The term
empire derives from the
Latin imperium. Politically, an empire is a geographically extensive group of states and peoples (
ethnic groups) united and ruled either by a
monarch (emperor, empress) or an
oligarchy.
Geopolitically, the term
empire has denoted very different, territorially-extreme states — at the strong end, the extensive
Spanish Empire (16th c.) and the
British Empire (19th c.), at the weak end, the
Holy Roman Empire (8th c.–19th c.), in its
Medieval and
early-modern forms, and the
Byzantine Empire (15th c.), that was a direct continuation of the
Roman Empire, that, in its final century of existence, was more a city-state than a territorial empire.
Etymologically, the
political usage of “empire” denotes a strong, centrally-controlled nation-state, but, in the looser, quotidian,
vernacular usage, it denotes a large-scale business enterprise (i.e. a
transnational corporation) and a political organisation of either national-, regional-, or city scale, controlled either by a person (a political boss) or a group authority (political bosses).
An imperial
political structure is established and maintained two ways: (i) as a
territorial empire of direct conquest and control with
force (direct, physical action to compel the emperor’s goals), and (ii) as a coercive,
hegemonic empire of indirect conquest and control with
power (the perception that the emperor
can physically enforce his desired goals). The former provides greater tribute and direct political control, yet limits further expansion, because it absorbs military forces to fixed garrisons. The latter provides less tribute and indirect control, but avails military forces for further expansion. Territorial empires (e.g. the
Mongol Empire, the
Median Empire) tended to be
contiguous areas. The term on occasion has been applied to
maritime empires or
thalassocracies, (e.g. the
Athenian , the British Empire) with looser structures and more scattered territories.
Empire defined
An empire is a State with politico-military dominion of populations who are culturally and ethnically distinct from the imperial (ruling) ethnic group and its culture — unlike a
federation, an extensive State voluntarily composed of autonomous states and peoples. As a State, an empire might be either territorial or a
hegemony, wherein the empire’s
sphere of influence dominates the lesser state(s) via
divide and conquer tactics, i.e. “
the enemy of my enemy is my friend”, (cf.
superpower,
hyperpower).
What physically and politically constitutes an empire is variously defined; it might be a State effecting
imperial policies, or a
political structure, or a State whose ruler assumes the title of “Emperor”, thus re-denominating the State (country) as an “Empire”, despite having no additional territory or hegemony, e.g. the
Central African Empire or the
Korean Empire (proclaimed in 1897 when Korea, far from gaining new territory, was on the verge of being annexed by Japan). The terrestrial empire’s maritime analogue is the
thalassocracy, an empire comprehending islands and coasts to its terrestrial homeland, e.g. the Athenian-dominated
Delian League.
Unlike a homogeneous nation-state, a heterogeneous (multi-ethnic) colonial empire usually has no common tongue, thus, a
lingua franca is most important to
governing (administratively, culturally, militarily) to establish
imperial unity. To wit, the Macedonians imposed Greek as their unifying, imperial language, yet most of their subject populations continued speaking
Aramaic, the lingua franca of the previous, Persian Empire, overlord. The Romans successfully imposed
Latin upon Western continental Europe, but less successfully in Britain and in Western Asia; in the Middle East, the Arab Empire established politico-cultural unity via language and religion; the Spanish Empire established Spanish in most all of the American continent, but less so in
Paraguay and in the
Philippines; the British Empire established itself with English in northern North America; much of the former
Russian Empire still uses
Russian as a means of inter-ethnic communication.
History of Imperialism
Early empires
250px|thumb|right|The Achaemenid Empire was the largest empire in the ancient times.
The
Akkadian Empire of
Sargon the Great (24th century BC), was an early large empire. In the 15th century BC, the New Kingdom of
Ancient Egypt, ruled by
Thutmose III, was
ancient Africa’s major force upon incorporating
Nubia and the
ancient city-states of the
Levant. The first empire, comparable to Rome in organization, was the
Assyrian empire (2000–612 BC). The successful, extensive, and multi-cultural empire that was the Persian
Achaemenid Empire (550–330 BC), absorbed Mesopotamia, Egypt, Greece, Thrace, the rest of the Middle East, much of Central Asia, and Northern India.
