Page 291 - Encyclopedia Of World History

empire 641

The terra cotta warriors of the
Qin Dynasty in China created in
about 210 BCE to guard the
emperor’s tomb.

Romans established over much of Europe
and the Near East. Its etymology indicates
the main source and standard for its
usage. The Roman empire became the
archetype of what an empire should look
like and how it should behave, a positive
model for the Europeans who sought to
emulate its achievements. In the east, the
Byzantine empire kept its heritage alive
for nearly a millennium. In the west, the
Carolingian empire, the Napoleonic
empire, the British empire, Hitler’s Third
Reich, and various other expansionist European states rarely receive the appellation empire, the main exceptions
consciously evoked the Roman empire in their iconog- being the West African states of Ghana, Mali, and Song-
raphy and ideological claims to legitimacy. The Roman hai, whose indirect association with medieval Europe
model made its mark on European historiography as gave them mythic reputations. Similarly, the only polities
well, acquiring a prominent place in literature that sought in the Americas commonly characterized as empires are
to discern the patterns of history and distill its lessons. those that fell to Spanish conquerors, the Aztecs and the
Edward Gibbon’s Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire Incas, even though archeologists have determined the ear-
(1776–1788) is arguably the most influential work of lier existence of other large states in the same locations
history ever written. and in other parts in the western hemisphere. The
Empire also carries negative connotations, evoking ambivalence and inconsistency that have characterized
charges of political and cultural oppression. This use of the use of empire serve as a reminder that words and their
the term has its origins in the classical Mediterranean meanings are no less embedded in the particularities of
world as well, though its principle source is probably the history than other aspects of human experience.
Achaemenid empire of Persia, which threatened the inde-
pendence of the Greeks. The same connotations are Empire Building as
attached in Western historiography to its successors, the State Building
Sasinid and Safavid empires, as well as to neighboring For all the semantic uncertainty surrounding the term
states that came in collision with Europe, notably the empire, there can be little doubt that the phenomenon it
Ottoman and Mugal empires.The term is used less con- signifies was a consequence of the rise of states. Empires
sistently in other geographical and historical contexts. appeared on the scene soon after the first states came into
While the closest counterpart to the Roman empire was existence in the densely populated river valleys of
in many respects the contemporaneous Han polity of Mesopotamia, Egypt, China, and elsewhere. Indeed, the
China, it is more often called a dynasty than an empire. association between the two is so close that it is not
The same is true for its successor states—the Tang, the entirely clear when state building becomes empire build-
Song, the Ming, the Qing, and others. ing. Every successful state soon expanded its reach well
Some historians have shown similar reservations about beyond the real or fictive lineage ties and ethnic bonds
using the term empire in reference to the Abbasids and that supplied its original claims of sovereignty, relying on
Umayyads, who consolidated political authority across conquest and other coercive methods to bring additional
much of the Near East and North Africa under the ban- peoples under its control. The demands for labor and
ner of Islam. In sub-Saharan Africa, indigenous polities tribute, the reliance on armies and bureaucracies, and the