The limits of universal rule : Eurasian empires compared / edited by Yuri Pines, Michal Biran, Jörg Rüpke.

Format:

Book

Contributor:

Pines, Yuri, editor.

Rüpke, Jörg, editor.

Biran, Michal, editor.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Imperialism--History.

Imperialism.

History.

Space--Political aspects--Eurasia.

Space.

Territorial expansion.

Eurasia--Territorial expansion.

Eurasia.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (xiii, 397 pages) : digital, PDF file(s)

Place of Publication:

Cambridge : Cambridge University Press, 2021.

System Details:

text file

PDF

Summary:

All major continental empires proclaimed their desire to rule 'the entire world', investing considerable human and material resources in expanding their territory. Each, however, eventually had to stop expansion and come to terms with a shift to defensive strategy. This volume explores the factors that facilitated Eurasian empires' expansion and contraction: from ideology to ecology, economic and military considerations to changing composition of the imperial elites. Built around a common set of questions, a team of leading specialists systematically compare a broad set of Eurasian empires - from Achaemenid Iran, the Romans, Qin and Han China, via the Caliphate, the Byzantines and the Mongols to the Ottomans, Safavids, Mughals, Russians, and Ming and Qing China. The result is a state-of-the art analysis of the major imperial enterprises in Eurasian history from antiquity to the early modern that discerns both commonalities and differences in the empires' spatial trajectories.

Contents:

Introduction: Empires and their space / Yuri Pines, with Michal Biran and Jörg Rüpke

From the Mediterranean to the Indus Valley : modalities and limitations of the Achaemenid imperial space / Pierre Briant

Limits of all-under-heaven : ideology and praxis of "great unity" in early Chinese empire / Yuri Pines

The Roman Empire / Wolfgang Spickermann

The medieval Roman Empire of the East as spatial phenomenon (300-1204 CE) / Johannes Preiser-Kapeller

Early Islamic imperial space / A.C.S. Peacock

The Mongol imperial space : from universalism to glocalization / Michal Biran

The territories and boundaries of empires : Ottoman, Safavid and Mughal / Stephen F. Dale

Delimiting the realm under the Ming Dynasty / David M. Robinson

The expansion of the Qing Empire before 1800 / Matthew M. Mosca

All under the tsar : Russia's Eurasian trajectory / Jane Burbank.

Notes:

Title from publisher's bibliographic system (viewed on 11 Jan 2021).

Other Format:

Print version:

ISBN:

9781108771061

Access Restriction:

Restricted for use by site license.