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Despite the urging of classical sociologists such as Emile Durkheim and Max Weber, history and sociology have largely followed different professional and institutional tracks. The result has been detrimental to both disciplines. The loss is especially apparent in the study of empires. Historians have made great contributions to the study of individual empires but have been reluctant to theorize and generalize about them. Sociologists for their part have followed their founders in largely ignoring empires, though there has been a new interest more recently. A rapprochement, or perhaps a synthesis, between history and sociology is urgently needed if the study of empires is to progress. Especially important is the need for a comparative approach, which sociologists are particularly well placed to offer.

AbstractColony and empire, colonialism and imperialism, are often treated as synonyms.This can be acceptable for many purposes. But there may be also good reasons to distinguish between them. This article considers in detail one important attempt in that direction by the classicist Moses Finley. It argues that there is considerable strength in that approach, putting the stress as it does on the distinctiveness of the settler community. It is also valuable in suggesting that early-modern Western colonialism marked a new departure in an older history of imperialism, thus once again suggesting the need for a conceptual separation of the two. But the article concludes that ultimately more may be lost than gained by insisting on the distinction. In particular, it inhibits wide-ranging comparisons between ancient and modern, and Western and non-Western, empires, which can often suggest illuminating connections and parallels. The field of empire studies gains by drawing on the rich store of examples provided by the whole history of empire, from the earliest times to now. Western colonialism is part of that story; to separate it out is to impoverish the field.

General and comparative studies of empire – like those of revolution – often suffer from insufficient attention to chronology. Time expresses itself both in the form that empires occur, often in succession to each other – the Roman, the Holy Roman, the Spanish, etc. – and, equally, in an awareness that this succession links empires in a genealogical sense, as part of a family of empires. This article explores the implications of taking time seriously, so that empires are not considered simply as like 'cases' of a general phenomenon of empire but are treated as both 'the same and different'. Concentrating on the European empires since the time of Rome, the article shows the extent to which empires were conscious of each other, seeking both to imitate admired features as well as to escape from those thought less desirable. It also shows the difference between ancient and modern empires, considered not so much as different types as in the differences caused by their location in different points in historical time. Comparative studies of empire, the article concludes, must pay attention to both continuity and change, both similarity and difference.

AbstractNationalism and revolution have generally been held to go together. Many nation‐states have had their origins in revolution, from the Americans in the 18th century to a host of Third World nation‐states in the 20th century. Generally, both modern revolutions and modern nationalism have the same origins, in 18th century Enlightenment thought. But this paper argues that, despite this common origin, the principles of revolution and nationalism are divergent, and can set one against the other. Revolutions emphasise freedom and equality; nationalism emphasises integration and unification. These principles can clash, though not inevitably and not always. The paper examines the 1789 French Revolution, the 1848 revolutions and the 1917 Russian revolution. It shows that in the first two cases, revolutionary aspirations came up against and were eventually displaced by nationalist aims. In the case of 1917, revolution paradoxically, and unintentionally, institutionalised nationalism. These examples show that, though linked at some high level of modern thought, revolution and nationalism express different and at times divergent strands of modernity.

Gellner is mostly known for his theory of nationalism, which he saw as antithetical to the principle of the multinational, hierarchical, empire. But like his LSE colleague Elie Kedourie, Gellner was fascinated by empire. In his last, posthumously published work, Language and Solitude, Gellner returned to the region of his childhood, the former Habsburg Empire, to explore its impact on the work of Malinowski and Wittgenstein. This essay will reflect on Gellner's thoughts about empire, and the way in which he assessed their necessary disappearance – as he thought – in the modern world.