Age Of Conquests

The world that Alexander remade in his lifetime was transformed once again by his death in 323 BCE. Over time, trade and intellectual achievement resumed, but Cleopatra's death in 30 BCE brought this Hellenistic moment to a close--or so the story goes. Angelos Chaniotis reveals a Hellenistic world that continued to Hadrian's death in 138 CE.

The ancient world that Alexander the Great transformed in his lifetime was transformed once more by his death. The imperial dynasties of his successors incorporated and reorganized the fallen Persian empire, creating a new land empire stretching from the shores of the Mediterranean to as far east as Bactria. In old Greece a fragile balance of power was continually disturbed by wars. Then, from the late third century, the military and diplomatic power of Rome successively defeated and dismantled every one of the post-Alexandrian political structures. The Hellenistic period (c. 323-30 BC) was then one of fragmentation, violent antagonism between large states, and struggles by small polities to retain an illusion of independence. Yet it was also a period of growth, prosperity, and intellectual achievement. A vast network spread of trade, influence and cultural contact, from Italy to Afghanistan and from Russia to Ethiopia, enriching and enlivening centres of wealth, power and intellectual ferment. From Alexander the Great's early days building an empire, via wars with Rome, rampaging pirates, Cleopatra's death and the Jewish diaspora, right up to the death of Hadrian, Chaniotis examines the social structures, economic trends, political upheaval and technological progress of an era that spans five centuries and where, perhaps, modernity began.

Reversing Babel: Translation among the English during an Age of Conquests, c. 800 to c. 1200, starts with a small puzzle: Why did the Normans translate English law, the law of the people they had conquered, from Old English into Latin? Solving this puzzle meant asking questions about what medieval writers thought about language and translation, what created the need and desire to translate, and how translators went about the work. These are the questions Reversing Babel attempts to answer by providing evidence that comes from the world in which not just Norman translators of law but any translators of any texts, regardless of languages, did their translating Reversing Babel reaches back from 1066 to the translation work done in an earlier conquest-a handful of important works translated in the ninth century in response to the alleged devastating effect of the Viking invasions-and carries the analysis up to the wave of Anglo-French translations created in the late twelfth century when England was a part of a large empire, ruled by a king from Anjou who held power not only in western France from Normandy in the north to the Pyrenees in the south, but also in Ireland, Scotland, and Wales. In this longer and wider view, the impact of political events on acts of translation is more easily weighed against the impact of other factors such as geography, travel, trade, community, trends in learning, ideas about language, and habits of translation. These factors colored the contact situations created in England between speakers and readers of different languages during perhaps the most politically unstable period in English history. The variety of medieval translation among the English, and among those translators working in the greater empires of Cnut, the Normans, and the Angevins, is remarkable. Reversing Babel does not try to describe all of it; rather, it charts a course through the evidence and tries to answer the fundamental questions medieval historians should ask when their sources are medieval translations.

This book is the culmination of 15 years of research and travels that have taken the author completely around the world twice, as well as on other travels in the Mediterranean, the Baltic, and around the Pacific rim. Its purpose has been to try to understand the role of cultural differences within nations and between nations, today and over centuries of history, in shaping the economic and social fates of peoples and of whole civilizations. Focusing on four major cultural areas(that of the British, the Africans (including the African diaspora), the Slavs of Eastern Europe, and the indigenous peoples of the Western Hemisphere -- Conquests and Cultures reveals patterns that encompass not only these peoples but others and help explain the role of cultural evolution in economic, social, and political development.

Waldemar Heckel provides a revisionist overview of the conquests of Alexander the Great. Emphasising the aims and impact of his military expeditions, the political consequences of military action, and the use of propaganda, both for motivation and justification, his underlying premise is that the basic goals of conquest and the keys to military superiority have not changed dramatically over the millennia. Indeed, as Heckel makes clear, many aristocratic and conquest societies are remarkably similar to that of Alexander in their basic aims and organisation. Heckel rejects the view of Alexander as a reincarnation of Achilles - as an irrational youth on a heroic quest for fame and immortality. In an engaging and balanced account of key military events, Heckel shows how Alexander imposed his will on the willing and how the defeated were no longer capable of resisting his military might.

First Published in 1971 The History of the Mongol Conquests presents a general history of the Mongols of the thirteenth century. By using primary and secondary sources, J. J. Saunders fills up a major gap in the English historical literature on the subject. It goes without saying that the Mongol conquests of the thirteenth century turned the world upside down. The book opens with a chapter on Eurasian nomadism and an account of the Turkish conquests, seven centuries before those of the Mongols. The author deals fully with Chingis Khan and his achievements both as a soldier and as an administrator and goes on to describe the Mongol drive into the Europe and the Christian response to it. Mongol rule in China and Persia and their dominance in Russia are also covered. Rich in archival sources, this book is a must read for scholars and researchers of Asian and Central Asian history.