ABSTRACT
Our aim in this chapter is to explore the geographies of empire, imperialism and colonialism. Empires, especially in the form that they took from the nineteenth century onwards, have been described as ‘an extensive group of states, whether formed by colonization or conquest, subject to the authority of a metropolitan or imperial state’ (Jones 1996: 155). Similarly, the political relationship of imperialism, which is often based on the existence of empires, has been described as follows:
The creation and maintenance of an unequal economic, cultural and territorial relationship, usually between states and often in the form of an empire, based on domination and subordination.
(Clayton 2000a: 375).