Empire of capital

Ellen Meiksins Wood, Verso, 184 pages, hardback, £15.00

Imperialism is a word that is widely used but rarely well understood. This book discusses the different forms of imperialism in history, such as the territorial empires of Rome and Spain, and the commercial empires of the Arab Muslims and the Dutch. These colonial empires dominated territory and subject peoples by means of "extra-economic" coercion, by military conquest and often by direct political rule.

The author argues that modern capitalist imperialism is different, being primarily about economic domination, where market forces are imposed on states and peoples. Military action remains vital to this kind of domination, especially as the gap between the economic reach of global capital and the extra-economic grasp of territorial states grows wider.

In short the book provides a fertile framework for understanding the last 50 years of wars, and the roots of US and British foreign policy.