Empires in World History

Global empire building has a long history reaching back over two thousand years. Yet we take for granted our arrangement of two hundred nation states following decolonization and World War II. What made empires so durable? How did they project power over far-flung territories? How did they govern the different populations within their borders? How did they meet challenges from both within and beyond their borders? How did empires evolve or transform themselves with changing circumstances? Why did empires weaken or dissolve? We will examine what the authors of our text call “repertoires of imperial power”—governing strategies of empires to rule and exploit their populations. As we study selected Eurasian empires, we will bring into sharp relief how empires absorbed and managed a diversity of peoples while recognizing distinctions among them. Our survey will start with imperial rule in Rome and China and end with war and revolution in a world of empires from 1914 to 1945. The study group will close with the question of whether we are now at the end of the empire. Our award-winning text will be Empires in World History: Power and the Politics of Difference by Jane Burbank and Frederick Cooper (Princeton University Press, 2010).