"A grand history that combines great ambition, immense learning, and illuminating insights. No one who studies modern empires and America's place among them can ignore this book." --Dane Kennedy, H-Diplo Roundtable Review "Hopkins has rendered the topic of American empire not merely interesting but truly compelling again." --David Armitage, Times Literary Supplement "Hopkins has written a stunning book. We are immensely in his debt for restoring great narrative history to the top shelf in a book that ranges in its erudition from a Mediaeval Middle Eastern historian to Captain America to make its points." --Lloyd Gardner, H-Diplo Roundtable Review "In this immense, feisty, delightfully pugilistic book, one can't help but appreciate [Hopkins's] intellectual fireworks, his depth of reading, and his conviction that history sits as the exacting judge of even emperors." --Joseph Fronczak, Jacobin "Sweeping, ambitious and hugely illuminating . surely the definitive account of perhaps the most underestimated 'European' empire of all.

" --Dominic Sandbrook, BBC History Magazine.