THE AGE OF EMPIRES

Empires evoke potent images: Stanley, Livingstone and the colonial gallery of great explorers/ the Spanish Conquistadors quest for gold and silver/ and the Dutch heritage of trade in the East Indies.For some countries Germany and Italy overseas dreams were sh ort-lived/ for others the United States and the Soviet Union imperialist activity existed but was never accepted as an official state policy/ and the disappearance of the Austro-Hungarian and Ottoman Empires has obscured some of the imperial dimensions of thes e states.