Empire

This article is about political and historical terms. For other uses, see Empire (disambiguation).

"Ancient Empires" redirects here. For the game, see Ancient Empires (mobile game).

Not to be confused with Umpire.

Diachronic map of the different empires of the modern era, during their existence.

An empire is a group of territories controlled by a monarch or a supreme central authority. The center of the empire (sometimes referred to as the metropole) has political control over the peripheries. Within an empire, different populations may have different sets of rights and may be governed differently. The word "empire" derives from the Roman concept of Imperium, which refers to the right to command. Empires have taken many forms throughout history.

Definition

An empire is an aggregate of many territories under a supreme ruler or oligarchy.

Definitions of what physically and politically constitutes an empire vary. It might be a state affecting imperial policies or a particular political structure. Empires are typically formed from diverse ethnic, national, cultural, and religious components. 'Empire' and 'Colonialism' are used to refer to relationships between a powerful state or society versus a less powerful one; Michael W. Doyle has defined empire as "effective control, whether formal or informal, of a subordinated society by an imperial society". Imperialism for Doyle is simply the process of establishing and maintaining an empire. Similarly, for Rein Taagepera imperialism is a policy of conquest and domination of foreign lands and populations.

Initially, the Marxist conception of imperialism was New Imperialism, where the qualifier "new" differentiated the contemporary imperialism from earlier imperialism, such as the formation of ancient empires and the first wave of European colonization. Eventually, Lenin cancelled all earlier forms and began the history of Imperialism in the 1760s. The Leninist definition of imperialism removed the essence of empire from politics, focused more on economics and explicitly denied that modern capitalist imperialism had anything in common with the empires of the past.

Since the beginning, mainstream historians of empire were puzzled: as the highest stage of capitalism, imperialism cannot exist before 1876. Such a concept is not very helpful “if we do not know for certain whether it fits the facts of two millennia or… two generations.” Kenneth Waltz believed that the cause of imperialism was capitalism, but appears much younger than the effect (imperialism). He believed that it is as though Newton explained gravitation by a 17th-century phenomenon, ignoring that gravitation operated earlier. Lenin’s work was interpreted as political pamphlet rather than scientific thesis, suitable for "the half-educated whose power of criticism was not fully developed," and calling them to hunt the “invisible hand” of economic exploitation. According to Michael Doyle, thus imperialism turned into an economic and European phenomenon. The pamphlet re-defined empire as the original sin of European peoples, who corrupted an 'innocent world', and the belief became wholeheartedly shared all over the non-Western world. In this world, the word imperialist became "the 20th-century version of the devil" who has constant designs on their sovereignty and economic growth.

Most historians recognize imperialism predates European colonialism by several millennia. In the early 21st century, most theories of empire still were Eurocentric, reflecting the brief period when European empires dominated the world. This perspective, according to the 2021 Oxford World History of Eire, must be widened and the "Age of Imperialism" situated within a proper world history of empires. Millennia had passed before Europe could claim to dictate the course of world history.

According to historians such as George Steinmetz, involving the cessation of state sovereignty, empires should properly be studied in the domain of politics rather than economics. The essential core of the definition is political. Lenin’s usage of the term 'empire' primarily deals with imperialism during the 20th century. Mainstream and Marxist historians heavily disagree on the topic of imperialism.

Tom Nairn and Paul James define empires as polities that "extend relations of power across territorial spaces over which they have no prior or given legal sovereignty, and where, in one or more of the domains of economics, politics, and culture, they gain some measure of extensive hegemony over those spaces to extract or accrue value". Rein Taagepera has defined an empire as "any relatively large sovereign political entity whose components are not sovereign". Peter Bang characterizes empire as "composite, layered and anything but uniform in their internal organization of power," and comprising "a range of different territories and communities, subjected hierarchically in various ways to a dominant power."

However, sometimes an empire is only a semantic construction, such as when a ruler assumes the title of "emperor". That polity over which the ruler reigns logically becomes an "empire", despite having no additional territory or hegemony. Examples of this form of empire are the Central African Empire, Mexican Empire, or the Korean Empire proclaimed in 1897 when Korea, far from gaining new territory, was on the verge of being annexed by the Empire of Japan, one of the last to use the name officially. Among the last states in the 20th century known as empires in this sense were the Central African Empire, Ethiopia, Vietnam, Manchukuo, Russia, Germany, and Korea.

Scholars typically distinguish empires from nation-states. In an empire, there is a hierarchy whereby one group of people (usually, the metropole) has command over other groups of people, and there is a hierarchy of rights and prestige for different groups of people. Josep Colomer distinguished between empires and states in the following way:

1. Empires were vastly larger than states
2. Empires lacked fixed or permanent boundaries whereas a state had fixed boundaries
3. Empires had a "compound of diverse groups and territorial units with asymmetric links with the center" whereas a state had "supreme authority over a territory and population"
4. Empires had multi-level, overlapping jurisdictions whereas a state sought monopoly and homogenization

Characteristics

See also: Thalassocracy

Many empires were the result of military conquest, incorporating the vanquished states into a political union, but imperial hegemony can be established in other ways. According to Edward Luttwak, there are two main ways to establish and maintain an imperial political structure: (i) as a territorial empire of direct conquest and control by force or (ii) as a coercive, hegemonic empire of indirect control. The former method provides greater tribute and direct political control, yet limits further expansion because it absorbs military forces to fixed garrisons. The latter method provides less tribute and indirect control, but avails military forces for further expansion.

Empires can expand by both land and sea. Territorial empires (e.g. the Macedonian Empire and Byzantine Empire) tend to be contiguous areas extending directly outwards from the original frontier. The terrestrial empire's maritime analogue is the thalassocracy, an empire composed of islands and coasts which are accessible to its terrestrial homeland, such as the Athenian-dominated Delian League and the British Empire) with looser structures and more scattered territories, often consisting of many islands and other forms of possessions which required the creation and maintenance of a powerful navy.

The Athenian Empire, the Roman Empire, and the British Empire developed at least in part under elective auspices. Empires such as the Holy Roman Empire also came together by electing the emperor with votes from member realms through the Imperial election. The Empire of Brazil declared itself an empire after separating from the Portuguese Empire in 1822. France has twice transitioned from being called the French Republic to being called the French Empire while it retained an overseas empire. Europeans began applying the designation of "empire" to non-European monarchies, such as the Qing Empire and the Mughal Empire, as well as the Maratha Confederacy, eventually leading to the looser denotations applicable to any political structure meeting their criteria of "imperium". Some monarchies styled themselves as having greater size, scope, and power than the territorial, politico-military, and economic facts support. As a consequence, some monarchs assumed the title of "emperor" (or its corresponding translation, tsar, empereur, kaiser, shah etc.) and renamed their states as "The Empire of ..."

Empires were seen as expanding power and administration, and guaranteeing stability, security and legal order for their subjects. They tried to minimize ethnic and religious antagonism inside the empire. Some empires tended to impose their ideas, beliefs and cultural habits on the subject states to strengthen the imperial structure; others opted for multicultural and cosmopolitan policies. Anthony Pagden estimates that most of the early empires were multicultural and attempted to incorporate various groups into some larger cosmopolitan whole. The aristocracies that ruled empires were often more cosmopolitan and broad-minded than their nationalistic successors. Cultures generated by empires could have notable effects that outlasted the empire itself.

In the mid-twentieth century, the word "empire" obtained a negative connotation, viewed as inherently immoral or illegitimate. Traditional or overt empire destroyed and discredited itself in the World Wars. The matters are worse in the German language where empire is "reich" and immediately associates with the Third Reich. For the first time in history, countries which proudly called themselves empires disappeared from the map. The postwar world came under the domination of two superpowers both of which proclaimed themselves to be enemies of empire. The West contained the imperialist East and the East and the South resisted the imperialist West. Imperialism became a cosmopolitan, multi-front battle cry wielding many diverse and distant peoples in fighting a common enemy. As former colonies came to make up the majority of states in the United Nations, "empire" lost all legitimacy in this major international forum. "Any state stupid enough to call itself an empire became subject automatically to UN resolutions on decolonisation."

