ABSTRACT
W ith the outbreak o f W orld W ar I, South America sinks beneath the horizon o f imperial history. Its disappearance, having w on silent support w ith the passage o f time, is now scarcely noticed. The elimination o f a whole continent undoubtedly eases the task o f historians o f empire w ho are fully occupied in grappling w ith colonial nationalists after 1914, and it accords w ith the definition o f the terms o f the trade w hich confines empire to its constitutional parts. But the excision, be ing so radical, also fits oddly w ith the prom inence given to South America in the debate on informal rule in the nineteenth century, and thus raises the question o f w hether the invisible empire (assuming that it existed) was simply destroyed in the upheaval brought by W orld W ar I, or w hether it survived in some as yet unacknowledged form during the inter-w ar period.
