Between the 1970s and the end of the 20th century, empires receded in the sociological imagination, but they have reemerged powerfully since then as part of the closely linked domains of “empire studies,” “colonial studies,” and “postcolonial studies.” This resurgent interest in empires corresponds in part to events in the real world, including the collapse of the Soviet Union and the reappearance of a fortified “American empire” and US military interventions overseas. Empires and colonies have been analyzed by sociologists for as long as sociology has existed as an intellectual field, starting with Auguste Comte in the early 19th century and the founders of the academic discipline in the late 19th century in Europe and the United States, and continuing into the present. Empires have been the main form of large-scale political organization for at least two millennia, in contrast to modern bureaucratic states, which have existed for just a few centuries.
