Author: William Honeychurch
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 149391815X
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 330
Book Description
This monograph uses the latest archaeological results from Mongolia and the surrounding areas of Inner Asia to propose a novel understanding of nomadic statehood, political economy, and the nature of interaction with ancient China. In contrast to the common view of the Eurasian steppe as a dependent periphery of Old World centers, this work views Inner Asia as a locus of enormous influence on neighboring civilizations, primarily through the development and transmission of diverse organizational models, technologies, and socio-political traditions. This work explores the spatial management of political relationships within the pastoral nomadic setting during the first millennium BCE and argues that a culture of mobility, horse-based transport, and long-distance networking promoted a unique variant of statehood. Although states of the eastern steppe were geographically large and hierarchical, these polities also relied on techniques of distributed authority, multiple centers, flexible structures, and ceremonialism to accommodate a largely mobile and dispersed populace. This expertise in “spatial politics” set the stage early on for the expansionistic success of later Asian empires under the Mongols and Manchus. Inner Asia and the Spatial Politics of Empire brings a distinctly anthropological treatment to the prehistory of Mongolia and is the first major work to explore key issues in the archaeology of eastern Eurasia using a comparative framework. The monograph adds significantly to anthropological theory on interaction between states and outlying regions, the emergence of secondary complexity, and the growth of imperial traditions. Based on this approach, the window of Inner Asian prehistory offers a novel opportunity to investigate the varied ways that complex societies grow and the processes articulating adjacent societies in networks of mutual transformation.
Inner Asia and the Spatial Politics of Empire
Author: William Honeychurch
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 149391815X
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 330
Book Description
This monograph uses the latest archaeological results from Mongolia and the surrounding areas of Inner Asia to propose a novel understanding of nomadic statehood, political economy, and the nature of interaction with ancient China. In contrast to the common view of the Eurasian steppe as a dependent periphery of Old World centers, this work views Inner Asia as a locus of enormous influence on neighboring civilizations, primarily through the development and transmission of diverse organizational models, technologies, and socio-political traditions. This work explores the spatial management of political relationships within the pastoral nomadic setting during the first millennium BCE and argues that a culture of mobility, horse-based transport, and long-distance networking promoted a unique variant of statehood. Although states of the eastern steppe were geographically large and hierarchical, these polities also relied on techniques of distributed authority, multiple centers, flexible structures, and ceremonialism to accommodate a largely mobile and dispersed populace. This expertise in “spatial politics” set the stage early on for the expansionistic success of later Asian empires under the Mongols and Manchus. Inner Asia and the Spatial Politics of Empire brings a distinctly anthropological treatment to the prehistory of Mongolia and is the first major work to explore key issues in the archaeology of eastern Eurasia using a comparative framework. The monograph adds significantly to anthropological theory on interaction between states and outlying regions, the emergence of secondary complexity, and the growth of imperial traditions. Based on this approach, the window of Inner Asian prehistory offers a novel opportunity to investigate the varied ways that complex societies grow and the processes articulating adjacent societies in networks of mutual transformation.
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 149391815X
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 330
Book Description
This monograph uses the latest archaeological results from Mongolia and the surrounding areas of Inner Asia to propose a novel understanding of nomadic statehood, political economy, and the nature of interaction with ancient China. In contrast to the common view of the Eurasian steppe as a dependent periphery of Old World centers, this work views Inner Asia as a locus of enormous influence on neighboring civilizations, primarily through the development and transmission of diverse organizational models, technologies, and socio-political traditions. This work explores the spatial management of political relationships within the pastoral nomadic setting during the first millennium BCE and argues that a culture of mobility, horse-based transport, and long-distance networking promoted a unique variant of statehood. Although states of the eastern steppe were geographically large and hierarchical, these polities also relied on techniques of distributed authority, multiple centers, flexible structures, and ceremonialism to accommodate a largely mobile and dispersed populace. This expertise in “spatial politics” set the stage early on for the expansionistic success of later Asian empires under the Mongols and Manchus. Inner Asia and the Spatial Politics of Empire brings a distinctly anthropological treatment to the prehistory of Mongolia and is the first major work to explore key issues in the archaeology of eastern Eurasia using a comparative framework. The monograph adds significantly to anthropological theory on interaction between states and outlying regions, the emergence of secondary complexity, and the growth of imperial traditions. Based on this approach, the window of Inner Asian prehistory offers a novel opportunity to investigate the varied ways that complex societies grow and the processes articulating adjacent societies in networks of mutual transformation.
