Thomas Babington Macaulay, the most eloquent exponent of liberal imperialism, explained in a speech in parliament that as Britain charted the beginning of its rule in India, it should accept, even celebrate, its eventual end.

He is an articulate advocate of what skeptics call liberal (or for that matter neoconservative) imperialism - the use of military power to shape the world according to American interests and values.

He explained that: "The shape the book eventually took, as a genealogy of liberal imperialism, was prompted by the combat clerisy themselves.

Towards the end of the 19th century, Naumann, who was a monarchist and adherent of the German emperor Wilhelm II, espoused a liberal imperialism.

The former Canadian press baron Conrad Black, the chairman of the board of The National Interest, is calling for the creation of a Churchillian Anglosphere, while the historian Niall Ferguson wants the United States to quit being an "empire in denial" and adopt liberal imperialism.

Just as the European powers built their empires in the name of Christian civilisation, modern liberal imperialism flies the banner of human rights.

Cooper is best known for his exposition of the doctrine of "new liberal imperialism", as expressed in his The Post-Modern State (2002).

At the same time he did not grasp the need to deviate radically from the liberal imperialism of his youth.

For me, 'liberal imperialism' is a contradiction.

Scots in India, like James Mill, led the British idea of liberal imperialism, that they had to take over indigenous cultures and run their society for their own good, or "the white man's burden".