Between 3000 BCE and 1800 CE there were more than 60 'mega-
empires' that controlled at the peak an area of at least one
million square kilometers. An empire is a state extended beyond
the limits of what might seem to be the natural limits of a
government. By conquest, or by colonization, or by any other
means, lawful or lawless, the central power has stretched its
arms, east and west, north and south, through many degrees of
latitude and longitude. Empires are states the chiefs of which
have come to be called emperors, but not all rulers called
emperors rule actual empires. It seemed to some that in the arts
of empire the English were mere plagiarists, stupid plagiarists
who have spoilt what they have stolen. They had not, so it was
affirmed, one single original or admirable quality. They were
not great discoverers like the Portuguese, or a great
Christianizing power like the Spaniards. They had not the art of
conciliating natives like the French, nor even of making
themselves beloved by their own colonists.