Empires: Perspectives from Archaeology and History

by Edited by Susan E. Alcock , Terence N. D'Altroy , Kathleen D. Morrison , Carla M. Sinopoli

• ISBN13: 9780521112345
• ISBN10: 0521112346
• Edition: 1st
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2009-06-04
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Summary

Empires were the largest political systems of the ancient and early modern world. Empires have "risen" and "fallen" in all parts of the globe over several millennia, yet there has been surprisingly little comparative analysis of them. This book is designed to fill that gap by bringing together distinguished scholars in anthropology, archaeology, history, and the classics. The empires discussed are drawn from Central and South America, the Mediterranean, Europe, the Near East, South East Asia, and China, ranging from the first millennium BC to the early modern era.

Table of Contents

Preface

Sources, Approaches, Definitions

The shadow empires: imperial state formation along the Chinese-Nomad frontier

Written on water: designs and dynamics in the Portuguese Estado de India

The Wari empire of Middle Horizon Peru: the epistemological challenge of documenting an empire without documentary evidence

The Achaemenid Persian empire (c. 550-c. 330 BCE): continuities, adaptations, transformations

Empires in a Wider World

The Aztec Empire and the Mesoamerican world system

On the edge of empire: form and substance in the Satavahana dynasty

Dynamics of imperial adjustment in Spanish America: ideology and social integration

Imperial Integration and Imperial Subjects

Politics, resources, and blood in the Inka Empire

Egypt and Nubia

10

Imperial Ideologies

Aztec hearts and minds: religion and the state in the Aztec empire

Inventing empire in ancient

The reconfiguration of memory in the eastern Roman empire

Cosmos, central authority, and communities in the early Chinese empire

The Afterlife of Empires

The fall of the Assyrian empire: ancient and modern interpretations

The Carolingian empire: Rome reborn?

Cuzco, another Rome?

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