History

Early empires

Egyptian Empire at its greatest extent.

Achaemenid Empire of Persia at its greatest extent.

Seleucid Empire and Mauryan Empire in 200 BCE. The Seleucid Empire reached its peaked under Antiochus III.

Stephen Howe writes that with the exception of the Roman, Chinese and "perhaps ancient Egyptian states", early empires seldom survived the death of their founder and were usually limited in scope to conquest and collection of tribute, having little impact on the everyday lives of their subjects.

With the exception of Rome, the periods of dissolution following imperial falls were equally short. Successor states seldom outlived their founders and disappeared in the next and often larger empire. Only in the wreckage of the Roman Empire, distinguished Robert G. Wesson, a system of full-fledged nation-states evolved and it took a millennium. "It seems almost impossible for a community of free states to reemerge where a universal empire has once stretched across the land and fixed its ways and symbols of authority." Walter Scheidel also finds Europe exceptional among civilizations which experienced imperial unity because for an entire millennium (between Charlemagne and Napoleon) no single power managed to control more than one-fifth of the region’s population. Some empires, like the Neo-Babylonian, Median and Lydian were outright conquered by a larger empire. The historical pattern was not a simple rise-and-fall cycle; rather it was rise, fall, and greater rise, taking on an increasingly global scale. Raoul Naroll called it "expanding pulsation," Christopher Chase-Dunn "upward sweeps," and Ian Morris "exponential growth."

Empires were limited in scope to conquest, as Howe observed, but conquest is a considerable scope. Many fought to the death to avoid it or to be liberated from it. Imperial conquests and attempts of conquest significantly contributed to the list of wars by death toll. The imperial impact on subjects can be regarded as "little," but only on those subjects who survived the imperial conquest and rule. We cannot ask the inhabitants of Carthage and Masada, for example, whether empire had little impact on their lives. We seldom hear the voices of subject peoples because history is mostly written by winners, that is, by the great empires themselves. The imperial sources tend to ignore or reduce the resistance by subdued states. But two rich primary sources of the subject population are the Hebrew Prophetic books and the Sibylline Oracles. The hatred towards the ruling empires expressed in these sources makes impression of an impact more serious than estimated by Howe. A classical writer and adherent of empire, Orosius explicitly preferred to avoid the views of subject populations. And another classical Roman patriot, Lucan confessed that "words cannot express how bitterly we are hated" by subject peoples. More subject voices were revealed by Historian Timothy H. Parson in his research of seven empires from the perspective of their subjects.

Early empires

The earliest known empire appeared in southern Egypt sometime around 3200 BC. Southern Egypt was divided by three kingdoms each centered on a powerful city. Hierapolis conquered the other two cities over two centuries, and later grew into the country of Egypt.

The Assyrian achievement, however, was short lived. In the 6th century BC, the Median Empire, Babylonians, Scythians, and Cimmerians allied and defeated the Assyrian Empire. The Assyrian capital, Nineveh, was razed by their combined armies in 612 BC. Never again a world leading empire would be centered in a great River Valley. The fall of Nineveh marks the end of the River Valleys age and the beginning of the Axial Age, when the center of power shifted away from the great River Valleys, and empires suddenly became significantly larger. The Median Empire became the first leading empire, the largest of its day, centered beyond River Valleys. This Empire lasted for about sixty years and was conquered by the Persian Empire.

From 1500 BC in China rose the Shang Empire which was succeeded by the Zhou Empire around 1100 BC. Chronologically, the collapse of Shang also coincides with the late Bronze Age collapse. Both Shang and Zhou equalled or surpassed in territory their contemporary Near Eastern empires. The Zhou Empire dissolved in 770 BC into feudal multi-state system which lasted for five and a half centuries until the universal conquest of Qin in 221 BC.

Classical period

See also: Sino-Roman relations

Empires of the Classical period

Roman Empire under Trajan (98–117). This would be the peak of the empire's territorial extent.

Han Empire of China in 2 AD

The Axial Age (mid-First Millennium BC) witnessed unprecedented imperial expansion in the Indo-Mediterranean region and China, distinguished as the most "dramatic" surge in premodern history. The array of successive and parallel empires of the Age makes "bewildering" impression on imperiometric experts. The Axial threshold is remarkable in world history. From 600 BC, the area of the largest empire would never fell below 2.0 million km² (0.77 million sq mi) – a size never reached before 600 BC. The Colonial surge was less exponential. The Axial surge culminated with the Roman, Kushan and Han Empires ruling over as many as two-thirds of all people on Earth, the most extreme ever degree of imperial consolidation. The relative demographic size of the three largest empires in the world was not as massive before and ever since.

The successful and extensive Achaemenid Empire (550–330 BC), also known as the first Persian Empire, covered Mesopotamia, Egypt, parts of Greece, Thrace, the Middle East, much of Central Asia, and North-Western India. It is considered the first great empire in history or the first "world empire". It was overthrown and replaced by the short-lived empire of Alexander the Great. His Empire was succeeded by three Empires ruled by the Diadochi—the Seleucid, Ptolemaic, and Antigonid, which, despite being independent, are called the "Hellenistic Empire" by virtue of their similarities in culture and administration.

Meanwhile, in the western Mediterranean the Empires of Carthage and Rome began their rise. Having decisively defeated Carthage in 202 BC, Rome defeated Macedonia in 200 BC and the Seleucids in 190–189 BC to establish an all-Mediterranean Empire. The Seleucid Empire broke apart and its former eastern part was absorbed by the Parthian Empire. In 30 BC Rome annexed Ptolemaic Egypt.

In India during the Axial Age appeared the Maurya Empire—a geographically extensive and powerful empire, ruled by the Mauryan dynasty from 321 to 185 BC. The empire was founded in 322 BC by Chandragupta Maurya through the help of Chanakya, who rapidly expanded his power westward across central and western India, taking advantage of the disruptions of local powers following the withdrawal by Alexander the Great. By 320 BC, the Maurya Empire had fully occupied northwestern India as well as defeating and conquering the satraps left by Alexander. Under Emperor Ashoka the Great, the Maurya Empire became the first Indian empire to conquer the whole Indian Peninsula — an achievement repeated only twice, by the Gupta and Mughal Empires. In the reign of Ashoka Buddhism spread to become the dominant religion in many parts of the ancient India.

In 221 BC, China became an empire when the State of Qin ended the chaotic Warring States period through its conquest of the other six states, starting the Qin Empire (221–207 BC). Its sovereign adopted the new title of Huangdi (皇帝), which is translated in English as "Emperor". The Qin Empire is known for the construction of the Great Wall of China and the Terracotta Army, as well as the standardization of currency, weights, measures and writing system. It laid the foundation for China's first golden age, the Han dynasty (202 BC–AD 9, AD 25–220). The Han Empire expanded into Central Asia and established trade through the Silk Road. Confucianism was, for the first time, adopted as an official state ideology. During the reign of the Emperor Wu of Han (156–87 BC), the Xiongnu were pacified. In the first two centuries of the Common Era, only four empires stretched between the Pacific and the Atlantic: the Han Empire of China, the Kushan Empire, the Parthian Empire of Persia, and the Roman Empire. The collapse of the Han Empire in AD 220 saw China fragmented into the Three Kingdoms, only to be unified once again by the Jin Empire (AD 266–420). The relative weakness of the Jin Empire plunged China into political disunity that would last from AD 304 to AD 589 when the Sui Empire (AD 581–618) reunited China.

