Memories of Empire
Numerous studies attest to the pride, melancholia, nostalgia, guilt, and shame felt by the French or the British after the loss of their colonies in the twentieth century: such feelings were prompted, in part, by recollections of empires that once existed. National traditions, ceremonies, and archives are frequently built around such memories of the imperial past. But construe the genitive in a subjective rather than an objective sense and you grasp a different implication of the term “memories of empire,” and in this meaning, empire itself is said to have memories. What memories does empire have? Empire has a memory of empire. Alexander the Great, the Roman Empire, the French and British empires all looked back to older empires and recalled them in distinctive ways. These traces and recollections are worth exploring in order to understand how empires affect the lives of those who lived through them or came after.