Imperialism confronts us in a number of guises: either as formal or informal, a period of history, a type of state, or a monolithic institution, a thing-unto-itself, called an ‘empire’. These are all quite common views of imperialism in both popular and academic literature. In recent years, the study of imperialism has undergone something of a revival. This renaissance in its study has featured in many disciplines but has principally focused on the foreign policy of the United States and attempted to show how this is, as David Harvey famously called it, a ‘New’ Imperialism.