The Romans were the first people to invent and embody the concept of "empire" in their two mandates: to wage war and to make and execute laws. They were the most extensive Western empire until the early modern period, and left a lasting impact on European society. Many languages, cultural values, religious institutions, political divisions, urban centers, and legal systems can trace their origins to the Roman Empire. The Roman Empire governed and rested on exploitative actions. They took slaves and money from the peripheries to support the imperial center. However, the absolute reliance on conquered peoples to carry out the empire's fortune, sustain wealth, and fight wars would ultimately lead to the collapse of the Roman Empire. The Romans were strong believers in what a later imperial age called their "civilizing mission". This term was legitimized and justified by writers like Cicero who wrote that only under Roman rule could the world flourish and prosper. This ideology, that was envisioned to bring a new world order, was eventually spread across the Mediterranean world and beyond. People started to build houses like Romans, eat the same food, wear the same clothes and engage in the same games. Even rights of citizenship and authority to rule were granted to people not born within Roman territory.

The Latin word imperium derives from imperare, meaning "to command", and originally referred to a magistrate's authority (usually in a military sense). As the Roman state expanded overseas, the term began to be used to describe Rome's authority over its colonies and client states. Successful generals were often given the title imperator, an honorific roughly meaning "commander". Although historians use the terms "Republic" and "Empire" to identify the periods of Roman history before and after absolute power was assumed by Augustus, the Romans themselves continued to refer to their government as the Res publica, meaning "public affair". On the other hand, the concept of imperium Romanum, as in, the authority of the Romans, is attested since the 2nd century BC. The modern concepts of "Empire" and "Emperor" did not appear until several centuries later, long after the fall of Rome in the West. Augustus established a new de facto monarchy, but sought to maintain the appearance of a republican government. He and his early successors used the informal titles of augustus and princeps, but over time the title of imperator came to denote the office of (what is now referred to as) "emperor".

The Roman Catholic Church, founded in the early Imperial Period, spread across Europe, first by the activities of Christian evangelists, and later by official imperial promulgation. The legal systems of France and its former colonies are strongly influenced by Roman law. Similarly, the United States was founded on a model inspired by the Roman Republic, with upper and lower legislative assemblies, and executive power vested in a single individual, the president. The president, as "commander-in-chief" of the armed forces, reflects the ancient Roman titles imperator princeps. Since 2002, all the world is divided between US "commands" literally reflecting Roman imperia.

Post-classical period

Empires of the Post-classical period

Byzantine Empire in 555

The Sasanian Empire at its greatest extent in c. 620 under Khosrow II

The extent of the Umayyad Caliphate in 750

The territory directly held by the Tang Empire of China in 700 AD

Chola Empire c.1030

Mongol Empire in the 13th century

The Delhi Sultanate in the Indian subcontinent at its greatest extent in 1335

The Egyptian Mamluk Empire at its greatest extent in 1317

Bulgarian Empire in 850

The fall of Rome looms large in the Eurocentric view of history but it did not alter the general imperial trend and the rest of Eurasia does not fit the "Middle Ages" of the Eurocentric periodization. Far from a graveyard of empires, the new age is marked by vibrant imperial formations continuing the earlier imperial impulse undimmed. Empires continued to establish new records, albeit with longer intervals, and some experienced Golden Ages. China reunified by the 6th century and under the Tang dynasty pushed into Central Asia. In the 8th century, the Caliphate became the largest so far empire in area. The Caliphate and China crossed the whole Old World from the Atlantic to the Pacific. In the 9th century, China under the Song dynasty established the all-time record in the share of world population (38%). And in the 13th century, the Mongols created the largest ever contigous empire. The two last records still hold.

In West Asia, the term "Persian Empire" came to denote the Iranian imperial states established in the pre–Islamic and, beginning with the Safavid Empire, modern Persia. In the 7th century, the Arab Empire was established by Muhammad, the founder of Islam. Over the next century, in one of the fastest and vastest expansions in history, his Empire conquered Persia and expanded on three continents (Asia, Africa, and Europe). At their height, under the Umayyad Caliphate, the territory that was conquered by the Arab Empire stretched from Iberia (at the Pyrenees) in the west to India (at Sind) in the east. In 751 AD, the Arab and Chinese Empires clashed in the Battle of Talas.

In East Asia, various Chinese empires (or dynasties) dominated the political, economic and cultural landscapes during this era, the most powerful of which was probably the Tang Empire (618–690, 705–907). Other influential Chinese empires during the post-classical period include the Sui Empire (581–618), the Great Liao Empire, the Song Empire, the Western Xia Empire (1038–1227), the Great Jin Empire (1115–1234), the Western Liao Empire (1124–1218), the Great Yuan Empire (1271–1368), and the Great Ming Empire (1368–1644). During this period, Japan and Korea underwent voluntary Sinicization. The Sui, Tang and Song empires had the world's largest economy and were the most technologically advanced during their time. The Song population reached 125 million in 1125, representing 38% of a world population – the largest percentage any empire has ever reached. The Great Yuan Empire was the world's ninth largest empire by total land area; while the Great Ming Empire is famous for the seven maritime expeditions led by Zheng He.

Around the 6th century, the Yamato clan set up Japan's first empire and first and only dynasty. During the next two centuries, Japan's kingdoms and tribes came to be unified under this dynasty. The Japanese emperor adopted the Chinese title Son of Heaven. Emperor Kinmei (509–571) is considered the first historically verifiable Japanese emperor. The Japanese imperial dynasty continues to this day, albeit in an almost entirely ceremonial role, and represents the oldest continuous hereditary monarchy in the world.

The Ajuran Sultanate was a Somali empire in the medieval times that dominated the Indian Ocean trade. It was a Somali Muslim sultanate that ruled over large parts of the Horn of Africa in the Middle Ages. Through a strong centralized administration and an aggressive military stance towards invaders, the Ajuran Sultanate successfully resisted an Oromo invasion from the west and a Portuguese incursion from the east during the Gaal Madow and the Ajuran-Portuguese wars. Trading routes dating from the ancient and early medieval periods of Somali maritime enterprise were strengthened or re-established, and foreign trade and commerce in the coastal provinces flourished with ships sailing to and coming from many kingdoms and empires in East Asia, South Asia, Southeast Asia, Europe, Middle East, North Africa and East Africa.

In the 7th century, Maritime Southeast Asia witnessed the rise of a Buddhist thallasocracy, the Srivijaya Empire, which thrived for 600 years and was succeeded by the Hindu-Buddhist Majapahit Empire that ruled from the 13th to 15th centuries. In the Southeast Asian mainland, the Hindu-Buddhist Khmer Empire was centered in the city of Angkor and flourished from the 9th to 13th centuries. Following the demise of the Khmer Empire, the Siamese Empire flourished alongside the Burmese and Lan Chang Empires from the 13th through the 18th centuries.

In Southeastern and Eastern Europe, during 917, the Eastern Roman Empire, sometimes called the Byzantine Empire, was forced to recognize the Imperial title of Bulgarian ruler Simeon the Great, who were then called Tsar, the first ruler to hold that precise imperial title. The Bulgarian Empire, established in the region in 680–681, remained a major power in Southeast Europe until its fall in the late 14th century. Bulgaria gradually reached its cultural and territorial apogee in the 9th century and early 10th century under Prince Boris I and Simeon I, when it became one of the largest states in Europe. This period is considered the Golden Age of medieval Bulgarian culture.

