Short History: Howe's Chapters 5–6 give a brief overview of imperial collapse, while Jansen and Osterhammel analyse twentieth-century decolonization in detail. Jane Burbank and Frederick Cooper's Empires in World History is the full-length comparative history that develops, from ancient Rome and China to the twentieth century, the comparison of empire across time that Howe sketches.

For the British case, John Darwin's The Empire Project is a large-scale study of the British world-system from 1830 to 1970. Frederick Cooper's Africa since 1940 and Barbara and Thomas Metcalf's A Concise History of Modern India follow two regions through colonial rule and its end, and are good next steps after Chapters 4–5.

How to Use This Book

No prior knowledge is required; a general knowledge of world history helps. The book can be read in two or three sittings.

• First reading: read Chapter 1 carefully and note the definitions it distinguishes; they are useful throughout the course.
• History in pairs: read Chapters 3 and 4 together, then Chapters 5 and 6, comparing land and sea empires at each stage.
• Debates: use Chapter 7 for discussion of whether "empire" applies to present-day power, and Chapter 8 as an introduction to the historiography before reading longer studies.
• Alongside it: use the references at the end to choose further reading, and keep in mind the 2002 date when the book discusses contemporary affairs.