Preface

1. What Is an Empire?

A brief sketch of the characteristics of empires - World empires and great empires - The compulsion to intervene, neutrality options and the Melian dialogue in Thucydides

2. Empire, Imperialism and Hegemony: a Necessary Distinction

The self-destructive dynamic of capitalism: economic theories of imperialism - The centre-periphery problem - Prestige and great power rivalry: political theories of imperialism - Expansion pressures, marginality advantages and time sovereignty - The tricky distinction between hegemony and empire

3. Steppe Empires, Sea Empires and Global Economies: A Short Typology of Imperial Rule

The formation of empires through military and commercial extraction of surplus product - The two (at least two) sides of empires - Imperial cycles and Augustan thresholds

4. Civilization and Barbarian Frontiers: Tasks and Hallmarks of Imperial Order

Peace as a justification for imperial rule - Imperial missions and the sacredness of empire - The idea of the barbarian and the construction of imperial space - Prosperity as a justification and programme for imperial rule

5. The Defeat of Empires by the Power of the Weak

Forms of imperial overstretch - Political mobilization and military asymmetry: the strategies of anti-imperial players - Cultural identity struggles and terrorism as a strategy for wars of devastation

6. The Surprising Return of Empire in the Post-Imperial Age

Analyses of the end of empire and the problem of post-imperial areas - The United States: the new empire - A democratic empire? - Europe's imperial challenge

Maps

Notes

Bibliography

Acknowledgements