The Mechanics of Empire

The Mechanics of Empire PDF Author: Bradley J. Parker
Publisher:
ISBN: 9789514590528
Category : Assyria
Languages : en
Pages : 348

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Ancient Persia

Ancient Persia PDF Author: Matt Waters
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1107652723
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 273

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The Achaemenid Persian Empire, at its greatest territorial extent under Darius I (r.522–486 BCE), held sway over territory stretching from the Indus River Valley to southeastern Europe and from the western Himalayas to northeast Africa. In this book, Matt Waters gives a detailed historical overview of the Achaemenid period while considering the manifold interpretive problems historians face in constructing and understanding its history. This book offers a Persian perspective even when relying on Greek textual sources and archaeological evidence. Waters situates the story of the Achaemenid Persians in the context of their predecessors in the mid-first millennium BCE and through their successors after the Macedonian conquest, constructing a compelling narrative of how the empire retained its vitality for more than two hundred years (c.550–330 BCE) and left a massive imprint on Middle Eastern as well as Greek and European history.

The Mechanics' Mirror

The Mechanics' Mirror PDF Author: Robert Macfarlane
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Industrial arts
Languages : en
Pages : 310

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The Mechanics' Magazine

The Mechanics' Magazine PDF Author:
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Industrial arts
Languages : en
Pages : 648

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Decline and Fall

Decline and Fall PDF Author: John Michael Greer
Publisher: New Society Publisher
ISBN: 1550925571
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 219

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The political theorist and author of After Progress examines the future of U.S. dominance on the world stage in this persuasive and provocative book. The decline and fall of America's global empire is the central feature of today's geopolitical landscape. How we respond to this reality will determine much of our future trajectory, with implications that reach far beyond the limits of one nation's borders. In Decline and Fall, John Michael Greer examines the path we’re on and presents a persuasive challenge to the conventional wisdom of empire. Rather than asking if today's American empire should survive, Greer asks whether it can—and goes on to demonstrate that the answer is "no.” After exploring the inevitable consequences of imperial collapse, Decline and Fall proposes a renewal of democratic institutions as the only constructive way forward.

Visions of Empire

Visions of Empire PDF Author: Krishan Kumar
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 0691192804
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 597

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"In this extraordinary volume, Krishan Kumar provides us with a brilliant tour of some of history's most important empires, demonstrating the critical importance of imperial ideas and ideologies for understanding their modalities of rule and the conflicts that beset them. In doing so, he interrogates the contested terrain between nationalism and empire and the legacies that empires leave behind."--Mark R. Beissinger, Princeton University "This is an excellent book with original insights into the history of empires and the discourses and rhetoric of their rulers and defenders. Kumar's writing is lively and free of jargon, and his research is prodigious. He manages to bring clarity and perspective to a complex subject."--Ronald Grigor Suny, author of "They Can Live in the Desert but Nowhere Else": A History of the Armenian Genocide "A masterly piece of work."--Anthony Pagden, author of The Burdens of Empire: 1539 to the Present

The Dynamics of Ancient Empires

The Dynamics of Ancient Empires PDF Author: Ian Morris
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0199888175
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 400

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Book Description
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 Wiesehöfer, Ian Morris, Walter Scheidel, and Keith Hopkins, whose essay on Roman political economy was completed just before his death in 2004.

The Mechanics of Independence

The Mechanics of Independence PDF Author: Arthur Napoleon Raymond Robinson
Publisher:
ISBN: 9789766401153
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 236

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Book Description
If any doubt remains, the story of Trinidad and Tobago should dispel the illusion that money and technical assistance can launch a new station in the world community. This work seeks to probe the interplay of political and social factors on national development with commitment and detachment.

Empire

Empire PDF Author: Jeremy Paxman
Publisher: Penguin UK
ISBN: 0670919608
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 437

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Book Description
From the bestselling author of The English comes Empire, Jeremy Paxman's history of the British Empire accompanied by a flagship 5-part BBC TV series, for readers of Simon Schama and Andrew Marr. The influence of the British Empire is everywhere, from the very existence of the United Kingdom to the ethnic composition of our cities. It affects everything, from Prime Ministers' decisions to send troops to war to the adventurers we admire. From the sports we think we're good at to the architecture of our buildings; the way we travel to the way we trade; the hopeless losers we will on, and the food we hunger for, the empire is never very far away. In this acute and witty analysis, Jeremy Paxman goes to the very heart of empire. As he describes the selection process for colonial officers ('intended to weed out the cad, the feeble and the too clever') the importance of sport, the sweating domestic life of the colonial officer's wife ('the challenge with cooking meat was "to grasp the fleeting moment between toughness and putrefaction when the joint may possibly prove eatable"') and the crazed end for General Gordon of Khartoum, Paxman brings brilliantly to life the tragedy and comedy of Empire and reveals its profound and lasting effect on our nation and ourselves. 'Paxman is witty, incisive, acerbic and opinionated . . . In short, he carries the whole thing off with panache bordering on effrontery' Piers Brendon, Sunday Times 'Paxman is a magnificent historian, and Empire may be remembered as his finest work' Independent on Sunday Jeremy Paxman was born in Yorkshire and educated at Cambridge. He is an award-winning journalist who spent ten years reporting from overseas, notably for Panorama. He is the author of five books including The English. He is the presenter of Newsnight and University Challenge and has presented BBC documentaries on various subjects including Victorian art and Wilfred Owen.

The Rule of Empires

The Rule of Empires PDF Author: Timothy Parsons
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0199746192
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 494

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Book Description
In The Rule of Empires, Timothy Parsons gives a sweeping account of the evolution of empire from its origins in ancient Rome to its most recent twentieth-century embodiment. He explains what constitutes an empire and offers suggestions about what empires of the past can tell us about our own historical moment. Parsons uses imperial examples that stretch from ancient Rome, to Britain's "new" imperialism in Kenya, to the Third Reich to parse the features common to all empires, their evolutions and self-justifying myths, and the reasons for their inevitable decline. Parsons argues that far from confirming some sort of Darwinian hierarchy of advanced and primitive societies, conquests were simply the products of a temporary advantage in military technology, wealth, and political will. Beneath the self-justifying rhetoric of benevolent paternalism and cultural superiority lay economic exploitation and the desire for power. Yet imperial ambitions still appear viable in the twenty-first century, Parsons shows, because their defenders and detractors alike employ abstract and romanticized perspectives that fail to grasp the historical reality of subjugation. Writing from the perspective of the common subject rather than that of the imperial conquerors, Parsons offers a historically grounded cautionary tale rich with accounts of subjugated peoples throwing off the yoke of empire time and time again. In providing an accurate picture of what it is like to live as a subject, The Rule of Empires lays bare the rationalizations of imperial conquerors and their apologists and exposes the true limits of hard power.

Mechanics magazine

Mechanics magazine PDF Author:
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 476

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