This is a momentous volume in terms of vision, content, and—at more than 600 pages—sheer size. It will become essential reading in the field of historical sociology and a valuable resource for historians interested in sociological theory. In an increasingly interdisciplinary academic environment, Sociology & Empire is somewhat of an anomaly in its apparent focus on a single field. Its approach aims to “restor[e] to sociology some sense of its own accomplishments” (3). In what reads, at times, like a heroic celebration—or even a defense—of the discipline, George Steinmetz embarks on a quest for recognition of sociology in an area where “several insights that have been claimed in recent years by postcolonial theory, anthropology, or history were actually pioneered by sociologists” (3). This focus on sociology's many accomplishments is not unwarranted, and the volume assumes sociology's “disciplinary amnesia” (xi) about its own engagement, or even entanglement, with colonialism and empire. In an attempt to uncover this “hidden genealogy” (1), the contributions engage in a “decolonization” (xi) of social science in the spirit of Pierre Bourdieu. But as several essays in the volume demonstrate, it is almost impossible to separate sociology from neighboring disciplines.

After a short preface, the volume begins with a meaty introduction by Steinmetz. Readers are then invited to view the concept of sociology and empire across three different perspectives: the national, the contemporary, and the historical. A concluding chapter by Raewyn Connell functions as a useful summary, critical response, and jumping-off point for future study. Unlike typical edited volumes of conference proceedings, this structure makes the book eminently usable for students and researchers.

In 1830, the French invasion of Algeria marked the beginning of a new imperialism and also the beginning of sociology as an intellectual discipline. Part One of Sociology & Empire shows the extent to which sociology and empire developed alongside—and were entwined with—one another. Steinmetz's introductory chapter demonstrates the extent of this entanglement through a useful outline, a sort of “who's who” of sociological thought on empire and imperialism. This is followed by nation-based analyses of pre-Revolutionary Russian (by Alexander Semyonov, Marina Mogilner, and Ilya Gerasimov), U.S. (Julian Go), Italian (Marco Santoro), German (Andrew Zimmerman), and French (Fuyuki Kurasawa) genealogies of, and reflections on, sociology and empire. What becomes apparent is that sociologists’ views on empire, imperialism, and colonialism were not always nationally bound: transnational—or, rather, trans-European—networks also played an important role in knowledge production.

Part Two brings the idea of empire into present-day sociological discussions. Michael Mann outlines five “ideal types” of empire before moving on to the rise of American and “northern” economic imperialism, which began in the 1970s. Kim Lane Scheppele's essay explains global security law—a key initiative to fight the “global war on terror,” born in the wake of the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001—and includes case studies of Russian and Pakistani adaptations of UN Security Council Resolution 1373 concerning global security and counterterrorism measures. Krishan Kumar reexamines the traditionally rigid distinctions made between nations and empires propounded by Benedict Anderson, Ernest Gellner, Johann Gottfried Herder, and others. Albert Bergesen proposes the term “surgical colonialism” (302) to describe the present-day relationship between China and Africa, one in which resources are extracted with minimal disruption to the supplying country. Because of its contemporary rather than historical nature, this section might have been better placed at the end of the volume.

Part three is a collection of historical studies of colonialism and empire based on sociological perspectives. Emmanuelle Saada gives readers an overview of French colonialism and the development of “colonial science” (328), including sociology; most relevant to the volume as a whole is her discussion of how colonial legal systems reflected changing definitions of difference and remain at the heart of French policy towards foreigners and immigrants today. In an interesting study of cultural translation, Chandan Gowda looks at economic development initiated by the state elite in Mysore under British indirect rule from the late nineteenth century onward, and how this eventually fed into a broader concept of “progress.” In his article contrasting Italian urban planning in Albania and Ethiopia, Besnik Pula suggests using a sociological approach to better understand colonial urbanism. Like Pula, Anne Raffin offers a welcome comparative approach to native policies in two parts of the French empire, Pondicherry and Vietnam, and to their differing effects on colonized populations. Andy Clarno takes a fresh look at parallels between apartheid-era South Africa and contemporary Israel by considering the relationship between space, sovereignty, and violence in each case. Ou-Byung Chae seeks to establish a typology of Japanese colonialism as the only non-Western form of empire apart from the Ottomans, and Daniel Goh theorizes the “understudied process” (465) of colonial state formation. Many of these diverse contributions portray the colonies, implicitly or explicitly, as laboratories of modern sociological thought and practice.

The contributions to this volume are rich and diverse, but there is one striking omission: a discussion of women sociologists. Sociology as an academic field may have been largely in the hands of white men, but there should have been at least some consideration of sociological studies by women who worked within or outside the “academy.” For instance, Hilde Thurnwald, author of Die schwarze Frau im Wandel Afrikas (1935), deserves as much attention as her husband Richard. Even the mention of Hannah Arendt is extremely brief.

One is also left wondering about the extent to which ideas developed in an imperial context were transferred through reform movements to subaltern populations in the metropole, and how exactly the implementation of sociological thought occurred. What was the role of imperial subjects in this process? No doubt there is still a fascinating, if somewhat hidden, history of imperial go-betweens, i.e., intermediaries between the cultures of the colony and the metropole, in the field of sociology, as there is in other realms of colonial knowledge production. It is to be hoped that this is one of further studies that this important volume will stimulate.