The purpose of this book is twofold.
We realise to-day, as never before, that the fortunes of the world, andof every individual in it, are deeply affected by the problems ofworld-politics and by the imperial expansion and the imperial rivalriesof the greater states of Western civilisation. But when men who havegiven no special attention to the history of these questions try toform a sound judgment on them, they find themselves handicapped by thelack of any brief and clear resume of the subject. I have tried, inthis book, to provide such a summary, in the form of a broad survey,unencumbered with detail, but becoming fuller as it comes nearer to ourown time. That is my first purpose. In fulfilling it I have had tocover much well-trodden ground. But I hope I have avoided the aridityof a mere compendium of facts.
My second purpose is rather more ambitious. In the course of mynarrative I have tried to deal with ideas rather than with mere facts.I have tried to bring out the political ideas which are implicit in, orwhich result from, the conquest of the world by Western civilisation;and to show how the ideas of the West have affected the outer world,how far they have been modified to meet its needs, and how they havedeveloped in the process. In particular I have endeavoured to directattention to the significant new political form which we have seencoming into existence, and of which the British Empire is the oldestand the most highly developed example—the world-state, embracingpeoples of many different types, with a Western nation-state as itsnucleus. The study of this new form seems to me to be a neglectedbranch of political science, and one of vital importance. Whether ornot it is to be a lasting form, time alone will show. Finally I havetried to display, in this long imperialist conflict, the strife of tworival conceptions of empire: the old, sterile, and ugly conceptionwhich thinks of empire as mere domination, ruthlessly pursued for thesole advantage of the master, and which seems to me to be most fullyexemplified by Germany; and the nobler conception which regards empireas a trusteeship, and which is to be seen gradually emerging andstruggling towards victory over the more brutal view, more clearly andin more varied forms in the story of the British Empire than in perhapsany other part of human history. That is why I have given a perhapsdisproportionate attention to the British Empire. The war isdetermining, among other great issues, which of these conceptions is todominate the future.
In its first form this book was completed in the autumn of 1916; and itcontained, as I am bound to confess, some rather acidulated sentencesin the passages which deal with the attitude of America towardsEuropean problems. These sentences were due to the deep disappointmentwhich most Englishmen and most Frenchmen felt with the attitude ofaloofness which America seemed to have adopted towards the greateststruggle for freedom and justice ever waged in history. It was anindescribable satisfactio