The empire and its enemies

The book makes a scientific comparison between the ancient "Roman Empire" and the current "American Empire." The book "The Empire and Its Enemies: The Imperial Question Throughout History" is written from the perspective of the empire and, on the other hand, from the perspective of its enemies. Its author, Henry Lawrence, believes that despite the great interest and hesitant talk on all occasions about "the empire," its true and deep concepts and meanings remain among the most misunderstood in modern historical works. What the author notices from the beginning is that since the early 19th century, there have been two "parallel" approaches to addressing the empire. One approach documents it by placing it in its historical context as experienced by industrial societies, and the other approach focuses on condemning what those empires did. The guiding line of this book's analyses is precisely an attempt to clarify the "dual history" of the empire and its enemies. This is because this dual history has shaped the world we live in. Henry Lawrence emphasizes in his analyses the importance of the "contributions" made by the enemies of imperialism, meaning the ambition to form empires, in "theorizing" it, despite their "ideological" opposition to the idea. He does not hesitate to write that: "To find a theoretical explanation for imperialism, one must turn to its opponents. These are the ones who, in some way, tried to formulate ideas related to it."