Classical Antiquity
The
Roman Empire was the most extensive Western empire until the
early modern period. Prior to the Roman Empire the kingdom of Macedonia, under
Alexander the Great, became an empire that spanned from Greece to India. After Alexander's death, his empire fractured into four, discrete kingdoms ruled by the
Diadochi, which, despite being independent, are denoted as the "
Hellenistic Empire".
In the East, the term
Persian Empire denotes the
Iranian imperial states established at different historical periods of pre–Islamic and post–Islamic Persia. And in the Far East, various
Celestial Empires arose periodically in China between periods of civil war and foreign conquests. In the far east the
Han Empire became one of China's most long lived dynasties.
Middle Ages
The 7th century saw the emergence of the
Islamic Empire, or
Arab Empire. The
Rashidun Caliphate expanded from the
Arabian Peninsula and swiftly
conquered the Persian Empire and
much of the Byzantine Roman Empire. Its successor state, the
Umayyad Caliphate, expanded
across North Africa and
into the Iberian Peninsula. By the beginning of the 8th century, it had become the largest empire in history at that point, until it was eventually surpassed in size by the
Mongol Empire in the 13th century.
For centuries, in the West, “empire” was exclusively applied to States that considered themselves the heirs and successors of the Roman Empire, e.g. the Byzantine Empire, the German Holy Roman Empire, the
Russian Empire, yet, said states were not always technically — geographic, political, military — empires. To legitimise their
imperium, these states directly claimed the title of
Empire from Rome. The
sacrum Romanum imperium (800–1806), claimed to have exclusively comprehended Christian German principalities, was only nominally a discrete imperial state. The Holy Roman Empire was not always centrally-governed, as it had neither core nor peripheral territories, was not multi-ethnic, and was not governed by a central, politico-military élite — hence,
Voltaire’s remark that the Holy Roman Empire “was neither holy, nor Roman, nor an empire” is accurate to the degree that it ignores German rule over Italian, French, Provençal, Polish, Flemish, Dutch, and Bohemian populations, and the efforts of the eighth-century
Holy Roman Emperors (i.e. the
Ottonians) to establish central control; thus, Voltaire’s “. . . nor an empire” observation applies to its late period.
In 1204, after the
Fourth Crusade sacked
Constantinople, the
crusaders established a
Latin Empire (1204–1261) in that city, while the defeated Byzantine Empire’s descendants established two, smaller, short-lived empires in
Asia Minor: the
Empire of Nicaea (1204–1261) and the
Empire of Trebizond (1204–1461). Constantinople was retaken by the Byzantine successor state centered in
Nicaea in 1261, re-establishing the
Byzantine Empire until the 1453, by which time the Muslim
Ottoman Empire (ca.1300–1918), had conquered most of the region. Moreover, Eastern Orthodox imperialism was not re-established until the coronation, in 1682, of
Peter the Great as
Emperor of Russia. Like-wise, with the collapse of the Holy Roman Empire, in 1806, during the
Napoleonic Wars (1803–1815), the
Austrian Empire (1804-1867), emerged reconstituted as the Empire of
Austria–Hungary (1867–1918), having “inherited” the imperium of Central and Western Europe from the losers of said wars.
The
Mongol Empire, under Genghis Khan in the thirteenth century, was forged as the largest contiguous empire in the world. Genghis Khan's grandson, Kublai Khan, was proclaimed emperor, and established his imperial capital at Beijing; however, in his reign, the empire became fractured into four, discrete khanates.
Colonial empires
The imperial world of 1910.
European landings in the so-called "
New World" (first, the Americas and later, Australasia) in the 15th century, proved ripe opportunities for the continent's
Renaissance-era monarchies to launch colonial empires like those of the ancient Romans and Carthaginians. In the "Old World", colonial
imperialism was attempted, effected, and established upon the
Canary Islands and
Ireland, wherein, the conquered lands and peoples became
de jure subordinates of the empire, rather than
de facto imperial territory and subjects. In the event, such subjugation often elicited “client-state” resentment that the empire unwisely ignored, leading to the collapse of the European colonial imperial system in the late-nineteenth century and the early- and mid-twentieth century.
