ABSTRACT
Old empires do not die, nor even fade away – for a while, at least. The lasttwo chapters of this book have made this clear in the case of the British empire. Signs of the lasting impact of nineteenth-and early twentieth-century imperialism are all around us, in a thousand guises. Recognisably imperial attitudes still survive in certain circles, especially governing ones. Many of Britain’s external policies in the first decade of the twenty-first century can be seen as mere extensions of the imperialism – military, economic or humanitarian – of her earlier years. American ‘imperialism’, in places like Afghanistan and Iraq, looks uncannily like an extension of that. A direct and unbroken line can also be drawn between what is often called Britain’s ‘informal’ or ‘free trade’ empire in the nineteenth century, and ‘globalisation’ today. The creature is not dead yet.
