Empires in World History

Empires - vast states of territories and peoples united by force and ambition - have dominated the political landscape for more than two millennia. Empires in World History departs from conventional European and nation-centered perspectives to take a remarkable look at how empires relied on diversity to shape the global order. Beginning with ancient Rome and China and continuing across Asia, Europe, the Americas, and Africa, Jane Burbank and Frederick Cooper examine empires' conquests, rivalries, and strategies of domination - with an emphasis on how empires accommodated, created, and manipulated differences among populations. Burbank and Cooper examine Rome and China from the third century BCE, empires that sustained state power for centuries. They delve into the militant monotheism of Byzantium, the Islamic Caliphates, and the short-lived Carolingians, as well as the pragmatically tolerant rule of the Mongols and Ottomans, who combined religious protection with the politics of loyalty. Burbank and Cooper discuss the influence of empire on capitalism and popular sovereignty, the limitations and instability of Europe's colonial projects, Russia's repertoire of exploitation and differentiation, as well as the "empire of liberty" - devised by American revolutionaries and later extended across a continent and beyond.

List of Illustrations vii Preface xi Chapter 1: Imperial Trajectories 1 Chapter 2: Imperial Rule in Rome and China 23 Chapter 3: After Rome: Empire, Christianity, and Islam 61 Chapter 4: Eurasian Connections: The Mongol Empires 93 Chapter 5: Beyond the Mediterranean: Ottoman and Spanish Empires 117 Chapter 6: Oceanic Economies and Colonial Societies: Europe, Asia, and the Americas 149 Chapter 7: Beyond the Steppe: Empire-Building in Russia and China 185 Chapter 8: Empire, Nation, and Citizenship in a Revolutionary Age 219 Chapter 9: Empires across Continents: The United States and Russia 251 Chapter 10: Imperial Repertoires and Myths of Modern Colonialism 287 Chapter 11: Sovereignty and Empire: Nineteenth-Century Europe and Its Near Abroad 331 Chapter 12: War and Revolution in a World of Empires: 1914 to 1945 369 Chapter 13: End of Empire? 413 Chapter 14: Empires, States, and Political Imagination 443 Suggested Reading and Citations 461 Index 481