The 74th Anglo-American Conference will be held at the Institute of
Historical Research, University of London, from 6 to 8 July 2005. The theme
will be ‘States and Empires’.

What are Empires? How do they relate to the States which have often been
their foundation and to the States which they incorporate under their
power? Are empires super-states? Do they crush existing states, or do
aspirations to nation states destroy empires? Can empires exist without any
state machinery at all? The vocabulary has existed in the western tradition
since classical times, but the variations in meaning and interpretation
over several millennia are almost infinite.

The intention is that the 2005 Conference will be wide-ranging and
comparative in its approach. Papers on the British Empire will be welcomed,
but they should set out to adopt a contextual and comparative approach.
There must be a classical and medieval component to the Conference, which
should ideally both explain earlier states and empires and make links to
modern and contemporary developments. We would strongly welcome papers on
the great modern empires (Soviet, American, in particular), but also want
the Conference to include pre-conquest American empires, classical China,
the Steppe empires, the early modern European seaborne empires, Ottoman
Turkey, the Hapsburgs and Austria-Hungary, the Napoleonic Empire, the Third
Reich outside Germany, Islam, state and empire, etc.

Papers will be welcomed on a host of themes. These might include: formal
and informal empires; the relationship of state and imperial structures;
differences between empires constructed through peaceful possession and
conquest; the relationship of empires and their component states and
peoples; the rise and fall of empires; state and imperial ideology; gender,
state and empire; the economics of empire; religion, state and empire; the
art of empire; the place of minorities (ethnic, religious) in empire
compared to their place in nation-states, trading companies and empires
(e.g., the East India Company, American Corporations in South and Central
America); and the legacy of empire.

We welcome individual paper proposals or panel proposals. Individual papers
should not exceed 20 minutes in length and panels should be no more than 2
hours. Please send a brief synopsis of your paper or panel proposal to
Richard Butler, Conference Administrator, Institute of Historical Research,
Senate House, Malet Street, London, UK, WC1E 7HU (Email
[log in to unmask]) to arrive no later than 31st October 2004.

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