Empires and Exchanges in Eurasian Late Antiquity
Author: Nicola Di Cosmo
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1108548105
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 544
Book Description
Empires and Exchanges in Eurasian Late Antiquity offers an integrated picture of Rome, China, Iran, and the Steppes during a formative period of world history. In the half millennium between 250 and 750 CE, settled empires underwent deep structural changes, while various nomadic peoples of the steppes (Huns, Avars, Turks, and others) experienced significant interactions and movements that changed their societies, cultures, and economies. This was a transformational era, a time when Roman, Persian, and Chinese monarchs were mutually aware of court practices, and when Christians and Buddhists criss-crossed the Eurasian lands together with merchants and armies. It was a time of greater circulation of ideas as well as material goods. This volume provides a conceptual frame for locating these developments in the same space and time. Without arguing for uniformity, it illuminates the interconnections and networks that tied countless local cultural expressions to far-reaching inter-regional ones.
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1108548105
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 544
Book Description
Empires and Exchanges in Eurasian Late Antiquity offers an integrated picture of Rome, China, Iran, and the Steppes during a formative period of world history. In the half millennium between 250 and 750 CE, settled empires underwent deep structural changes, while various nomadic peoples of the steppes (Huns, Avars, Turks, and others) experienced significant interactions and movements that changed their societies, cultures, and economies. This was a transformational era, a time when Roman, Persian, and Chinese monarchs were mutually aware of court practices, and when Christians and Buddhists criss-crossed the Eurasian lands together with merchants and armies. It was a time of greater circulation of ideas as well as material goods. This volume provides a conceptual frame for locating these developments in the same space and time. Without arguing for uniformity, it illuminates the interconnections and networks that tied countless local cultural expressions to far-reaching inter-regional ones.
Empire of Horses
Author: John Man
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1643133829
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 368
Book Description
The author of landmark histories such as Genghis Khan, Attila, and Xanadu invites us to discover a fertile period in Asian history that prefigured so much of the world that followed. The people of the first nomadic empire left no written records, but from 200 bc they dominated the heart of Asia for four centuries, and changed the world in the process. The Mongols, today’s descendants of Genghis Khan, see these people as ancestors. Their rise cemented Chinese identity and inspired the first Great Wall. Their descendants helped destroy the Roman Empire under the leadership of Attila the Hun. We don’t know what language they spoke, but they became known as Xiongnu, or Hunnu, a term passed down the centuries and surviving today as “Hun,” and Man uncovers new evidence that will transform our understanding of the profound mark they left on half the globe, from Europe to Central Asia and deep into China. Based on meticulous research and new archaeological evidence, Empire of Horses traces this civilization’s epic story and shows how this nomadic cultures of the steppes gave birth to an empire with the wealth and power to threaten the order of the ancient world.
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1643133829
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 368
Book Description
The author of landmark histories such as Genghis Khan, Attila, and Xanadu invites us to discover a fertile period in Asian history that prefigured so much of the world that followed. The people of the first nomadic empire left no written records, but from 200 bc they dominated the heart of Asia for four centuries, and changed the world in the process. The Mongols, today’s descendants of Genghis Khan, see these people as ancestors. Their rise cemented Chinese identity and inspired the first Great Wall. Their descendants helped destroy the Roman Empire under the leadership of Attila the Hun. We don’t know what language they spoke, but they became known as Xiongnu, or Hunnu, a term passed down the centuries and surviving today as “Hun,” and Man uncovers new evidence that will transform our understanding of the profound mark they left on half the globe, from Europe to Central Asia and deep into China. Based on meticulous research and new archaeological evidence, Empire of Horses traces this civilization’s epic story and shows how this nomadic cultures of the steppes gave birth to an empire with the wealth and power to threaten the order of the ancient world.