An inherent problem of European colonial imperialism was the matter of the arbitrary territorial boundaries of the colonies. For administrative expediency, discrete colonies were established solely by convenient geography — while ignoring the sometimes extreme cultural differences among the conquered populace(s); effective in the short-term control of the subject peoples, but politically, militarily, and economically ineffective in the imperial long-term. For the British Empire, this occurred with the populaces of the colony of “India” — the Indian sub-continent — who, on partition and independence, in 1947, divided themselves by culture and religion, not geography, and established the modern
countries of India and Pakistan (the geographically-distant states of West Pakistan and East Pakistan), which later became
Pakistan (The Islamic Republic of Pakistan), in 1947, and
Bangladesh (The People’s Republic of Bangladesh), in 1971. Moreover, in Africa, said arbitrary imperial borders remain, and define the contemporary countries, because the
African Union’s explicit policy is their preservation in avoiding political instability and concomitant war.
Modern period
In general governments styled themselves as having greater size, scope, and power than the territorial, politico-military, and economic facts allow. As a consequence some monarchs assumed the title of “Emperor” (or its corresponding translation:
Tsar,
Emperador,
Kaiser, et cetera) and re-named their states as “The Empire of . . . ”.
The French emperors
Napoleon I and
Napoleon III (See:
Second Mexican Empire [1864–1867]) each attempted establishing a Western imperial hegemony based in France. The
German Empire (1871–1918), another “heir to the Holy Roman Empire” arose in 1871. Europeans began applying the name of “empire” to non-European
monarchies, such as the
Manchu Dynasty and the
Mughal Empire, and then to past polities, leading, eventually, to the looser denotations applicable to any political structure meeting the criteria of
imperium.
Empires accreted to different types of states, although, they traditionally originated as powerful
monarchies. The
Athenian Empire, the Roman Empire, and the British Empire developed under
elective auspices. The
Brazilian Empire declared itself an empire after breaking from the Portuguese empire in 1822. France has twice transited from being called the
French Republic to being called the French Empire; while France remained an overseas empire. To date it still governs colonies (
French Guyana,
Martinique,
Réunion,
French Polynesia,
New Caledonia) and exerts an hegemony in
Francophone Africa (
Chad,
Rwanda,
et cetera).
Historically, empires resulted from military conquest, incorporating the vanquished states to its political union. A state could establish imperial hegemony in other ways. A weak state may seek annexation, into the empire. For example, the bequest of
Pergamon, by
Attalus III, to the
Roman Empire. The
Unification of Germany as the empire accreted to the
Prussian
metropole was less a military conquest of the German states, than their political divorce from the
Austrian Empire. Having convinced the other states of its military prowess — and having excluded the
Austrians — Prussia dictated the terms of imperial membership.
The
Sikh Empire (1799–1846) was established in the Punjab. It collapsed at the founder, Ranjit Singh’s death when their army fell to the British.
Politically, it was typical for either a monarchy, or an
oligarchy, rooted in the original, core territory of the empire, to continue to dominate. If government was maintained via control of water vital to the colonial subjects, such régimes were called
hydraulic empires.
When possible Empires used a common religion or culture to strengthen the political structure.
In time, an empire may metamorphoses to another form of
polity. To wit, the Holy Roman Empire, a German re-constitution of the
Roman Empire, metamorphosed into various political structures (i.e. Federalism), and, eventually, under
Habsburg rule, re-constituted itself as the
Austrian Empire — an empire of much different politics and vaster extension. After the Second World War (1939–1945) the British Empire, evolved into a loose, multi-national
Commonwealth of Nations; while the
French Colonial empire metamorphosed to a Francophone commonwealth.
An autocratic empire can become a
republic (e.g. the Central African Empire in 1979); or it can become a republic with its imperial dominions reduced to a core territory (e.g.
