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Empires to be remembered

Gehler, Michael & Robert Rollinger (eds.). 2022. Empires to be remembered. Ancient Worlds through Modern Times. Wiesbaden: Springer.

By applying a comparative approach the volume focuses on a select group of „empires“ which are generally not in the focus of empires studies. They are studied in detail and analyzed due to a strict concept that takes into account real history and reception history as well. Reception history becomes more and more an important element in empire studies although this topic is still often more or less underdeveloped. The volume singles out a series of such “forgotten empires”. It aims to provide a methodologically clearly structured as well as a uniform and consistent approach. It develops a general set of questions that help to compare and distinguish these entities. This way the volume intends to examine and to illuminate empires that are generally ignored by modern scholarship.

Table of contents:

Front Matter

Theories of Empires: An Ongoing Debate:

  • Michael Gehler, Robert Rollinger – Imperial Turn: Challenges, Problems and Questions

Empires and Bureaucracies

  • Bernhard Palme – Empires and Bureaucracies: A Transdisciplinary Approach

Europe

  • Sven Externbrink – Anspruch und Wirklichkeit: Imperiale Ambitionen der Bourbonen im Ancien Régime
  • Bogusław Dybaś – Der Fall Polen-Litauen: Ein vergessenes Imperium in den nationalen Traditionen Ostmitteleuropas?
  • Arnold Suppan – Vergessene Europäische Imperien der Neuzeit: Ein Überblick

Early Medieval Steppe Empires in Europe

  • Walter Pohl – The Hun and Avar Empires
  • Daniel Ziemann – From the Eurasian Steppes to Christian Europe: Bulgarians and Magyars in the Early Middle Ages

The Mediterranean and the Near East

  • Matt Waters: Exploring Elam as Empire
  • Kai Ruffing – Carthage and the Ancient Discourse on Empire
  • Seçil Uluışık Arabacı – An Islamic Afro-Eurasian Empire: The Ottomans (1299–1923)

Central Asia Before Islam

Iranian and Central Asian Formations of Empires in the Shadow of Mongol Rule

Southeast Asia

  • Tilman Frasch – Imperial Kingdoms in Southeast Asia: The Case of Bagan (Pagan)

Africa and Eurocentrism

  • Graham Connah – Urban and State Synoecism in African Societies
  • Arno Sonderegger – Imagining African Empires, Debating the Case of Dahomey
  • Leonhard Harding – The West-African Kingdom of Benin

The Americas

  • Doris Kurella – Die Inka: Ein Verwobenes Imperium
  • Friedrich Pöhl – Das imaginierte und instrumentalisierte Imperium der Haudenosaunee

General Observations and Considerations

  • Alexander Demandt – Die Weltreiche in der Geschichte

Back Matter