At the time, in the Medieval West, the title "empire" had a specific technical meaning that was exclusively applied to states that considered themselves the heirs and successors of the Roman Empire. Among these were the "Byzantine Empire", which was the actual continuation of the Eastern portion of the Roman Empire, the Carolingian Empire, the largely Germanic Holy Roman Empire, and the Russian Empire. Yet, these states did not always fit the geographic, political, or military profiles of empires in the modern sense of the word. To legitimise their imperium, these states directly claimed the title of Empire from Rome. Both German Kaiser and Russian Tsar derive from Caesar. In its peak under Charlemagne (748-814), the Carolingian Empire remained modest compared to the contemporary Caliphate or Song – "lots of Charles but little of magnum." The sacrum Romanum imperium (Holy Roman Empire), which lasted from 800 to 1806, claimed to have exclusively comprehended Christian principalities, and was only nominally a discrete imperial state. The Holy Roman Empire was not always centrally-governed, as it had neither core nor peripheral territories, and was not governed by a central, politico-military elite. Hence, Voltaire's remark that the Holy Roman Empire "was neither holy, nor Roman, nor an empire" is accurate to the degree that it ignores German rule over Italian, French, Provençal, Polish, Flemish, Dutch, and Bohemian populations, and the efforts of the ninth-century Holy Roman Emperors (i.e., the Ottonians) to establish central control. Voltaire's "nor an empire" observation applies to its late period.

In the thirteenth century, Genghis Khan expanded the Mongol Empire to be the largest contiguous empire in the world history. It traversed nine modern time zones. For the first time, all of the major regional powers of Eurasia were integrated into a single geopolitical space. Nikolay Kradin calls the phenomenon "medieval globalization." However, within two generations, the empire was separated into four discrete khanates under Genghis Khan's grandsons. One of them, Kublai Khan, conquered China and established the Yuan dynasty with the imperial capital at Beijing. One family ruled the whole Eurasian land mass from the Pacific to the Adriatic and Baltic Seas. The emergence of the Pax Mongolica had significantly eased trade and commerce across Asia.

In 1204, after the Fourth Crusade conquered Constantinople, the crusaders established a Latin Empire (1204–1261) in that city, while the defeated Byzantine Empire's descendants established two smaller, short-lived empires in Asia Minor: the Empire of Nicaea (1204–1261) and the Empire of Trebizond (1204–1461). Constantinople was retaken in 1261 by the Byzantine successor state centered in Nicaea, re-establishing the Byzantine Empire until 1453, by which time the Turkish-Muslim Ottoman Empire (ca. 1300–1918), had conquered most of the region. The Ottoman Empire was a successor of the Abbasid Empire and one of the most powerful empires in the world. Centered on modern day Turkey, the Ottoman Empire overthrew the Byzantine Empire and dominated the eastern Mediterranean, battering at Austria and Malta, key geographical locations to central and south-west Europe respectively.

This was not just a rivalry of East and West but a rivalry between Christians and Muslims. Both the Christians and Muslims had alliances with other countries. The flows of trade and of cultural influences across the supposed great divide never ceased, so the countries never stopped bartering with each other. These epochal clashes between civilizations profoundly shaped many people's thinking back then, and continues to do so in the present day. Modern hatred against Muslim communities in South-Eastern Europe, mainly in Bosnia and Kosovo, has often been articulated in terms of seeing them as unwelcome residues of this imperialism: in short, as Turks.

Early Modern period

Early Modern Empires

The three Muslim Gunpowder empires: Mughals, Safavids, and Ottomans in 17th century

The Ming Empire of China in 1550

The Islamic gunpowder empires started to develop from the 15th century. In the Indian subcontinent, the Delhi Sultanate conquered most of the Indian peninsula and spread Islam across it. It later disintegrated with the establishment of the Bengal, Gujarat, and Bahmani Sultanate. In the 16th century, the Mughal Empire was founded by Timur and Genghis Khan's direct descendant Babur. His successors such Humayun, Akbar, Jahangir and Shah Jahan extended the empire. In the 17th century, Aurangzeb expanded the Mughal Empire over most of the South Asia and imposed Sharia. The Mughal Empire became the world's largest economy and leading manufacturing power with a nominal GDP that valued a quarter of world GDP, superior than the combination of Europe's GDP. It has been estimated that the Mughal emperors controlled an unprecedented one-fourth of the world's entire economy and was home to one-fourth of the world's population at the time. After the death of Aurangzeb, which marks the end of the medieval India and the beginning of European invasion in India, the empire was weakened by Nader Shah's invasion. The Mysore Empire was established by Hyder Ali and Tipu Sultan, who allied with Napoleon Bonaparte. Other independent empires were also established, such as those ruled by the Nawabs of Bengal and Nizam of Hyderabad.

In the pre-Columbian Americas, two Empires were prominent—the Azteca in Mesoamerica and Inca in Peru. Both existed for several generations before the arrival of the Europeans. Inca had gradually conquered the whole of the settled Andean world as far south as today Santiago in Chile. In Oceania, the Tonga Empire was a lonely empire that existed from the Late Middle Ages to the Modern period.

Colonial empires

Main article: Colonial empire

All areas of the world that were once part of the Portuguese Empire. The Portuguese established in the early 16th century together with the Spanish Empire the first global empire and trade network.

Beginning in the 15th century, a number of west European countries reached and colonized overseas regions across the globe. Ushering the Age of Discovery, the imperial expansion advanced to a new global scale. The extensive overseas expansion, particularly in the South Asia and Americas by the Portuguese and Spanish, later joined by the English, French and Dutch, created empires on which the Sun never sets. The global scale is one of main distinctions between the colonial and traditional land empires. Colonial empires were a transformative period in world history when previously isolated parts of the world became connected to form one world system. They laid the groundwork for globalization, and set human history on the global common course. For this reason, Adam Smith in 1776 named the voyages of Columbus and Vasco da Gama "the two greatest and most important events recorded in the history of mankind."

The Portuguese Empire colonized vast portions of the Americas, Africa, Asia and Oceania to become one of the most powerful empires of the period, the longest-lived colonial empire in European history, and one of the largest empires in history. The Spanish Empire expanded over the same continents as well as in Europe, exceeding the Portuguese rival in size and, among colonial empires, remaining second only to Britain.

Diachronic map of the main empires of the modern era (1492–1945)

Empires of the Modern period

Red shows self-governing North American British colonies and pink shows claimed and largely indirectly controlled territories in 1775.

Ottoman Empire at its greatest extent

Spanish–Portuguese Empire of the Iberian Union (1580–1640) was the first global imperial entity. The map includes all Spanish territories, but only territories Portugal had during the Iberian Union.

The map includes Napoleon's First French empire with its colonial ownership in 1812. Napoleon's rule over Europe led to massive changes not only in Europe but across the world.

Russian Empire in 1866 became the second largest contiguous empire to have ever existed. The Russian Federation is currently the largest state on the planet.

In 1920, the British Empire was the largest empire in history.

Evolution of the French Empire in the 16th to the 20th century. In 1920, the French colonial empire was the second largest empire in the world.

Italian Empire in 1942

The Qing Empire reached its territorial peak in 1760.

19th to 20th century Empire of Japan at its maximum extent, 1942

The British Empire established an absolute imperial record in size and, for a century, was the foremost global power. The British established their first empire (1583–1783) in North America by colonising lands that made up British America, including parts of Canada, the Caribbean and the Thirteen Colonies. In 1776, the Continental Congress of the Thirteen Colonies declared itself independent from the British Empire, thus beginning the American Revolution. Britain turned towards Asia, the Pacific, and later Africa, with subsequent exploration and conquests leading to the rise of the Second British Empire (1783–1815), which was followed by the Industrial Revolution and Britain's Imperial Century (1815–1914). It became the largest empire in world history, encompassing one quarter of the world's land area and one fifth of its population. The impacts of this period are still prominent in the current age "including widespread use of the English language, belief in Protestant religion, economic globalization, modern precepts of law and order, and representative democracy."