Weimar Germany, 1918–1919 and the Ottoman Empire, 1918–1923). The dissolution of the
Austro–Hungarian Empire, after 1918, is an example of a multi-ethnic
superstate broken into its constituent states: the republics, kingdoms, and provinces of
Austria,
Hungary,
Transylvania,
Croatia,
Slovenia,
Bosnia and Herzegovina,
Czechoslovakia,
Ruthenia,
Galicia, et al.
Empire from 1945 to the present
- Etymology and semantics; Contemporaneously, the concept of Empire is politically valid, yet is not always used in the traditional sense; for example Japan, the world’s sole empire, is an empire because there is a Japanese Emperor. In fact it is a constitutional monarchy, with an homogeneous population of 123 million people that is 97 per cent ethnic Japanese, making it one of the largest nation-states.
- Communist Empire; the USSR (1922–1991) met the imperium criteria, but had no hereditary emperor (though was ruled by dictators, cf. Soviet Empire), and never identified itself as such. Anti-Communist opponents, notably the US President Ronald Reagan and the UK Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, labeled it The Evil Empire. Academically the USSR was called imperial, given its likeness to empires past. .
- American Empire; identifying the USA’s American Empire, by its international behavior, is controversial. Stuart Creighton Miller posits that the public's sense of innocence about Realpolitik (cf. American Exceptionalism) impairs popular recognition of US imperial conduct. Since it governed other countries via surrogates — domestically-weak, right-wing governments that collapse without US support. G.W. Bush's Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld said: “We don’t seek empires. We’re not imperialistic; we never have been” — directly contradicts Thomas Jefferson, in the 1780s, awaiting the fall of the Spanish empire: “. . . till our population can be sufficiently advanced to gain it from them piece by piece [sic]”. Which indicates that countries goals can change over 200 years. In turn, historian Sidney Lens confirms Jefferson, noting that, from its British imperial independence, the US has used every means to dominate other nations.
- European Empire redux; Since the European Union began, in 1993, as a west European trade bloc, it established its own currency, the Euro, in 1999, established discrete military forces, and exercised its limited hegemony in parts of eastern Europe and Asia. This behaviour which the political scientist, , suggests is imperial, because it coerces its neighbour countries to adopt its European economic, legal, and political structures.
- The Age of Nation Empires as the Order of the World in the twenty-first century; in his book review of Empire (2000), by Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri, Mehmet Akif Okur posits that, since the 11 September 2001 terrorist attacks in the US, the international relations determining the world’s balance of power (political, economic, military) have been altered by the intellectual (political science) trends that perceive the contemporary world’s order via the re-territorrialisation of political space, the re-emergence of classical imperialist practices (the “inside” vs. “outside” duality, cf. the Other), the deliberate weakening of international organisations, the restructured international economy, economic nationalism, the expanded arming of most countries, the proliferation of nuclear-weapon capabilities, and the politics of identity emphasizing a State’s subjective perception of its place in the world, as a nation and as a civilisation. These changes constitute the “Age of Nation Empires”; as imperial usage, nation-empire denotes the return of geopolitical power from global power blocs to regional power blocs (i.e. centred upon a “regional power” State [China, Russia, US, et al.]), and regional multi-state power alliances (i.e. Europe, Latin America, South East Asia), thus nation-empire regionalism claims sovereignty over their respective (regional) political (social, economic, ideologic), cultural, and military spheres.
Timeline of European emperors
The chart below shows a timeline of the European states claiming the imperial title. Dynastic changes are marked with a white line.
