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Amid the welter of vague political abstraction to lay one's finger accurately on any" ism" so as to pin down and mark it out by definition seems impossible. Where meanings shift so quickly and so subtly, not only following changes of thought, but often manipulated artificially by political practitioners so as to obscure, expand, or distort, it is idle to demand the same rigor as is expected in the natural sciences. A certain broad consistency in its relations to other kindred terms is the nearest approach to definition which such a term as Imperialism admits.(Hobson 1965 [1905]: 3)

In attempting to come to terms with the structure and dynamics of imperial polities, the contributors in this volume are hardly pioneers. Interest in empires is as old as empires themselves; one could cite a vast literary and scholarly corpus on the genesis, operation, and decline of imperial polities, encompassing a staggering degree of variability in approaches, sources, and conclusions. Why this enduring interest? Part of it may have to do with the great impact empires have had on the world and on the lived reality of many artists and scholars who were participants in imperial polities, many of them dependent on state support or patronage. However, tracing the history of fascination with subjects imperial is complicated considerably by the shifting terrain of the concept itself.