Details

Subject(s)

• Imperialism—History—To 1500 [Browse]
• Civilization, Medieval [Browse]
• Middle Ages [Browse]
• Islamic Empire—History [Browse]
• Ethnicity—History—To 1500 [Browse]
• East and West [Browse]

Editor

• Pohl, Walter, 1953- [Browse]
• Kramer, Rutger [Browse]

Series

Oxford studies in early empires [More in this series]

Summary note

"Empires are not an under-researched topic. Recently, there has been a veritable surge in comparative and conceptual studies, not least of pre-modern empires. The distant past can tell us much about the fates of empires that may still be relevant today, and contemporary historians as well as the general public are generally aware of that. Tracing the general development of an empire, we can discern a kind imperial dynamic which follows the momentum of expansion, relies on the structures and achievements of the formative period for a while, and tends to be caught in a downward spiral at some point. Yet single cases differ so much that a general model is hardly ever sufficient.There is in fact little consensus about what exactly constitutes an empire, and it has become standard in publications about empires to note the profusion of definitions.Some refer to size-for instance, 'greater than a million square kilometers', as Peter Turchin suggested. Apart from that, many scholars offer more or less extensive lists of qualitative criteria. Some of these criteria reflect the imperial dynamic, for instance, the imposition of some kind of unity through 'an imperial project', which allows moving broad populations 'from coercion through co-optation to cooperation and identification'"-- Provided by publisher.

Bibliographic references

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Contents

• Walter Pohl and Rutger Kramer, Introduction: Empires and communities in the post-Roman and Islamic world
• Hugh Kennedy, The emergence of new polities in the break-up of the Abbasid Caliphate
• Walter Pohl, The emergence of new polities in the break-up of the Western Roman Empire
• Walter Pohl and Hugh Kennedy, Comparative perspectives: differences between the dissolution of the Western Roman Empire and the Abbasid Caliphate
• Peter Webb, Fragmentation and integration: a response to the contributions by Hugh Kennedy and Walter Pohl
• John Haldon, Historicizing resilience: the paradox of the Medieval East Roman state; collapse, adaptation, and survival
• Leslie Brubaker and Chris Wickham, Processions, power, and community identity: east and west
• Daniel Reynolds, Death of a patriarch: the murder of Yūḥannā ibn Jamī (d. 966) and the question of 'Melkite' identity in Early Islamic Palestine
• Stefan Esders and Helmut Reimitz, Diversity and convergence: the accommodation of ethnic and legal pluralism in the Carolingian Empire
• Rutger Kramer, Franks, Romans, and countrymen: Carolingian interests, local identities, and the conquest of Aquitaine
• Peter Webb, From the sublime to the ridiculous: Yemeni Arab identity in Abbasid Iraq (including appendix: translations of selected poems)
• Petra Sijpesteijn, Loyal and knowledgeable supporters: integrating Egyptian elites in early Islamic Egypt
• Chris Wickham, Concluding thoughts: empires and communities.

Show 10 more Contents items

ISBN

• 9780190067946
• 0190067942 (hardcover)

LCCN

2020041478

OCLC

1196822684

Statement on language in description

Princeton University Library aims to describe library materials in a manner that is respectful to the individuals and communities who create, use, and are represented in the collections we manage. Read more...