In India, Britain confronted the Sikh Empire (1799–1849) in the Punjab region. Weakened by the death of its founder, Ranjit Singh, in 1839, the empire fell to the British after the Second Anglo-Sikh War in 1849. During the same period, the Maratha Empire (also known as the Maratha Confederacy) was a Hindu state located in present-day India. It existed from 1674 to 1818, and at its peak, the empire's territories covered much of Southern Asia. The empire was founded and consolidated by Shivaji. After the death of Mughal Emperor Aurangzeb, it expanded greatly under the rule of the Peshwas. In 1761, the Maratha army lost the Third Battle of Panipat, which halted the expansion of the empire. Later, the empire was divided into a confederacy of states which, in 1818, were lost to the British during the Anglo-Maratha wars.

France was a dominant empire possessing many colonies in various locations around the world. During Louis XIV's long reign, from 1643 to 1715, France was Europe's most populous, richest and powerful country. From the 16th to the 17th centuries, the First French colonial empire’s total area at its peak in 1680 was over 10 million km² (3.9 million sq mi), the second largest empire in the world at the time behind only the Spanish Empire. It had many possessions around the world, mainly in the Americas, Asia and Africa. At its peak in 1750, French India had an area of 1.5 million km² and a total population of 100 million people and was the most populous colony under French rule. The Napoleonic Empire (1804–1814) conquered much of the continental Europe. It ruled over 90 million people and was the leading world power of the time. In the 19th and 20th centuries, the colonial empire of France was the second largest in the world behind the British Empire. The French colonial empire extended over 13.5 million km² (5.2 million sq mi) of land at its height in the 1920s and 1930s with a totaled population of 150 million people. Including metropolitan France, the total amount of land under French sovereignty reached 13.5 million km² (5.2 million sq mi) at the time, which is 10.0% of the Earth's total land area. The total area of the French colonial empire, with the first (mainly in the Americas and Asia) and second (mainly in Africa and Asia), the French colonial empires combined, reached 24 million km² (9.3 million sq mi), the second largest in the world (the first being the British Empire).

The Empire of Brazil (1822–1889) was the only South American modern monarchy, established by the heir of the Portuguese Empire as an independent nation eventually became an emerging international power. The new country was huge but sparsely populated and ethnically diverse. In 1889 the monarchy was overthrown in a sudden coup d'état led by a clique of military leaders whose goal was the formation of a republic.

Late modern period

Beginning around 1760, the New Imperialism or Age of Imperialism characterizes a period of colonial expansion by European powers, the United States and Japan. Though the American Revolutionary War (1775–1783) and the collapse of the Spanish Empire in Latin America in the 1820s ended the first era of European colonialism, the period featured an unprecedented pursuit of overseas territorial acquisitions. At the time, states focused on building their empires with new technological advances and developments. During the era of New Imperialism, the European powers and Japan conquered almost all of Africa and most of Asia. The new wave of imperialism reflected ongoing imperial rivalries, their imperial ambitions, and a "civilizing mission".

With the collapse of the Holy Roman Empire in 1806 during the Napoleonic Wars (1803–1815), the Austrian Empire (1804–1867) emerged reconstituted as the Empire of Austria-Hungary (1867–1918) and claimed to "inherite" the imperium of Central and Western Europe. Another "heir to the Holy Roman Empire", was the German Empire (1871–1918).

Over the course of the Scramble for Africa (1870-1914), European empires separated between themselves almost all the continent. Symbolized by the Pink Map, the Portuguese claimed sovereignty over a wide land corridor stretching between the Atlantic shore of Angola and Indian shore of Mozambique. This led to the 1890 British Ultimatum as Britain aimed to establish their own and longer corridor from Egypt to South Africa. In the clash of the corridors, the British prevailed.

The Spanish–American War of 1898 and the Russo-Japanese War of 1904–05 signaled the advent of new extra-European empires, the United States and Japan respectively. The two events marked the closure of the "imperial belt"—belt of great empires stretching from west to east. Originally formed in the Old World during the Axial Age along the Silk Road, this belt shifted northward during the medieval period due to climatic change, penetrated to North America in the colonial period, and "closed" in the Far East c.1900. The history of empires ceased being eurocentric. The attack on Pearl Harbor symbolized the fact that two non-European empires clashed on the opposite side of the globe to Europe.

Though seldom viewed through an imperial lens, the World Wars were imperial wars. All great powers which waged both World Wars were empires fighting for their survival or expansion. The alliances and rivalries that brought about World War I were inter-imperial. The empires that came to an end after this War did not die a natural death as an intrinsically anachronistic organizations; their demise was the consequence of the "clash of empires" in which stronger empires won, added colonies and introduced "mandate." No victorious empire dissolved. Colonial expansion reached its zenith during the interwar period, when, including the sphere under the Monroe Doctrine, 85% of the earth dry land came under an imperial system. Imperial continuity, transformation and invention characterize the two decades after the enunciation of the doctrine of self-determination. The world order of this time remained an imperial one. In his magnum opus Sources of Social Power, Michael Mann titled the chapter on World War II "The last interimperial war," where he concluded that European and Japanese imperialism was the deeper cause of the War. On January 18, 1942, the Axis powers agreed to divide up Eurasia along the 70th meridian east envisioning "two large imperial blocs." The Axis lost and instead of the 70 meridian the frontier between the two remaining imperial blocs was fixed on the Fulda Gap.

In view of Richard Overy, the origins of both World Wars can only be understood through the prism of the fresh drive to empire since the 1870s. He regards both Wars as one Thirty Year War caused by that imperial surge. The concept of Second Thirty Years' War is notable and was shared by Churchill and de Gaulle. According to them, paraphrasing Carl von Clausewitz, World War II was continuation of World War I with the same means. This concept was suppressed in both Western and Soviet historiography because it heavily shares the Axis "guilt of war" between all contemporary empires.

The world political map was completed c.1900 leaving no sovereign void and with empires ruling over four-fifth of the world. A contemporary observer, Max Weber, generalized that great empires claim spheres of interest over a wide orbit and in the 1900s "such orbits encompass the whole surface of the planet." Many scholars suppose that the end of the overseas space for imperial expansion contributed to the intensity of the World Wars if not was their main factor (chapter "Circumscription theory" below). According to one thesis, the overseas world provided European empires with an enormous outlet and thus prevented Europe from unifying into a single European empire. The European powers turned their exceeding energies outward and the internal European power was balanced. Correspondingly, the thesis continues, when the space for expansion ended, the empires became destined for head-on collisions, as reflected in the anxious, claustrophobic mood of the Fin de siècle. This was the time when the theory of lebensraum developed and the term geopolitics was coined to designate a new science, accompanied by an avalanche of literature envisaging war. Volk ohne Raum (A People without Space) by the former colonist Hans Grimm (1926) sold nearly 700,000 copies. “Raving maniacs, described Halford Mackinder the opponents of his Empire, suffering from global claustrophobia.”

Furthermore, the global closure coincided with unprecedented technological advances in weapons now produced on the industrial scale. The same year (1904), Mackinder outlined the global closure and Henry Brooks Adams the law of acceleration in technological progress and production. These factors caused a "clash of empires" of epic proportions, as vividly described by its famous participant:

And the first gust of wind swept across Europe grown nervous. The time that now followed lay in the chests of men like a heavy nightmare... And then the first mighty lightening flash struck the earth ... and with the thunder of heaven there mingled the roar of World War batteries... The fight for freedom has began mightier than the Earth has ever seen.

The Ottoman, Austrian, German and Russian Empires were defeated in the First World War, though the two latter Empires soon reappeared in their Nazi and Soviet forms. The German (once again), Italian and Japanese Empires were defeated in the Second World War. Weakened by the same War, the rest of the European Empires underwent decolonization. The Soviet Empire collapsed in 1989-1991. The United States remained the only superpower, but whether its foreign policy qualifies as imperial is debatable (chapters "Contemporary usage" and 'Present" below).