ImageSize = width:1000 height:550
PlotArea = width:850 height:450 left:50 bottom:50
DateFormat = yyyy
Period = from:-336 till:2009
TimeAxis = orientation:vertical
ScaleMajor = unit:year increment:100 start:-300
- there is no automatic collision detection,
- so shift texts up or down manually to avoid overlap
Colors=
id:red value:red
Define $dx = 25 # shift text to right side of bar
Define $dy = -5 # adjust height
PlotData=
bar:Alexandrian color:red width:25 mark:(line,white) align:left fontsize:7
from:-336 till:-323 shift:($dx,-2) color:red
bar:Roman color:red width:25 mark:(line,white) align:left fontsize:7
from:-27 till:476 shift:($dx,-2) color:red
at:68 mark:(line,white)
at:69 mark:(line,white)
at:96 mark:(line,white)
at:192 mark:(line,white)
at:235 mark:(line,white)
at:284 mark:(line,white)
at:364 mark:(line,white)
at:392 mark:(line,white)
at:455 mark:(line,white)
bar:Byzantine color:red width:25 mark:(line,white) align:left fontsize:7
from:306 till:1204 shift:($dx,-2) color:red
at:363 mark:(line,white)
at:364 mark:(line,white)
at:457 mark:(line,white)
at:518 mark:(line,white)
at:602 mark:(line,white)
at:610 mark:(line,white)
at:711 mark:(line,white)
at:717 mark:(line,white)
at:803 mark:(line,white)
at:813 mark:(line,white)
at:820 mark:(line,white)
at:867 mark:(line,white)
at:1056 mark:(line,white)
at:1057 mark:(line,white)
at:1059 mark:(line,white)
at:1081 mark:(line,white)
at:1185 mark:(line,white)
from:1261 till:1453 shift:($dx,$dy) color:red
bar:Holy¨Rоman color:red width:25 mark:(line,white) align:left fontsize:7
from:962 till:1024 shift:($dx,-2) color:red
from:1027 till:1125 shift:($dx,$dy) color:red
from:1133 till:1137 shift:($dx,$dy) color:red
from:1155 till:1197 shift:($dx,$dy) color:red
from:1209 till:1215 shift:($dx,$dy) color:red
from:1220 till:1250 shift:($dx,$dy) color:red
from:1312 till:1313 shift:($dx,$dy) color:red
from:1328 till:1347 shift:($dx,$dy) color:red
from:1355 till:1378 shift:($dx,$dy) color:red
from:1433 till:1437 shift:($dx,$dy) color:red
from:1452 till:1740 shift:($dx,$dy) color:red
from:1742 till:1806 shift:($dx,$dy) color:red
at:1745 mark:(line,white)
at:1765 mark:(line,white)
bar:Nicaea color:red width:25 mark:(line,white) align:left fontsize:7
from:1204 till:1261 shift:($dx,-2) color:red
bar:Latin color:red width:25 mark:(line,white) align:left fontsize:7
from:1204 till:1261 shift:($dx,-2) color:red
bar:Trebizond color:red width:25 mark:(line,white) align:left fontsize:7
from:1204 till:1461 shift:($dx,-2) color:red
bar:Ottoman color:red width:25 mark:(line,white) align:left fontsize:7
from:1299 till:1922 shift:($dx,-2) color:red
bar:Serbian color:red width:25 mark:(line,white) align:left fontsize:7
from:1345 till:1371 shift:($dx,-2) color:red
bar:Russian color:red width:25 mark:(line,white) align:left fontsize:7
from:1480 till:1917 shift:($dx,-2) color:red
at:1598 mark:(line,white)
at:1605 mark:(line,white)
at:1606 mark:(line,white)
at:1610 mark:(line,white)
at:1612 mark:(line,white)
bar:Swedish color:red width:25 mark:(line,white) align:left fontsize:7
from:1611 till:1718 shift:($dx,-2) color:red
bar:French color:red width:25 mark:(line,white) align:left fontsize:7
from:1804 till:1814 shift:($dx,-2) color:red
at:1815 mark:(line,red)
from:1852 till:1870 shift:($dx,-2) color:red
bar:Austrian color:red width:25 mark:(line,white) align:left fontsize:7
from:1804 till:1918 shift:($dx,-2) color:red
bar:German color:red width:25 mark:(line,white) align:left fontsize:7
from:1871 till:1918 shift:($dx,-2) color:red
bar:British color:red width:25 mark:(line,white) align:left fontsize:7
from:1877 till:1947 shift:($dx,-2) color:red
at:1901 mark:(line,white)
at:1910 mark:(line,white)
See also
Lists:
