Shadow Empires (eBook)

An Alternative Imperial History

Thomas J. Barfield (Autor)

eBook Download: EPUB

2023
384 Seiten
Princeton University Press (Verlag)
978-0-691-25328-2 (ISBN)

Infos

An original study of empire creation and its consequences, from ancient through early modern timesThe world's first great empires established by the ancient Persians, Chinese, and Romans are well known, but not the empires that emerged on their margins in response to them over the course of 2,500 years. These counterempires or shadow empires, which changed the course of history, include the imperial nomad confederacies that arose in Mongolia and extorted resources from China rather than attempting to conquer it, as well as maritime empires such as ancient Athens that controlled trade without seeking territorial hegemony. In Shadow Empires, Thomas Barfield identifies seven kinds of counterempire and explores their rise, politics, economics, and longevity.What all these counterempires had in common was their interactions with existing empires that created the conditions for their development. When highly successful, these counterempires left the shadows to become the world's largest empires-for example, those of the medieval Muslim Arabs and of the Mongol heirs of Chinggis Khan. Three former shadow empires-Manchu Qing China, Tsarist Russia, and British India-made this transformation in the late eighteenth century and came to rule most of Eurasia. However, the DNA of their origins endured in their unique ruling strategies. Indeed, world powers still use these strategies today, long after their roots in shadow empires have been forgotten.Looking afresh at the histories of important types of empires that are often ignored, Shadow Empires provides an original account of empire formation from the ancient world to the early modern period.

Produkt-Details

• Erscheint lt. Verlag: 17.10.2023
• Zusatzinfo: 6 b/w illus. 10 tables. 22 maps.
• Sprache: englisch
• Themenwelt: Geisteswissenschaften ► Geschichte ► Allgemeine Geschichte
• Themenwelt: Geschichte ► Teilgebiete der Geschichte ► Militärgeschichte
• Themenwelt: Geschichte ► Teilgebiete der Geschichte ► Wirtschaftsgeschichte
• Themenwelt: Sozialwissenschaften ► Politik / Verwaltung ► Vergleichende Politikwissenschaften
• Themenwelt: Sozialwissenschaften ► Soziologie
• Schlagworte: adjacent to ancient imperial states shadow Empires • Alexander the Great • ancient athens • Ancient history • ancient persia • A New History of Imperial State Formation • British India • Caliphate • Carolingian Empire • China • dominant political organizations in Eurasia • emerged in Mongolia • empires • endogenous • exogenous empires • extort China rather than conquer it • Global History • historians • History • Holy Roman Empire • imperial formations in the ancient world • imposed sophisticated central administration • inhabited by tens of millions of people • Kievan Rusâ • Maritime empires • military conquest • Mongols • nomadic empires • nseeking wealth through extortion and ended up creating formidable empires • Persia • premodern empires, one that adopts a broadly comparative perspective and that invites scholars and students of empire to push their investigations beyond received categories and established templates • premodern political formations that arose on the periphery • Princeton • Princeton University Press • Roman Empire • Rome • Russia • schematic account • Self-generating and self-supporting • Shadow Empires • Shadow Empires: A New History of Imperial State Formation • territories spanning millions of square kilometers • The Mongols and the Xiongnu • The premodern empires • Thomas Barfield • used their powerful horse cavalry • Western imperial history • xiongnu
• ISBN-10: 0-691-25328-5 / 0691253285
• ISBN-13: 978-0-691-25328-2 / 9780691253282