How is empire to be understood in an age that takes nations and nationalism for granted? For those who were once invaded by empires which have since become defunct, this rarely seems a problem. For the majority of Indians in regard to the British Raj, as for one-time satellites of Soviet Russia, empire is simply the dark before the light, an episode of alien oppression now triumphantly shrugged off. Nor in practice have those current Great Powers which are still in essence imperial found coming to terms with empire difficult. China, for instance, continues to retain territories that were conquered by Chinese emperors long after the Spanish and Portuguese invasions of the New World, and does not always do so with the conspicuous consent of the governed. Yet, as has happened with some other Great Powers, conquest and colonisation have been glossed over by an exercise in rebranding. China remains an empire, but it now trumpets itself as a nation, a People's Republic.

LRB 12 December 2002 | PDF Download