Abstract
The following article examines recent publications on empires and imperial history in world history, covering general overviews, comparative studies and monographs on individual cases. As a preliminary result of a general expansion of empire-studies – diachronically, with regard to different historical spaces and thematically – the authors identify a danger of inflating the concept and thereby weakening its analytical strength. Furthermore, a growing gulf between macro- perspectives and panoramas on the one hand and mikro-analyses on the other makes it difficult to achieve a suitable framework for precise research on empires. The article therefore argues in favour of a meso level, as the comparative view on the complex relation between empires and nation-states in the nineteenth and twentieth century can illustrate.
The following titels were discussed i.a.:
Ferguson, N.: Empire (390); Hardt, M./Negri, A.: Empire (390); Münkler, H.: Imperien (390); Randeria, S./Eckert, A. (Hrsg.): Vom Imperialismus zum Empire (390); Burbank, J./Hagen, M./Remnev, A. (Hrsg.): Russian Empire (391); Cooper, F.: Colonialism in Question (391); Bar- key, K.: Empire of Difference (392); Barkey, K./Hagen, M. (Hrsg.): After Empire (392); Dale, S.: The Muslim Empires of the Ottomans, Safavids, and Mughals (392); Finkel, C.: Osmans Dream (393); Gam- merl, B.: Staatsbürger, Untertanen und Andere (394); Reynolds, M.: Shattering Empires (396); Crews, R.: For Prophet and Tsar (397); Roshwald, A.: Ethnic Nationalism and the Fall of Empires (397); Joffe, J.: Überpower (399); Wende, P.: Das Britische Empire (399); Darwin, J.: The Empire Project (400); Green- feld, L.: Five Roads to Modernity (402); Hart, J.: Comparing Empires (402); Lieven, D.: Empire (402); Miller, A./Rieber, A. (Hrsg.): Imperial Rule (402)
Email
Volker Köhler
(review essays and peer reviewing)
npl-redaktionsleitung(at)pg.tu-darmstadt.de
Nadja Häckel

(reviews and proof reading)

npl(at)pg.tu-darmstadt.de
Jannik Siebmann
(book ordering)

npl-review(at)pg.tu-darmstadt.de
Twitter
@npl_review
Phone and Fax
Phone: +49 (0)6151/16-57330
Fax: +49 (0)6151/16-57464
Postal Address
Neue Politische Literatur

Darmstadt University of Technology
Department of History
Dolivostr. 15
64293 Darmstadt
Germany