postimperial

adjective

post·​im·​pe·​ri·​al ˌpōst-im-ˈpir-ē-əl 

: of, relating to, or occurring in the period following the dissolution of an empire

postimperial Britain

Although the postwar system of international relations was not static, it is right to call it postimperial.

—Robert Skidelsky

Examples of postimperial in a Sentence

Recent Examples on the Web

When the Commonwealth bumped up against the hard reality of Britain’s place in the postimperial world, there was no question that the Commonwealth had to stand aside. —Tom McTague, The Atlantic, 8 Sep. 2022

Elizabeth’s inheritance in 1952—despite much of the U.S. commentary over the past week—was the first postimperial crown in British history. —Tom McTague, The Atlantic, 18 Sep. 2022

From the very beginning, then, joining Europe was motivated not by some Damascene realization that decline was inevitable—an acceptance of postimperial reality—but by the belief that such decline could be averted. —Tom McTague, The Atlantic, 18 Sep. 2022

The Queen’s title, therefore, was a sign of the coming age, a beacon in the fog of the 1950s lighting the way to the postimperial world that exists today. —Tom McTague, The Atlantic, 8 Sep. 2022

Against this harsh reality, the submarine deal appears to reflect a declining superpower, riven by internal discord and imperiled by democratic collapse, leading a diminished postimperial power down a cul-de-sac of geopolitical irrelevance. —Jonathan Stevenson, The New York Review of Books, 13 Oct. 2021

Word History

First Known Use

1836, in the meaning defined above