Ritual and Economy in East Asia
Author: Rowan Flad
Publisher: Cotsen Institute of Archaeology Press
ISBN: 1950446417
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 402
Book Description
In commemoration of Lothar von Falkenhausens 60th birthday, this volume assembles eighteen scholarly essays that explore the intersection between art, economy, and ritual in ancient East Asia. The contributions are clustered into four themes: Ritual Economy, Ritual and Sacrifice, Technology, Community, Interaction, and Objects and Meaning, which collectively reflect the theoretical, methodological, and historical questions that Falkenhausen has been examining via his scholarship, research, and teaching throughout his career. Most of the chapters work with archaeological and textual data from China, but there are also studies of materials from Mongolia, Korea, Southeast Asia and even Egypt, showing the global impact of Falkenhausens work. The chronological range of studies extends from the Neolithic through the Bronze Age in China, into the early imperial, medieval, and early modern periods. The authors discuss art, economy, ritual, interaction, and technology in the broad context of East Asian archaeology and its connection to the world beyond.
Publisher: Cotsen Institute of Archaeology Press
ISBN: 1950446417
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 402
Book Description
In commemoration of Lothar von Falkenhausens 60th birthday, this volume assembles eighteen scholarly essays that explore the intersection between art, economy, and ritual in ancient East Asia. The contributions are clustered into four themes: Ritual Economy, Ritual and Sacrifice, Technology, Community, Interaction, and Objects and Meaning, which collectively reflect the theoretical, methodological, and historical questions that Falkenhausen has been examining via his scholarship, research, and teaching throughout his career. Most of the chapters work with archaeological and textual data from China, but there are also studies of materials from Mongolia, Korea, Southeast Asia and even Egypt, showing the global impact of Falkenhausens work. The chronological range of studies extends from the Neolithic through the Bronze Age in China, into the early imperial, medieval, and early modern periods. The authors discuss art, economy, ritual, interaction, and technology in the broad context of East Asian archaeology and its connection to the world beyond.
Short-term Empires in World History
Author: Robert Rollinger
Publisher: Springer Nature
ISBN: 3658294353
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 343
Book Description
The volume will focus on a comparative level on a specific group of states that are commonly labelled as “empires” and that we encounter through all historical periods. Although they are very successful at the very beginning, like most empires are, this success is very ephemeral and transient. The era of conquest is never followed by a period of consolidation. Collapse and/or reduction to much smaller dimension run as fast as the process of wide-ranging conquest and expansion. The volume singles out a series of such “short-term empires” and aims to provide a methodologically clearly structured as well as a uniform and consistent approach by developing a general set of questions that guarantee the possibility to compare and distinguish. This way it intends to examine not only already well established empires but also to illuminate forgotten ones.
Publisher: Springer Nature
ISBN: 3658294353
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 343
Book Description
The volume will focus on a comparative level on a specific group of states that are commonly labelled as “empires” and that we encounter through all historical periods. Although they are very successful at the very beginning, like most empires are, this success is very ephemeral and transient. The era of conquest is never followed by a period of consolidation. Collapse and/or reduction to much smaller dimension run as fast as the process of wide-ranging conquest and expansion. The volume singles out a series of such “short-term empires” and aims to provide a methodologically clearly structured as well as a uniform and consistent approach by developing a general set of questions that guarantee the possibility to compare and distinguish. This way it intends to examine not only already well established empires but also to illuminate forgotten ones.
Russian Practices of Governance in Eurasia
Author: Gulnar T. Kendirbai
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 0429515723
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 239
Book Description
This book analyses the role of the mobility factor in the spread of Russian rule in Eurasia in the formative period of the rise of the Russian Empire and offers an examination of the interaction of Russian authorities with their nomadic partners. Demonstrating that the mobility factor strongly shaped the system of protectorate that the Russian and Qing monarchs imposed on their nomadic counterparts, the book argues that it operated as a flexible institutional framework, which enabled all sides to derive maximum benefits from a given political situation. The author establishes that interactions of Russian authorities with their Kalmyk and Qazaq counterparts during the mid-16th to the mid-19th centuries were strongly informed by the power dynamics of the Inner Asian frontier. These dynamics were marked by Russia’s rivalry with Qing Chinese and Jungar leaders to exert its influence over frontier nomadic populations. This book shows that each of these parties began to adopt key elements of existing steppe political culture. It also suggests that the different norms of governance adopted by the Russian state continued to shape its elite politics well into the 1820s and beyond. The author proposes that, by combining key elements of this culture with new practices, Russian authorities proved capable of creating innovative forms of governance that ended up shaping the very nature of the colonial Russian state itself. An important contribution to the ongoing debates pertaining to the nature of the spread of Russian rule over the numerous populations of the vast Eurasian terrains, this book will be of interest to academics working on Russian history, Central Asian/Eurasian history and political and cultural history.
