Empire of Capital

What does imperialism mean in the absence of colonial conquest and imperial rule?

"What we are seeing today, as the Bush administration pursues its reckless policies, may be a special kind of madness; but, if so, it is a madness firmly rooted not only in the past half-century of US history but in the systemic logic of imperialism." - from the Preface

In this era of globalization, we hear a great deal about a new imperialism and its chief enforcer, the United States. Today, with the US promising an endless war against terrorism and promoting a policy of preemptive defence, this notion seems more plausible than ever.

But what does imperialism mean in the absence of colonial conquest and direct imperial rule? In this lucid and lively book Ellen Meiksins Wood explores the new imperialism against the contrasting background of older forms, from ancient Rome, through medieval Europe, the Arab Muslim world, the Spanish conquests, and the Dutch commercial empire. Tracing the birth of a capitalist imperialism back to the English domination of Ireland, Wood follows its development through the British Empire in America and India.

The book brings into sharp relief the nature of today's new capitalist empire, in which the political reach of imperial power cannot match its economic hegemony, and the global economy is administered not by a global state but by a system of multiple local states, policed by the most disproportionately powerful military force the world has ever known and enforced according to a new military doctrine of war without end, in purpose or time.

". a splendid book." - Eric Hobsbawm

". a powerful antidote to one of the afflictions of the interregnum, the belief that appearance is everything." - London Review of Books

"The most compelling account yet of imperialism in its current phase - how it came into being, how it operates, how it differs from earlier forms." - Robert Brenner, author of the The Boom and the Bubble

"A thought-provoking genealogy of empires throughout history." - Publishers Weekly

"The writing is so supple and accessible, and the argument so persuasive, it's like watching a cloudy mixture of ideas being turned into a clear solution." - Adrienne Rich on The Origins of Capitalism

Ellen Meiksins Wood, for many years Professor of Political Science at York University, Toronto, is the author of a number of books, including Democracy Against Capitalism and, with Verso, The Retreat from Class (which won the Deutscher Prize), The Origin of Capitalism, Peasant-Citizen and Slave and The Pristine Culture of Capitalism. She lives in London.
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