Egyptologist Barry Kemp developed a "basic model" of imperial evolution. At the start, according to the model, we have a number of roughly equal players. The game inexorably follows a trajectory toward a critical point when one player accumulated sufficient power to outweigh other players and becomes unstoppable. Imagining an imperial game of this kind outlines the "essence of the basic process at work in history." Kemp specialized on the Bronze Age and by accident published his game theory in 1989, the moment before modern empires completed his "basic process."

Historian Max Ostrovsky, specializing in world history, explicitly applied Kemp's game analogy to modern empires. The global closure c.1900 marks the point when empires ended their "regular season" and entered "play-offs." The knock-out tournament began with "wild card playoff" (First World War), proceeded with "breath-stopping series of quarterfinals and semifinals" (Second World War), and "culminated with a deadly boring final that went into triple overtime until the Soviets scored a golden own goal."

Fall of empires

Roman Empire

Further information: Fall of the Western Roman Empire

The fall of the western half of the Roman Empire is seen as one of the most pivotal points in all of human history. This event traditionally marks the transition from classical civilization to the birth of Europe. The Roman Empire started to decline at the end of the reign of the last of the Five Good Emperors, Marcus Aurelius in 161–180 A.D. There is still a debate over the cause of the fall of one of the largest empires in history. Historian André Piganiol argues that the Roman Empire under its authority can be described as "a period of terror", holding its imperial system accountable for its failure. Another theory blames the rise of Christianity as the cause, arguing that the spread of certain Christian ideals caused internal weakness of the military and state. In his book The Fall of the Roman Empire, historian Peter Heather contends that there were many factors, including issues of money and manpower, which produced military limitations and culminated in the Roman army's inability to effectively repel invading barbarians at the frontier.

An empire can fall for many reasons. However, why the fall of the Roman Empire was fatal, and why the post-classical Europe never repeated its ancient unity, is a completely different question. Eurocentrism in the Roman case led to the theory of inevitable imperial fall and Western declinism in imperiology, which remains the only widely believed case of historical inevitability. To describe any polity as an empire is usually to damn it as doomed to disappear, usually due to imperial overstretch. Comparative history, however, alters the Eurocentric theory. The Chinese Empire rose synchronously with Rome and never fell. More precisely, China underwent several disintegrations but each time reunified and each time faster.

Decolonization

Main article: Decolonization

After 1945, the Empire of Japan retained its Emperor but lost its colonial possessions and became the State of Japan. Despite the semantic reference to imperial power, Japan is a de jure constitutional monarchy, with a homogeneous population of 127 million people that is 98.5 percent ethnic Japanese, making it one of the largest nation-states.

Transition from empire

Originally imperial cores, Wessex, the Capetian Île-de-France, Aragon and Castile, Sardinia, Prussia, and Muscovy merged with their imperial peripheries to form the states of England, France, Spain, Italy, Germany, and Russia respectively. Many "nation-states" of today, including "the most talked-about model of the nation-state" (France), were originally formed as empires. "The later ideology of nationalism of course disguises this unpalatable fact, just as it exhibits amnesia about many other aspects of the violent origins of nations."

Earlier, Narmer, Yamato, and Qin established empires which evolved into states of Egypt, Japan, and China. These states count millennia. Sociologists of empires, noted Krishan Kumar, have tended to ignore China because it does not fit neatly into their concept of imperial duration and ethnic composition. "If there is a successful imposition of the dominant system, the resultant elimination of differences produces a unified 'national' state rather than empire." All empires were temporary organizations but not all empires fell. The paradigm "all empires fall" is politically correct and historically wrong. However, according to Robert Conquest, deep historical analysis in the case is overshadowed by the popular wish of the US decline. Breaking the law of imperial fall means giving the United States a chance.

Contemporary usage

Further information: Imperialism

In "Prolegomena" to the 2021 two-volumes Oxford World History of Empire, editor Peter Fibiger Bang stated that humanity has moved beyond the postcolonial moment and imperialism has resurfaced as a global force. Although anti-imperialist in rhetoric, the leading military powers of today—the United States, China, and Russia—pursue imperial policies. In the "Epilogue" of this compilation Frederick Cooper added that the United States developed and maintains a form of imperial reach, now in competition with another imperial power of China, while the Russian Empire has reappeared in yet another transmutation on its Eurasian space. One year after the volumes went into press, Russia boldly confirmed these statements for itself. Having listed the United States, China, Russia, Israel, and ISIS as his examples of the contemporary imperial phenomena, John M. MacKenzie concludes: "What is incontrovertible is that empires are vital to an understanding not only of human history, but also of the world we live in now." Sandra Halperin and Ronen Palan claim a significant imperial dimension in the contemporary political landscape and challenge the common assumption that nation states have displaced empires. Despite the official definition of empire as illegitimate, Cooper draws his conclusion, it is premature to tell whether we have mastered the skills of turning empire into new forms of political organization. Krishan Kumar explained what in his view means the end of empire. What disappeared in the 20th century is the name "empire," no state calls itself "empire." Meanwhile the phenomenon of empire continues under other names and produces a world significantly different from a theoretical world of equal states. Paraphrasing Mark Twain and William Faulkner, he suggested that rumours of empires' death are greatly exaggerated and their "past is never dead; it is not even past."

United States

Further information: American imperialism

Contemporaneously, the concept of empire is politically valid, yet is not always used in the traditional sense. One of the most widely discussed cases is the United States. Characterizing aspects of the US in regards to its territorial expansion, foreign policy, and its international behavior as "American Empire" is common. The term "American Empire" refers to the United States' cultural ideologies and foreign policy strategies. The term is most commonly used to describe the U.S.'s status since the 20th century, but it can also be applied to the United States' world standing before the rise of nationalism in the 20th century. The US itself was at one point a colony in the British Empire. Thomas Jefferson used the term "Empire of Liberty" and argued that "no constitution was ever before so well calculated as ours for extensive empire & self government". Jefferson in the 1780s while awaiting the fall of the Spanish empire, said: "till our population can be sufficiently advanced to gain it from them piece by piece".

Even so, the ideology that the US was founded on anti-imperialist principles has prevented many from acknowledging America's status as an empire. This active rejection of imperialist status is not limited to high-ranking government officials, as it has been ingrained in American society throughout its entire history. As David Ludden explains, "journalists, scholars, teachers, students, analysts, and politicians prefer to depict the U.S. as a nation pursuing its own interests and ideals". This often results in imperialist endeavors being presented as measures taken to enhance state security. Ludden explains this phenomenon with the concept of "ideological blinders", which he says prevent American citizens from realizing the true nature of America's current systems and strategies. These "ideological blinders" that people wear have resulted in an "invisible" American empire of which most American citizens are unaware. Besides its anti-imperialist principles, the United States is not traditionally recognized as an empire, because the U.S. adopted a different political system from those that previous empires had used.

Despite the anti-imperial ideology and systematic differences, the political objectives and strategies of the United States government have been quite similar to those of previous empires and so similar to Rome that the comparison between the two turned into cliché. In fact, the "unipolar moment" was followed by a so-called "imperial turn" in the academic research meaning increased interest in the study of empires. During the war on terror, the number of publications related to empire has increased exponentially, with reviewers complaining that they cannot keep the pace. In 2005, two notable Journals, History and Theory and Daedalus, devoted a special issue to empires. Reflecting the popularity of the theme, Sinologist Yuri Pines coined the term "comparative imperiology."