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 0429515723
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 239
Book Description
This book analyses the role of the mobility factor in the spread of Russian rule in Eurasia in the formative period of the rise of the Russian Empire and offers an examination of the interaction of Russian authorities with their nomadic partners. Demonstrating that the mobility factor strongly shaped the system of protectorate that the Russian and Qing monarchs imposed on their nomadic counterparts, the book argues that it operated as a flexible institutional framework, which enabled all sides to derive maximum benefits from a given political situation. The author establishes that interactions of Russian authorities with their Kalmyk and Qazaq counterparts during the mid-16th to the mid-19th centuries were strongly informed by the power dynamics of the Inner Asian frontier. These dynamics were marked by Russia’s rivalry with Qing Chinese and Jungar leaders to exert its influence over frontier nomadic populations. This book shows that each of these parties began to adopt key elements of existing steppe political culture. It also suggests that the different norms of governance adopted by the Russian state continued to shape its elite politics well into the 1820s and beyond. The author proposes that, by combining key elements of this culture with new practices, Russian authorities proved capable of creating innovative forms of governance that ended up shaping the very nature of the colonial Russian state itself. An important contribution to the ongoing debates pertaining to the nature of the spread of Russian rule over the numerous populations of the vast Eurasian terrains, this book will be of interest to academics working on Russian history, Central Asian/Eurasian history and political and cultural history.
Xiongnu
Author: Bryan K Miller
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0190083697
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 385
Book Description
This book raises the case of the world's first nomadic empire, the Xiongnu, as a prime example of the sophisticated developments and powerful influence of nomadic regimes. Launching from a reconceptualization of the social and economic institutions of mobile pastoralists, the collective chapters trace the course of the Xiongnu Empire from before its initial rise, traversing the wars that challenged it and the reformations that made it stronger, to the legacy left after its eventual fall. Xiongnu expounds the economic practices and social conventions of steppe herders as fertile foundations for institutions and infrastructure of empire, and renders a model of "empires of mobilities," which engaged the control less of towns and territories and more of the movements of communities and capital to fuel their regimes. By weaving together archaeological examinations with historical investigations, Bryan K. Miller presents a more complex and nuanced narrative of how an empire based firmly in the steppe over two thousand years ago managed to formulate a robust political economy and a complex political matrix that capitalized on mobilities and alternative forms of political participation, and allowed the Xiongnu to dominate vast realms of central Eurasia and leave lasting geopolitical effects on the many worlds around them.
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0190083697
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 385
Book Description
This book raises the case of the world's first nomadic empire, the Xiongnu, as a prime example of the sophisticated developments and powerful influence of nomadic regimes. Launching from a reconceptualization of the social and economic institutions of mobile pastoralists, the collective chapters trace the course of the Xiongnu Empire from before its initial rise, traversing the wars that challenged it and the reformations that made it stronger, to the legacy left after its eventual fall. Xiongnu expounds the economic practices and social conventions of steppe herders as fertile foundations for institutions and infrastructure of empire, and renders a model of "empires of mobilities," which engaged the control less of towns and territories and more of the movements of communities and capital to fuel their regimes. By weaving together archaeological examinations with historical investigations, Bryan K. Miller presents a more complex and nuanced narrative of how an empire based firmly in the steppe over two thousand years ago managed to formulate a robust political economy and a complex political matrix that capitalized on mobilities and alternative forms of political participation, and allowed the Xiongnu to dominate vast realms of central Eurasia and leave lasting geopolitical effects on the many worlds around them.
