SUMMARY:

This is the Russian translation of the Introduction to the book about American empire that, according to conventional historiography did not exist (Pekka Hämäläinen. The Comanche Empire. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2008. Pp. 1-17). The author tells the familiar tale of expansion, resistance, conquest and economic domination but with a reversal of usual historical roles: it is a story in which Indians dominate and prosper, and European colonists resist, retreat, and struggle. The author discusses how and why in the mid-eighteenth century Comanches reinvented themselves as a hegemonic people who grew increasingly powerful and prosperous at the expense of the surrounding societies. He problematizes the momentum when in the Southwest, European imperialism not only stalled in the face of indigenous resistance, but it was eclipsed by indigenous Imperialism of the former nomadic society.