Old World Empires


Book Description

This book is a sweeping historical survey of the origins, development and nature of state power. It demonstrates that Eurasia is home to a dominant tradition of arbitrary rule mediated through military, civil and ecclesiastical servants and a marginal tradition of representative and responsible government through autonomous institutions. The former tradition finds expression in hierarchically organized and ideologically legitimated continental bureaucratic states while the latter manifests itself in the state of laws. In recent times, the marginal tradition has gained in popularity and has led to continental bureaucratic states attempting to introduce democratic and constitutional reforms. These attempts have rarely altered the actual manner in which power is exercised by the state and its elites given the deeper and historically rooted experience of arbitrary rule. Far from being remote, the arbitrary culture of power that emerged in many parts of the world continues to shape the fortunes of states. To ignore this culture of power and the historical circumstances that have shaped it comes at a high price, as indicated by the ongoing democratic recession and erosion of liberal norms within states that are democracies.




The Great Empires of the Ancient World


Book Description

A distinguished team of internationally renowned scholars surveys the great empires from 1600 BC to AD 500, from the ancient Mediterranean to China.




Empires in World History


Book Description

Burbank and Cooper examine Rome and China from the third century BCE, empires that sustained state power for centuries.




Empires of the Word


Book Description

The story of the world in the last five thousand years is above all the story of its languages. Some shared language is what binds any community together and makes possible both the living of a common history and the telling of it. Yet the history of the world's great languages has been very little told. Empires of the Word, by the wide-ranging linguist Nicholas Ostler, is the first to bring together the tales in all their glorious variety: the amazing innovations in education, culture, and diplomacy devised by speakers of Sumerian and its successors in the Middle East, right up to the Arabic of the present day; the uncanny resilience of Chinese through twenty centuries of invasions; the charmed progress of Sanskrit from north India to Java and Japan; the engaging self-regard of Greek; the struggles that gave birth to the languages of modern Europe; and the global spread of English. Besides these epic ahievements, language failures are equally fascinating: Why did German get left behind? Why did Egyptian, which had survived foreign takeovers for three millennia, succumb to Mohammed's Arabic? Why is Dutch unknown in modern Indonesia, though the Netherlands had ruled the East Indies for as long as the British ruled India? As this book splendidly and authoritatively reveals, the language history of the world shows eloquently the real character of peoples; and, for all the recent tehnical mastery of English, nothing guarantees our language's long-term preeminence. The language future, like the language past, will be full of surprises.




Ancient Empires


Book Description

Introduction to the ancient Near East, Mediterranean and Europe, including the Greco-Roman world, Late Antiquity and the early Muslim period.




Empires


Book Description

This overview of Empire is from an eminent German scholar working in the field of imperialism. It also discusses the critical debates surrounding Empire by scholars such as Negri, Mann and Ingatieff.




Tributary Empires in Global History


Book Description

A pioneering volume comparing the great historical empires, such as the Roman, Mughal and Ottoman. Leading interdisciplinary thinkers study tributary empires from diverse perspectives, illuminating the importance of these earlier forms of imperialism to broaden our perspective on modern concerns about empire and the legacy of colonialism.




Forgotten Empire


Book Description

A richly-illustrated and important book that traces the rise and fall of one of the ancient world's largest and richest empires.




Empires of Ancient Eurasia


Book Description

Introduces a crucial period of world history when the vast exchange network of the Silk Roads connected most of Eurasia.




Rise and Fall


Book Description

Rise and Fall opens with the Akkadian Empire, which ruled over a vast expanse of the region of ancient Mesopotamia, then turns to the immense Roman Empire, where we trace back our western and eastern roots. Next Strathern describes how a great deal of western classical culture was developed in the Abbasid and Umayyid Caliphates. Then, while Europe was beginning to emerge from a period of cultural stagnation, it almost fell to a whirlwind invasion from the East, at which point we meet the Emperors of the Mongol Empire . . . Combining breathtaking scope with masterful concision, Paul Strathern traces connections across four millennia and sheds new light on these major civilizations - from the Mongol Empire and the Yuan Dynasty to the Aztec and Ottoman, through to the most recent and biggest Empires: the British, Russo-Soviet and American. Charting 5,000 years of global history in ten succinct chapters, Rise and Fall makes comprehensive and inspiring reading to anyone fascinated by the history of the world.