Thomas Barfield, Professor and Chairman of the Anthropology Department at Boston University and author of Shadow Empires: An Alternative Imperial History, joins the show to discuss empire.  ▪️Times     •      01:15 Introduction     •      03:20 Understanding Afghanistan     •      05:15 Classifying empires     •     09:59 Failures and features      •      12:24 Borders    •      15:30 Exogenous empires    •      21:36 Brits and Athenians      •      26:40 Vulture empires     •      32:21 Taking responsibility     •      37:15 Empires of nostalgia    •      44:50 Vacuum empires      •      51:05 American/Athenian policy     •      54:53 China and empire todayFollow along on Instagram or YouTube @SchoolofWarPodcastFind a transcript of today’s episode on our School of War Substack