The history of the British Empire suggests that any form of empire is misguided.
"The exportation of American television was a form of empire building — empires of consciousness, not of geography — that shaped the desires, perceptions and goals of global populations in ways it is impossible to appreciate," Thompson said.
But the most difficult form of empire by far to carry off successfully - and this is where imperial history becomes acutely relevant - has been the well-meaning, transformative variant.
Mr Ferguson is a fan both of America and of the idea of empire, not because he wants people to be subjugated but because he thinks there is a liberal form of empire in which an outside force can bring the institutions, practices and rule of law that people need if they are to make prosperous and peaceful use of their own freedom.
Hizb al-Tahrir seeks to re-establish the caliphate, a defunct form of Islamic empire.
It is basically composed of found forms visually connected in space: a skinny dead sapling fixed upright in the ground lines up with a nearby construction crane from which the artist has suspended two ladders, which in turn lines up with the form of the Empire State Building seen across the river in Manhattan.
But most all of these arguments take place inside the idea of history as a certain type of contest of systems, even a progression the kind of History that has Big Power control, in the form of some empire or other, or diplomatic codifications of behavior at the Congress of Vienna, Versailles or Yalta.
Fate is simply another form of ideological empire.
His canonical law (or the Kanuns) fixed the form of the empire for centuries after his death.
Michaud suggests that an interstellar grouping of civilizations might take the form of an empire, which need not necessarily be a force for evil, but may provide for peace and security throughout its jurisdiction.
