The Dynamics of Ancient Empires: State Power from Assyria to ByzantiumOxford University Press, 13 Oca 2009 - 400 sayfa The world's first known empires took shape in Mesopotamia between the eastern shores of the Mediterranean Sea and the Persian Gulf, beginning around 2350 BCE. The next 2,500 years witnessed sustained imperial growth, bringing a growing share of humanity under the control of ever-fewer states. Two thousand years ago, just four major powers--the Roman, Parthian, Kushan, and Han empires--ruled perhaps two-thirds of the earth's entire population. Yet despite empires' prominence in the early history of civilization, there have been surprisingly few attempts to study the dynamics of ancient empires in the western Old World comparatively. Such grand comparisons were popular in the eighteenth century, but scholars then had only Greek and Latin literature and the Hebrew Bible as evidence, and necessarily framed the problem in different, more limited, terms. Near Eastern texts, and knowledge of their languages, only appeared in large amounts in the later nineteenth century. Neither Karl Marx nor Max Weber could make much use of this material, and not until the 1920s were there enough archaeological data to make syntheses of early European and west Asian history possible. But one consequence of the increase in empirical knowledge was that twentieth-century scholars generally defined the disciplinary and geographical boundaries of their specialties more narrowly than their Enlightenment predecessors had done, shying away from large questions and cross-cultural comparisons. As a result, Greek and Roman empires have largely been studied in isolation from those of the Near East. This volume is designed to address these deficits and encourage dialogue across disciplinary boundaries by examining the fundamental features of the successive and partly overlapping imperial states that dominated much of the Near East and the Mediterranean in the first millennia BCE and CE. A substantial introductory discussion of recent thought on the mechanisms of imperial state formation prefaces the five newly commissioned case studies of the Neo-Assyrian, Achaemenid Persian, Athenian, Roman, and Byzantine empires. A final chapter draws on the findings of evolutionary psychology to improve our understanding of ultimate causation in imperial predation and exploitation in a wide range of historical systems from all over the globe. Contributors include John Haldon, Jack Goldstone, Peter Bedford, Josef Wieseh?fer, Ian Morris, Walter Scheidel, and Keith Hopkins, whose essay on Roman political economy was completed just before his death in 2004. |
İçindekiler
The NeoAssyrian Empire | |
The Achaemenid Empire | |
The Greater Athenian State | |
The Political Economy of the Roman Empire | |
The Byzantine Empire | |
A Darwinian Perspective | |
Bibliography | |
Diğer baskılar - Tümünü görüntüle
The Dynamics of Ancient Empires: State Power from Assyria to Byzantium Ian Morris,Walter Scheidel Sınırlı önizleme - 2009 |
The Dynamics of Ancient Empires: State Power from Assyria to Byzantium Ian Morris,Walter Scheidel Sınırlı önizleme - 2009 |
Sık kullanılan terimler ve kelime öbekleri
Achaemenid Achaemenid Empire administrative Aegean aristocrats army Ashur Ashurbanipal Assyrian homeland Assyrian king Athens Babylonia behavior Betzig Briant Byzantine Byzantine Empire Byzantium caliphs central century B.C.E. cities citizens citystates classical client coinage concubinage concubines context cultural Darius Diodorus dominated early East eastern economic Egypt elite emperors empire’s evidence evolution evolutionary example exploitation female fifth century fiscal formation Greater Athenian Greece Greek Haldon harem helots Herodotus historians human identity ideological imperial important inclusive fitness increase inscriptions institutions Ionian Islamic king’s land late longterm male mating Mediterranean military monogamy palace particular Peloponnesian Peloponnesian League percent period Persian Persian Empire perspective Plutarch political polygamy polygyny population provinces regions relationships reproductive success revenues Roman Empire Rome royal rule rulers Scheidel seventh century sexual slaves social society soldiers sources Sparta status structures subjugated Syracusan Syracuse territories texts Thucydides tradition tribute wealth western wives women