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October 12, 2004
Imperialism
For all the talk of American "empire" it is worth considering the subject from a non-Eurocentric perspective. They came, they went away is from those pre-millennium days when I still agreed with the Economist's editorial line and, for all that has become clear in the last three years, is still worth a look.
It has been a millennium of empire. Yes, but which empires? Those overseas of Portugal and Spain, Britain, France and the Netherlands? The mainland ones of Austria or Russia? No. As the era began, Europe was disunited, and feeble. As it ends, Europe and its American heirs dominate the globe. Yet Europe’s empires have come and gone, short-lived all of them. And what is thought of as, above all, “the age of empire”, the 40-odd years up to 1914, was not just brief but essentially trivial. Within 80 years all modern European empires were dead.
Posted by Ghost of a flea at October 12, 2004 05:43 AM
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