From ancient times to our modern age, western empires have shaped societies around the world. Imperial powers have impacted all aspects of human experience as well as the natural world; from trade patterns and migration to sexuality, race and the environment. The rise of cultural history has brought to the fore new methods, archives and perspectives that shape how we think about histories of empire from the ancient world to the modern day. A Cultural History of Western Empires seeks to explore the role of culture in shaping how empire took root, took shape, was maintained and challenged.

This volume explores the cultural history of western empires during the Enlightenment, a time when European thought was transformed, and the foundations of many fundamental structures of our modern world were laid. Guiding the reader through eight carefully chosen themes; war, trade, natural worlds, labor, mobility, sexuality, resistance and race across eight chapters, it explores the cultural history of this age of empires, both old and new. Highlighting the ways in which Enlightenment and Empire shaped one another during the period 1650-1800, it shows how the Enlightenment was as much a product of an imperial world as a reflection upon it.

A Cultural History of Western Empires presents historians, and scholars and students of related fields, with the first comprehensive and interdisciplinary overview of the cultural history of empire from ancient times to modernity.