Throughout the 19th century, the United States government attempted to expand its territory by any means necessary. Regardless of the supposed motivation for this constant expansion, all of these land acquisitions were carried out by imperialistic means. This was done by financial means in some cases, and by military force in others. Most notably, the Louisiana Purchase (1803), the Texas Annexation (1845), and the Mexican Cession (1848) highlight the imperialistic goals of the United States during this "modern period" of imperialism. The U.S. government has stopped adding additional territories, where they permanently and politically take over since the early 20th century, and instead have established 800 military bases as their outposts. With this overt but subtle military control of other countries, scholars consider U.S. foreign policy strategies to be imperialistic. Academic Krishna Kumar argues that the distinct principles of nationalism and imperialism may result in common practice; that is, the pursuit of nationalism can often coincide with the pursuit of imperialism in terms of strategy and decision making. Stuart Creighton Miller posits that the public's sense of innocence about Realpolitik (politics based on practical considerations, rather than ideals) impacts popular recognition of US imperial conduct since it governed other countries via surrogates. These surrogates were domestically weak, right-wing governments that would collapse without US support.

Former President George W. Bush's Secretary of Defense, Donald Rumsfeld, said: "We don't seek empires. We're not imperialistic; we never have been", a statement made in reference to accusations of imperialism due to the Iraq War. With the 2003 invasion of Iraq underway, historian Sidney Lens argued that, from its inception, the US has used every means available to dominate foreign peoples and states. Another historian, John Darwin, emphasized that, synchronously with decolonization, proceeded the bipolar empire-building. Two great imperial systems, the United States and the Soviet Union, struggled to contain each other’s expansion. After 1990, the United States became "the only world empire." The Second World War, according to Michael Mann, hastened on the end of Eurasian empires as well as a triumph of the "American global empire." While defeating and containing Eurasian empires and encouraging the liquidation of Colonial empires, the United States built another one—"and not just any empire, but a globe-spanning leviathan." Finding the phenomenon ethically disappointing, Ethicist Gary Dorrien stated that the United States since 1989 has wielded a "new kind of world empire" that overshadows all former colonial empires. The decolonized zones were not left with imperial vacuum. The United States appeared operating in areas that derive from the Spanish, Ottoman, British, French, and Soviet Empires. Eliot A. Cohen suggested: "The Age of Empire may indeed have ended, but then an age of American hegemony has begun, regardless of what one calls it." Some scholars, such as Sebastian Huhnholz, Dimitri Simes and Clyde V. Prestowitz, did not engage with the question on what to call American hegemony, instead presenting variations of the phrase "When it walks like a duck, talks like a duck, it's a duck."

European Union

Since the European Union was formed as a polity in 1993, it has established its own currency, its own citizenship, established discrete military forces, and exercises its limited hegemony in the Mediterranean, eastern parts of Europe, Sub-Saharan Africa, and Asia. The big size and high development index of the EU economy often has the ability to influence global trade regulations in its favor. The political scientist Jan Zielonka suggests that this behavior is imperial because it coerces its neighbouring countries into adopting its European economic, legal, and political structures. Tony Benn, a left-wing Labour Party MP of the United Kingdom, opposed the European integration policies of the European Union by saying, "I think they're (the European Union) building an empire there, they want us (the United Kingdom) to be a part of their empire and I don't want that."

Russia

In the aftermath of the annexation of Crimea, political scientist Agnia Grigas argued that Moscow pursues the policy of "reimperialization." Two days after the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine, a historian specializing on empires, Niall Ferguson, interpreted the policy of Putin as an attempt to bring back the tsarist Russian Empire. By this time, the "neo-imperialism," or "neo-imperial ambitions" of Russia became widely claimed. When Vladimir Putin denies the reality of the Ukrainian state, argues another historian of empires Timothy Snyder, he is speaking the familiar language of empire. For five hundred years, European conquerors saw themselves as actors with purpose, and the colonized as instruments to realize the imperial vision.

Vladimir Putin himself used to state: "For Russia to survive, it must remain an empire." In June 2022, on the 350 anniversary of the birth of the 18th-century Russian tsar Peter the Great, Putin has compared himself to him associating their twin historic quests to win back Russian lands. For critics this association implied that Putin's "complaints about historical injustice, eastward NATO expansion, and other grievances with the west were all a façade for a traditional war of conquest" and imperialism. "After months of denials that Russia is driven by imperial ambitions in Ukraine, Putin appeared to embrace that mission." On the same occasion, Mykhailo Podolyak, an adviser to the Ukrainian government, suggested Russia's "de-imperialization," instead of Russia's official war aim of "de-Nazification" of Ukraine.

Later that year, Anne Applebaum approached the new Russian Empire as a fact and opined that this Empire must be defeated. Other pundits described the new Russian Empire as a failed attempt because Russia failed to annex the whole of Ukraine.

Theoretical research

Empire versus nation state

Empires can be traced as far back as the recorded history goes and have been the dominant international organization in world history until the 20th century to the least. Yet a century ago, most of the world was ruled by persons who proudly proclaimed themselves Emperors and were proud of their Empires. Of the great powers, only the United States and France were republics. In his textbook on empires, Michael Doyle observed:

Empires have been the key actors in world politics for millennia. They helped create the interdependent civilizations of all the continents ... Imperial control stretches through history, many say, to the present day. Empires are as old as history itself ... They have held the leading role ever since.

Many empires endured for centuries, while the age of the ancient Egyptian, Chinese and Japanese Empires is counted in millennia. Most people throughout history have lived under imperial rule. Despite "efforts in words and wars to put national unity at the center of political imagination, imperial politics, imperial practices, and imperial cultures have shaped the world we live in."

Looking at a time frame of several millennia prior to the emergence of a global system, Robert Gilpin, Daniel Deudney and John Ikenberry observed that all pre-modern regional systems were initially anarchic and marked by high levels of military competition. But almost universally, they tended to consolidate into universal empires. For millennia, this propensity was the principal feature of pre-modern politics. pointing to a fundamental political dynamic.

This dynamic, according to Niall Ferguson, Ikenberry and Deudney, is obscured by our fixation on the Westphalian state. Within the macrohistoric trend, however, European political order was distinctly anomalous because it persisted so long as an anarchy. By comparisons of Jane Burbank, Frederick Cooper and Ferguson, nation-state appears as a "historical novelty" or a "blip on the historical horizon," that "emerged recently from under imperial skies" and whose hold may well prove "ephemeral." Moreover, the consolidations of European states proceeded synchronously with their imperial expansions worldwide. "Ironically, it was the European empires that carried the idea of the sovereign territorial state to the rest of the world..."

Puzzled why there is no non-Western IR theory, Amitav Acharya and Barry Buzan sought to apply the discipline to other Asian civilizations. They found the discipline, created in modern Europe, hardly applicabe for the civilizations they selected. Instead of anarchy, international relations appeared usually fixed by the imperial center. A later attempt of Bridging Two Worlds aimed to introduce insights from early China and India into their present dialogue for deeper mutual understanding, appreciation and friendship. The project’s goals are laudable, reviewed the book Sinologist Yuri Pines. However, the use of those classics for modern IR woule rather be "detrimental" as the outcome invariably was IR "fiasco" and "quagmire." Diplomatic failures led to total wars and ultimately to universal empire.

The author of The Idea of Nationalism: A Study in Its Origins and Background, Hans Kohn, acknowledged that it was the opposite idea—of imperialism—that was, perhaps, the most influential single idea for two millennia, the ordering of human society through unified dominion and common civilization. Empire is something like the "darling of global historians," usually not because they like it, but because empire was the way history shifted to transnational and global stages.

The prevalence of empire in history was partly due to peace which it establishes for both the conquerors and the conquered, and the by-product of peace, prosperity. The attitude towards the imperial peace since the mid-20th century has been overwhelmingly negative. Within the field of International relations all central concepts have been formulated against a world empire. John Kennedy called the idea of Pax Americana "the peace of grave" and the association has been popular ever since. History, however, shows that humans eventually "prefer the peace of graveyard over the very graveyard."

Universal empire

See also: Universal monarchy

Expert on warfare Quincy Wright generalized on what he called "universal empire"—empire unifying all the contemporary system:

Balance of power systems have in the past tended, through the process of conquest of lesser states by greater states, towards reduction in the number of states involved, and towards less frequent but more devastating wars, until eventually a universal empire has been established through the conquest by one of all those remaining.