Northern Wei (386-534)
Author: Scott Pearce
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0197600395
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 385
Book Description
"This is a study of an Inner Asian people called the *Taghbach (Ch. Tuoba), who half a century after collapse of the Han state (206 BCE-220 CE) began the process of building a new kind of empire in East Asia. Though addressing larger historiographical issues, the book's main purpose is, within the limits of our sources, to see this people in and of themselves, in a detailed narrative that follows them from the emergence of the khan Liwei in the mid-third century, in the highland frontier between Inner Asia and the Chinese world, and ends almost three hundred years later, with the drowning of the dynasty's last matriarch in the Yellow River. Across the centuries, they repeatedly changed their name, nature and location. What remained relatively consistent, however, was their reliance on cavalry armies, filled with loyal men of Inner Asian origin. When that ended, the dynasty ended as well. Underlying the narrative are two main issues. One is that Northern Wei was the first major example of a kind of empire seen often in East Asian histories, the "conquest dynasties," regimes of Inner Asian origin which would over the centuries repeatedly seize control of territories inhabited for the most part by Chinese to create cultural and ethnically complex state systems. The second is historiographical: that this dynasty was renamed and reimagined to fit into the textual tradition of its Chinese subjects. Being our only primary written sources for the dynasty, these texts are here used with care"--
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0197600395
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 385
Book Description
"This is a study of an Inner Asian people called the *Taghbach (Ch. Tuoba), who half a century after collapse of the Han state (206 BCE-220 CE) began the process of building a new kind of empire in East Asia. Though addressing larger historiographical issues, the book's main purpose is, within the limits of our sources, to see this people in and of themselves, in a detailed narrative that follows them from the emergence of the khan Liwei in the mid-third century, in the highland frontier between Inner Asia and the Chinese world, and ends almost three hundred years later, with the drowning of the dynasty's last matriarch in the Yellow River. Across the centuries, they repeatedly changed their name, nature and location. What remained relatively consistent, however, was their reliance on cavalry armies, filled with loyal men of Inner Asian origin. When that ended, the dynasty ended as well. Underlying the narrative are two main issues. One is that Northern Wei was the first major example of a kind of empire seen often in East Asian histories, the "conquest dynasties," regimes of Inner Asian origin which would over the centuries repeatedly seize control of territories inhabited for the most part by Chinese to create cultural and ethnically complex state systems. The second is historiographical: that this dynasty was renamed and reimagined to fit into the textual tradition of its Chinese subjects. Being our only primary written sources for the dynasty, these texts are here used with care"--
The End of Empires
Author: Michael Gehler
Publisher: Springer Nature
ISBN: 3658368764
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 737
Book Description
The articles of this comprehensive edited volume offer a multidisciplinary, global and comparative approach to the history of empires. They analyze their ends over a long spectrum of humankind’s history, ranging from Ancient History through Modern Times. As the main guiding question, every author of this volume scrutinizes the reasons for the decline, the erosion, and the implosion of individual empires. All contributions locate and highlight different factors that triggered or at least supported the ending or the implosion of empires. This overall question makes all the contributions to this volume comparable and allows to detect similarities, differences as well as inconsistencies of historical processes.
Publisher: Springer Nature
ISBN: 3658368764
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 737
Book Description
The articles of this comprehensive edited volume offer a multidisciplinary, global and comparative approach to the history of empires. They analyze their ends over a long spectrum of humankind’s history, ranging from Ancient History through Modern Times. As the main guiding question, every author of this volume scrutinizes the reasons for the decline, the erosion, and the implosion of individual empires. All contributions locate and highlight different factors that triggered or at least supported the ending or the implosion of empires. This overall question makes all the contributions to this volume comparable and allows to detect similarities, differences as well as inconsistencies of historical processes.
The Routledge International Handbook of Language Education Policy in Asia
Author: Andy Kirkpatrick
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317354508
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 497
Book Description
This must-have handbook offers a comprehensive survey of the field. It reviews the language education policies of Asia, encompassing 30 countries sub-divided by regions, namely East, Southeast, South and Central Asia, and considers the extent to which these are being implemented and with what effect. The most recent iteration of language education policies of each of the countries is described and the impact and potential consequence of any change is critically considered. Each country chapter provides a historical overview of the languages in use and language education policies, examines the ideologies underpinning the language choices, and includes an account of the debates and controversies surrounding language and language education policies, before concluding with some predictions for the future.
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317354508
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 497
Book Description
This must-have handbook offers a comprehensive survey of the field. It reviews the language education policies of Asia, encompassing 30 countries sub-divided by regions, namely East, Southeast, South and Central Asia, and considers the extent to which these are being implemented and with what effect. The most recent iteration of language education policies of each of the countries is described and the impact and potential consequence of any change is critically considered. Each country chapter provides a historical overview of the languages in use and language education policies, examines the ideologies underpinning the language choices, and includes an account of the debates and controversies surrounding language and language education policies, before concluding with some predictions for the future.