Letters to the Editor
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Mikmor: thanks for the schoolin'
Jesus Christ, where to begin:
Since the English word "empire" comes from the Roman word "imperium," there were therefore no empires before Rome? That's brilliant. Are you spending all your MacArthur genius grant money on model airplaine glue? "Empire" is a concept expressed by different words as culture and language dictate. The Greeks called it "arche," for example. The Persians had empire, the Greeks did, the Macedonians did, the Mongolians did, and on and on. And please don't etymologize to me, punk. I've got a PhD in Classics: I'll eat you alive. (It's so cute how you think using an *English* dictionary is something to flaunt.) Aeschylus was a "playwright," by the way.
All your rantings notwithstanding, hegemony and empire are not the same thing. Empire is direct control -- hegemony is more indirect. Rail against the evils of American hegemony until the cows come home. I don't deny there's an argument to be made. BUT IT'S NOT EMPIRE. Empire sounds sexier than hegemony, I know. But that still doesn't make it so.
Happy Thanksgiving.