Editorial: changing views on Empire and Imperialism

Words can be confusing and titles can be misleading, particularly if titles consist of one simple word. Two titles suffice to illustrate this phenomenon. In 2000, a book appeared with the title Empire and in 2002 another book appeared with exactly the same title. In the first Empire, Michael Hardt, an American literary theorist, and Antonio Negri, an Italian political philosopher, argued that although classical imperialism is over, Empire is alive and well, albeit in a new form. For them ‘Empire’ means the following: ‘Our basic hypothesis is that sovereignty has taken a new form, composed of a series of national and supranational organisms united under a single logic of rule. This new global form of sovereignty is what we call Empire.’ This is a rather special definition of Empire because what one usually has in mind when using that word is something very different. It is the Empire that the other book, written by the British historian Niall Ferguson, is about. This book describes, as the subtitle indicates, The Rise and Demise of the British World Order. But it is also about something more, as is apparent from the rest of the subtitle: and the Lessons for Global Power. These lessons are intended for the rulers of the Empire of today, the Americans. While the first Empire is the Bible for anti-globalists, Ferguson's book can be considered as the New Testament of the advocates of America's imperial ambitions.