For more than four thousand years, empires have been geographically the largest polities on Earth, shaping in many respects the human past and present in different epochs and on different continents. Covering the time span from the second millennium B.C.E. to the sixteenth century C.E., and geographic areas from China to South America, the case studies included in this volume demonstrate the necessity to combine perspectives from the longue duree and global comparativism with the theory of agency and an understanding of specific contexts for human actions. Contributions from leading scholars examine salient aspects of the Hittite, Assyrian, Ancient Egyptian, Achaemenid and Sasanian Iranian, Zhou to Han Dynasty Chinese, Inka, and Mughal empires.

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

Although empires have shaped the political development of virtually all the states of the modern world, "imperialism" has not figured largely in the mainstream of scholarly literature. This book seeks to account for the imperial phenomenon and to establish its importance as a subject in the study of the theory of world politics. Michael Doyle believes that empires can best be defined as relationships of effective political control imposed by some political societies—those called metropoles—on other political societies—called peripheries. To build an explanation of the birth, life, and death of empires, he starts with an overview and critique of the leading theories of imperialism. Supplementing theoretical analysis with historical description, he considers episodes from the life cycles of empires from the classical and modern world, concentrating on the nineteenth-century scramble for Africa. He describes in detail the slow entanglement of the peripheral societies on the Nile and the Niger with metropolitan power, the survival of independent Ethiopia, Bismarck's manipulation of imperial diplomacy for European ends, the race for imperial possession in the 1880s, and the rapid setting of the imperial sun. Combining a sensitivity to historical detail with a judicious search for general patterns, Empires will engage the attention of social scientists in many disciplines.

In this book, the author weaves a unique narrative that looks at both empires of business created from mergers and acquisitions and global empires from world history in an attempt to answer the question: why do certain empires endure for long periods while others collapse in a short space of time.

Examining diversity as a fundamental reality of empire, this book explores European colonial empires, both terrestrial and maritime, to show how they addressed the questions of how to manage diversity. These questions range from the local to the supra-regional, and from the management of people to that of political and judicial systems. Taking an intersectional approach incorporating categories such as race, religion, subjecthood, and social and legal status, the contributions of the volume show how old and new modes of creating social difference took shape in an increasingly globalized early modern world, and what contemporary legacies these ‘diversity formations’ left behind. This volume shows diversity and imperial projects to be both contentious and mutually constitutive: on the one hand, the conditions of empire created divisions between people through official categorizations (such as racial classifications and designations of subjecthood) and through discriminately applied extractive policies, from taxation to slavery. On the other hand, imperial subjects, communities, and polities within and adjacent to the empire asserted themselves through a diverse range of affiliations and identities that challenged any notion of a unilateral, universal imperial authority. This book highlights the multidimensionality and interconnectedness of diversity in imperial settings and will be useful reading to students and scholars of the history of colonial empires, global history, and race.

A New Yorker Best Book of 2022 A Globe & Mail Book of the Year "A stimulating work on the politics of language." LA Review of Books As globalisation continues languages are disappearing faster than ever, leaving our planet's linguistic diversity leaping towards extinction. The science of how languages are acquired is becoming more advanced and the internet is bringing us new ways of teaching the next generation, however it is increasingly challenging for minority languages to survive in the face of a handful of hegemonic 'super-tongues'. In Speak Not, James Griffiths reports from the frontlines of the battle to preserve minority languages, from his native Wales, Hawaii and indigenous American nations, to southern China and Hong Kong. He explores the revival of the Welsh language as a blueprint for how to ensure new generations are not robbed of their linguistic heritage, outlines how loss of indigenous languages is the direct result of colonialism and globalisation and examines how technology is both hindering and aiding the fight to prevent linguistic extinction. Introducing readers to compelling characters and examining how indigenous communities are fighting for their languages, Griffiths ultimately explores how languages hang on, what happens when they don't, and how indigenous tongues can be preserved and brought back from the brink.

"In this extraordinary volume, Krishan Kumar provides us with a brilliant tour of some of history's most important empires, demonstrating the critical importance of imperial ideas and ideologies for understanding their modalities of rule and the conflicts that beset them. In doing so, he interrogates the contested terrain between nationalism and empire and the legacies that empires leave behind."--Mark R. Beissinger, Princeton University "This is an excellent book with original insights into the history of empires and the discourses and rhetoric of their rulers and defenders. Kumar's writing is lively and free of jargon, and his research is prodigious. He manages to bring clarity and perspective to a complex subject."--Ronald Grigor Suny, author of "They Can Live in the Desert but Nowhere Else": A History of the Armenian Genocide "A masterly piece of work."--Anthony Pagden, author of The Burdens of Empire: 1539 to the Present