Hegemonic Peace and Empire

<p>This book examines the language and the ideology of the Pax Romana, the Pax Britannica and the <em>Pax Americana</em> within the broader contexts of 'hegemony' and 'empire'. It addresses three main themes: a conceptual examination of the way in which hegemony has been justified; a linguistic study of how the notion of <em>pax</em> (usually translated as peace) has been used in ancient and modern times; and a study of the international orders created by Rome and Britain.</p><p>Using an historiographical approach, the book draws upon texts from Greco-Roman antiquity, and sources from the nineteenth, twentieth and twenty-first centuries to show how the pax ideology has served as a justification for hegemonic foreign policy, and as an intellectual exercise in power projection. From Tacitus' condemnation of what he described as 'creating a wilderness and calling it peace', to debates about the establishment of a <em>Pax Americana</em> in post-Saddam Hussein's Iraq, the book shows not only how the governing elite in each of the three hegemonic orders prescribed to a loose interpretation of the <em>pax</em> ideology, but also how their internal disagreements and different conceptualisations of pax have affected the process of 'empire-building'.</p><p>This book will be of interest to students of international history, empire, and International Relations in general.</p> <p>Introduction <strong>Part 1: 'Peace Through Victory' </strong>1. The Peace That Defined Empire: The Language and Ideology of the Roman <em>Pax </em>2. <em>The Pax Romana</em>: The Character of the Roman Hegemonic Peace <strong>Part 2: 'The Savage Wars of Peace' </strong>3. A 'New Rome’: Analogies and Imperial Projections in Victorian and Edwardian Britain 4. The Conceptualisation of the <em>Pax Britannica</em> In the Victorian and Edwardian Eras 5. <em>Imperium et Libertas</em>: The Empire and the ‘Anglo-Saxon Peace’ 6. Empire and Hegemony: The Realities and Myths of the British <em>Pax </em><strong>Part 3: 'The Peace of the Benign Imperium'</strong> 7. The <em>Pax Americana</em> Debate: The Liberal Peace and the ‘American Empire’ Conclusion: The Paradox of Hegemonic Peace. Bibliography</p>