ABSTRACT
This chapter starts with a reflection on the ongoing debate about American power and argues – no doubt controversially – that in spite of its possible imperfections as a concept, the notion of Empire has a good deal to recommend it. The ‘imperial turn’ in the age of Bush was perhaps less of a surprise than the fact that some people were now prepared to use the word Empire to describe what America was, should be, or ought to become. Indeed, one of the more obvious objections to the idea of a specific American Empire is that unlike other ‘real’ Empires in the past the United States has not acquired and does not seek to acquire the territory of others. Many empires, including the American, have not always been benign; and they have not always been sensitive. If the optimists are to be believed, the sun may never set on this modern Empire.
