ONE OF THE CURIOUS DEVELOPMENTS in intellectual circles over the past few years is that the subject of imperialism is no longer a bailiwick of the Left. To be sure, so long as colonial empires were in strength, there was no denying the reality of European and American imperial expansion. But over the course of the post-war era, as decolonization rippled through the Third World and the formal mechanisms of colonial control were thrown overboard, any insistence on the continuing salience of imperialism became identified with left-wing ideologies. If it did enter mainstream debates, it was inevitably Soviet or, more generically, Communist imperial ambitions that were subjected to scrutiny.