German Sociologist Friedrich Tenbruck finds that the macro-historic process of imperial expansion gave rise to global history in which the formations of universal empires were most significant stages.

Circumscription theory

Main article: Circumscription theory

According to the circumscription theory of Robert Carneiro, "the more sharply circumscribed area, the more rapidly it will become politically unified." The Empires of Egypt, China and Japan are named the most durable political structures in human history. Correspondingly, these are the three most circumscribed civilizations in human history. The Empires of Egypt (established by Narmer c. 3000 BC) and China (established by Cheng in 221 BC) endured for over two millennia. Expert on comparative imperiology, Robert G. Wesson, emphasized the unique in world history "repetition of universal empires" in Egypt and China. German Sociologist Friedrich Tenbruck, criticizing the Western idea of progress, emphasized that China and Egypt remained at one particular stage of development for millennia. This stage was universal empire. The development of Egypt and China came to a halt once their empires "reached the limits of their natural habitat". Sinology does not recognize the Eurocentric view of the "inevitable" imperial fall; Egyptology and Japanology pose equal challenges.

Carneiro explored the Bronze Age civilizations. Stuart J. Kaufman, Richard Little and William Wohlforth researched the next three millennia, comparing eight civilizations. They conclude: The "rigidity of the borders" contributed importantly to hegemony in every concerned case. Hence, "when the system's borders are rigid, the probability of hegemony is high".

The circumscription theory was stressed in the comparative studies of the Roman and Chinese Empires. The circumscribed Chinese Empire recovered from all falls, while the fall of Rome, by contrast, was fatal. "What counteracted this [imperial] tendency in Europe ... was a countervailing tendency for the geographical boundaries of the system to expand." If "Europe had been a closed system, some great power would eventually have succeeded in establishing absolute supremacy over the other states in the region".

See also

• Colonial empire
• Emperor at home, king abroad
• Hegemony
• Linguistic imperialism
• Military globalization
• Nomadic empire
• World domination

Lists

• List of empires
• List of largest empires
• List of medieval great powers
• List of former sovereign states
• List of transcontinental countries
• List of Hindu empires and dynasties

References

Citations

Cited sources and further reading

• Brown, Peter (24 September 2020). "No Barbarians Needed". The New York Review of Books. LXVII (14): 61–62. Warlordism, not any great movement of peoples, was the political virus that brought down the Roman empire in the West. [...] 'In less than a generation, provinces [became] kingdoms.' [Due to Europe's] state of perpetual war [amid] the persistent polycentrism made possible by the disappearance of Rome, [b]y the time of the Reformation the 'competitive fragmentation of power' ensured that Europe was studded with safety zones that protected beleaguered dissidents. [...] The best thing that Rome ever did for Europe was to die and not return., review of Kulikowski, Michael. The Tragedy of Empire: From Constantine to the Destruction of Roman Italy.; Scheidel, Walter. Escape from Rome: The Failure of Empire and the Road to Prosperity.; Nelson, Janet L. King and Emperor: A New Life of Charlemagne.
• Burbank, Jane; Cooper, Frederick (2010). Empires in World History: Power and the Politics of Difference. Princeton: Princeton University Press. ISBN 978-0-691-12708-8.
• Cohen, Eliot A. (July–August 2004). "History and the Hyperpower". Foreign Affairs. 83 (4): 49–63. doi:10.2307/20034046. JSTOR 20034046. Retrieved 26 December 2017.
• Colomer, Josep (2016). The European Empire. Createspace Independent Publishing Platform. ISBN 978-1-5233-1890-2.
• Colomer, Josep (2007). Great Empires, Small Nations. The uncertain future of the sovereign state. London: Routledge.
• Crooks, Peter; Parsons, Timothy H., eds. (2016). Empires and bureaucracy in world history: from late antiquity to the twentieth century. Cambridge University Press.
• Darwin, John (2008). After Tamerlane: The Global History of Empire since 1405. London: Bloomsbury Press.
• Doniger, Wendy, "The Rise and Fall of Warhorses" (review of David Chaffetz, Raiders, Rulers, and Traders: The Horse and the Rise of Empires, Norton, 2024, 424 pp.), The New York Review of Books, vol. LXXII, no. 6 (10 April 2025), pp. 17–19. "Unlike cows, horses, whose teeth are quite dull, pull up grass by the roots rather than biting off the blades, or they nibble it right down to the ground, thus quickly destroying the land, which may require some years to recover.... [H]orses in the wild... range constantly to find new territory... [T]he horse came to symbolize conquest through its own natural imperialism. The steppes bred nomadic horses and nomadic hordes.... Men waged war to get other people's horses so that they could wage war. Horsepower... remained the basic unit of power for centuries.... But the horse-breeding people of the steppes never succeeded in conquering the part of the world west of the Carpathians and the Alps, nor civilizations.... where sea power... was decisive." (p. 17.)
• Elliott, J.H. (2006). Empires of the Atlantic World: Britain and Spain in America, 1492–1830. New Haven: Yale University Press.
• Findlay, Ronald; O'Rourke, Kevin H. (2007). Power and Plenty: Trade, Power, and the World Economy in the Second Millennium. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
• Galtung, Johan (January 1996). "The Decline and Fall of Empires: A Theory of De-Development". Honolulu. Archived from the original on 2007-10-13. Retrieved 2008-01-06. Written for the United Nations Research Institute on Development, UNRISD, Geneva.
• Geiss, Imanuel (1983). War and Empire in the Twentieth Century. Aberdeen University Press. ISBN 978-0-08-030387-1.
• Gilpin, Robert (1981). War and Change in World Politics. Cambridge University Press. pp. 110–116. ISBN 978-0-521-27376-3.
• Howe, Stephen (2002). Empire: A Very Short Introduction. Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-280223-1.
• Innis, Harold (1950). Empire and Communications (1972 revision ed.). Toronto, Ontario: University of Toronto Press., Rev. by Mary Q. Innis; foreword by Marshall McLuhan.
• James, Paul; Nairn, Tom (2006). Globalization and Violence. Vol. 1: Globalizing Empires, Old and New. London: Sage Publications.
• Khan, Iqtidar Alam (March–April 2005). "Gunpowder and Empire: Indian Case". Social Scientist. 33 (3/4): 54–65. JSTOR 3518112.
• Kamen, Henry (2003). Empire: How Spain Became a World Power, 1492–1763. New York: HarperCollins.
• Kennedy, Paul. The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers: Economic Change and Military Conflict from 1500 to 2000. New York: Random House 1987.
• Kumar, Krishan (2019). Visions of empire: How five imperial regimes shaped the world. Princeton University Press. ISBN 978-0-691-19280-2., examines the Roman, Ottoman, Habsburg, Russian, British and French empires.
• Lens, Sidney; Zinn, Howard (2003). The Forging of the American Empire: From the Revolution to Vietnam: A History of American Imperialism. Pluto Press. p. 464. ISBN 978-0-7453-2100-4.
• Pagden, Anthony (2001). Peoples and Empires: A Short History of European Migration, Exploration, and Conquest from Greece to the Present. New York: Modern Library.
• Stearns, Peter, ed. (2001). The Encyclopedia of World History: Ancient, Medieval, and Modern, Chronologically Arranged (6th ed.). Houghton Mifflin. p. passim. ISBN 978-0-395-65237-4.
• Subrahmanyam, Sanjay (1993). The Portuguese Empire in Asia, 1500–1700. London: Longman.
• Tracy, James D., ed. (1990). The Rise of Merchant Empires: State Power and World Trade, 1350–1750. New York: Cambridge University Press.

External links

• Bryce, James (1878). "Empire" . Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. VIII (9th ed.). pp. 181–182.
• Index of Colonies and Possessions