Empire is back in fashion, notes the author of this book, a professor of political science at Rutgar University (USA). Not only because it is interesting as a historical reality, conceptual category and analytical tool, but also because it is an acceptable alternative to social development. To Post-Soviet Russia, for example, if we treat it as a «not entirely groundless» variant of the empire’s «creeping restoration».
Investigating the trajectory of this special political system from inception to collapse from the standpoint of structural methodology, the author does not rule out an imperial reincarnation of Russia; it seems relevant now, when polemics are common in the country about such a scenario. Therefore, Professor A. Motyl’s study of empires’ life cycle, rather original, is at least of theoretical value as well.