Introduction

Abstract

Imperial history is experiencing a newfound vigour, dynamism, diversity and even fashionability. New journals are found, and conferences and online discussion lists proliferate, as do popular books and television documentaries as well as more heavyweight academic productions. There is a striking variety as well as sheer volume of new work in the field. The turning of that tide, and the new atmosphere of optimism and dynamism in imperial history, is surely good news to anyone interested in the field. Meanwhile the number of those who are interested has obviously also shot up, as ideas and arguments about empire, especially the notion of American empire, have been driven into ever greater prominence by contemporary world events. Historians of empire have appeared to become embroiled in a slow-burning civil war, between those who proclaim themselves or are labelled as exponents of a ‘new imperial history’ and those who, by default, must presumably be termed old imperial historians.