The key question posed by this essay is why historians' interest in Britain's imperial past has increased rather than diminished in recent decades. It argues that this interest has been sustained in part by a preoccupation with certain contemporary social and political issues, and differences of opinion about these issues have helped fuel the "imperial history wars." The nature of the debate has differed for Americanand British-based historians. For the former, British imperial history has served as an analogy for thinking about America's racial politics and its role as a global power. For the latter, it has served as a focal point for contending claims about Britain's past and deepening anxieties about its future. The essay concludes by urging historians to be more self-reflexive about their own practices and more rigorous in exposing presentist claims about die past. I t has become all b u t impossible for historians w ho study m odern Britain to ignore its em pire. T he field has been sw am ped in recent years by a seemingly endless stream o f books, articles, conferences, and other scholarly expressions o f this preoccupation w ith Britain's im perial past. A lthough plenty o f British histo rians still steadfasdy resist the siren song o f em pire, they have seen countless others succum b to its appeal. Consider, for example, h ow m any w ell-known historians w ho m ade their reputations w ith w ork on British dom estic history have subsequently taken the "im perial tu rn ." 1 T heir change o f direction is indicative o f the way the boundaries o f British historiography, and, indeed, British studies m ore generally, have broadened over the past tw o decades to incorporate Britain's engagem ent in empire. This is a striking, even surprising, developm ent, yet the reasons for it have rarely been examined. W hy should an em pire th at for all practical purposes disap peared som e fifty years ago retain such a pow erful hold over o u r imaginations? Or, to p u t it m ore precisely, w hy should o u r collective interest in th at em pire have increased, rather than decreased, even th o u g h it has receded ever further into the past?To answer these questions requires us to direct our attention to the circumstances th at have given rise to this grow ing body o f scholarship: in other w ords, its condi tions o f production. These conditions operate at several distinct levels o f effect. T he first and m ost familiar level consists o f the analytical, m ethodological, and
