Doubt any empire was different. Except some had no intentions of doing well.

I don't know if there were too many empires built solely on the foundation of doing mischief: empires are, after all, very expensive to build and maintain. Some idealism, even if totally self-serving, I think, has to accompany empire building in most cases.

Well, everyone focuses on the "empire" thing, which is rather not the point.....

Nevertheless, I rather think you overestimate the intentionality, to use an ugly academic word, of Empires (well the colonial ones of the 19th c.). While a bit too pat, the British saying about 'in a fit of absence of mind' actually is not inaccurate.

I recall a brilliant (if boringly academicly written) book I read about the French African empire, a history of the colonial administration (having read it when young, it had an immense effect on me, I may add, as the vision of the Commandant who spent his entire tour of duty in his bathrobes, drunk, was quite intriguing). The author, whose name escapes me, rather nicely illustrated that underneath grand narratives, much actual frontier action was driven by local commanders and the like whose vision was the next hilltop, for medals, or just because it made a better place to build a mansion.

Grand design is something of an illusion, an intellectual conceit.

The same kind of illusion that is afflicting, I may add, lest you think the digression did not have a purpose, those who are presuming that Hezbullah (orIran, or Israel)"planned" the current mess - mistaking abstraction and generalisation for a precise description of on-the-ground operations.

Queer really as many of the same whankers take a n inverted view when commenting on their own side (e.g. Abu Ghraib); intentionality being I suppose preferred when it suits one, and one notices the capacity, even in disciplined armies, for individual actors to get out ahead of their leadership's intentions.

Grand design is something of an illusion, an intellectual conceit.

Absolutely true. There is no pilot in the airplane of the world.

I simply think that everyone is stupid, only some have the power to act, and hence act stupidly. The powerless are powerless to act stupid. Ahem. Empires are a natural byproduct of military power. And imperialists, be they military or cultural, are always navel gazers, because the world is too big to understand. However, everyone understands their own navel, and so understands things from that initial understanding of their own navel.

ok, a bit crude, but there it is.

Indeed, alot of empires owe their existence to the skilled use of navel power.

underneath grand narratives, much actual frontier action was driven by local commanders and the like whose vision was the next hilltop, for medals, or just because it made a better place to build a mansion.

Grand design is something of an illusion, an intellectual conceit.

A perspective I fully subscribe to: Grand Emperors are just the product of the set of individual actions for which they take credit. When there are enough average buddy joes with enough small ambitions and guts reaching a critical mass, you have momentum.