The political form in which one state rules over multiple peoples who did not choose that rule — the dominant political structure of most of recorded history, the framework through which most of the world's wealth, knowledge, and people were connected, and the system whose legacies continue to shape international politics, economic inequality, and cultural identity
Empire is the default political form of human history. For most of the last 4,000 years, most of the world's population lived under some form of imperial rule — the dominance of one people, state, or dynasty over others who did not choose that dominance. The Roman Empire, the Mongol Empire, the Ottoman Empire, the British Empire: these are the structures through which civilizations connected, through which languages spread and died, through which trade routes were established and maintained, through which religions were propagated and suppressed. Empire built the modern world. Empire also built the modern world's inequalities. Understanding empire is understanding both things simultaneously.