For a concept on which, one had naively supposed, the sun had set when the last British Governor of Hong Kong sailed out of the city's harbor in 1997, imperialism is having one heck of a comeback. At the Council on Foreign Relations in New York City last week, a standing-room-only crowd gathered to hear Mall Ferguson. The Scottish historian is enjoying rock-star status with his new book, Empire, which argues that British colonial rule was a jolly good thing and that a new American empire would do well to learn its lessons. In the sacred texts of neo-conservatism, imperialism is everywhere. Six articles in the latest issue of the National Interest deal with the subject. In the Weekly Standard, Max Boot-whose recent book, The Savage Wars of Peace, kicked off the whole fad-concedes that "formal empire is passe" while arguing that in carrying out President Bush's policy of democratizing Iraq, "it would be a grave mistake to look for an early 'exit strategy.'" The length of time U.S. troops would have to stay in Iraq, Boot writes confidently, "will have to be measured in years, not months."
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机译：对于一个天真的想法，1997年最后一位英国香港总督从香港港口驶出时，太阳就落山了，帝国主义卷土重来。上周在纽约市对外关系委员会上，只有站在客厅的人群聚集在一起，聆听了弗格森购物中心的声音。这位苏格兰历史学家凭借他的新书《帝国》（Empire）享有摇滚明星的地位，该书认为英国的殖民统治是一件乐事，而一个新的美国帝国也将很好地吸取教训。在新保守主义的神圣文本中，帝国主义无处不在。最新一期的《国家利益》中有六篇文章涉及该主题。在《每周标准》中，马克斯·布特（Max Boot）的最新著作《野蛮的和平战争》（Savage Wars of Peace）揭开了整个时尚的序幕，认为“正式的帝国已经过去了”，同时指出，在执行布什总统的伊拉克民主化政策时，“博特自信地写道，“为寻求早期的“退出战略”，这是一个严重的错误。”美军必须留在伊拉克的时间长短，“必须以年为单位，而不是数月。”
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