Universal Empire: A Comparative Approach To Imperial Culture And Representation In Eurasian History Hardcover

New

United Kingdom (UK)

The claim by certain rulers to universal empire has a long history stretching as far back as the Assyrian and Achaemenid Empires. This book traces its various manifestations in classical antiquity, the Islamic world, Asia and Central America as well as considering seventeenth- and eighteenth-century European discussions of international order. As such it is an exercise in comparative world history combining a multiplicity of approaches, from ancient history, to literary and philosophical studies, to the history of art and international relations and historical sociology. The notion of universal, imperial rule is presented as an elusive and much coveted prize among monarchs in history, around which developed forms of kingship and political culture. Different facets of the phenomenon are explored under three, broadly conceived, headings: symbolism, ceremony and diplomatic relations; universal or cosmopolitan literary high-cultures; and, finally, the inclination to present universal imperial rule as an expression of cosmic order.

9781107022676

English

Cambridge University Press

31 Oct 2012

398

Peter Fibiger Bang is Associate Professor of History at The Saxo Institute, University of Copenhagen and holds a doctorate from the University of Cambridge. He is a Roman historian interested in comparative and world history. From 2005 to 2009 he was Chair of the European research network, Tributary Empires Compared, funded by COST and has been a Visiting Professor at the Universities of Tubingen and Heidelberg. He has authored, edited or co-edited seven other volumes, most importantly The Roman Bazaar: A Comparative Study of Trade and Markets in a Tributary Empire (Cambridge, 2008), and The Oxford Handbook of the Ancient State (2013) with Walter Scheidel. Dariusz Kolodziejczyk is Professor of Early Modern History at the University of Warsaw and at the Polish Academy of Sciences. He has published extensively on the Ottoman Empire, the Crimean Khanate and international and intercultural relations in Eastern Europe. He is currently Vice-President of the Comite International des Etudes Pre-ottomanes et Ottomanes (CIEPO) and has been a Visiting Professor at the College de France, University of Notre Dame and Hokkaido University. His most important publications include Ottoman-Polish Diplomatic Relations (15th-18th Century): An Annotated Edition of 'Ahdnames and Other Documents (2000), The Ottoman Survey Register of Podolia (c.1681): Defter-i Mufassal-i Eyalet-i Kamanice (2004) and The Crimean Khanate and Poland-Lithuania: International Diplomacy on the European Periphery (15th-18th Century): A Study of Peace Treaties Followed by Annotated Documents (2011).

Peter Fibiger Bang

Dariusz Kolodziejczyk