Rulers Of Empire

"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

Sovereigns have been the ultimate authority in many world regimes for more than 5,000 years. Informative and entertaining, this newly revised and completely updated volume is the definitive source book for accurate and thorough information on kings, rulers, and statesmen.

Throughout history, royal dynasties have dominated countries and empires around the world. Kings, queens, emperors, chiefs, pharaohs, czars - whatever title they ruled by, monarchs have shaped institutions, rituals, and cultures in every time period and every corner of the globe. The concept of monarchy originated in prehistoric times and evolved over centuries right up to the present. Efforts to overthrow monarchies or evade their rule - such as the American, French, Chinese, and Russian revolutions - are considered turning points in world history. Even today, many countries retain their monarchies, although in vastly reduced form with little political power. One cannot understand human history and government without understanding monarchs and monarchies. This fully-illustrated encyclopedia provides the first complete survey of all the major rulers and ruling families of the world, past and present. No other reference work approaches the topic with the same sense of magnitude or connection to historical context. Arranged in A-Z format for ease of access, World Monarchies and Dynasties includes information on major monarchs and dynasties from ancient time to the present. This set: includes overviews of reigns and successions, genealogical charts, and dynastic timelines; addresses concepts, problems, and theories of monarchy; provides background and information for further research; highlights important places, structures, symbols, events, and legends related to particular monarchs and dynasties; includes a master bibliography and multiple indexes.

The book presents the millennium-long history of Byzantium as reflected in the dramatic life of the most remarkable Byzantine emperors from Constantine the Great to Constantine XI Paleologus. An informative text and splendid illustrations revive the leading personalities and the key events that determined the lot of the Byzantine Empire, which is believed to have been the best governed medieval state. A fascinating narrative of the glory and the fall of Byzantium, 'the second Rome' that inherited the power of the Roman state system and maintained for centuries the myth of itself as the 'eternal empire'.

We live in the ‘urban century’. Cities all over the world – in both developing and developed countries – display complex evolutionary patterns. Urban Empires charts the backgrounds, mechanisms, drivers, and consequences of these radical changes in our contemporary systems from a global perspective and analyses the dominant position of modern cities in the ‘New Urban World’. This volume views the drastic change cities have undergone internationally through a broad perspective and considers their emerging roles in our global network society. Chapters from renowned scholars provide advanced analytical contributions, scaling applied and theoretical perspectives on the competitive profile of urban agglomerations in a globalizing world. Together, the volume traces and investigates the economic and political drivers of network cities in a global context and explores the challenges over governance that are presented by mega-cities. It also identifies and maps out the new geography of the emergent ‘urban century’. With contributions from well-known and influential scholars from around the world, Urban Empires serves as a touchstone for students and researchers keen to explore the scientific and policy needs of cities as they become our age’s global power centers.

By delving into the complex, cross-generational exchanges that characterize any political project as rampant as empire, this thought-provoking study focuses on children and their ambivalent, intimate relationships with maps and practices of mapping at the dawn of the "American Century." Considering children as students, map and puzzle makers, letter writers, and playmates, Mahshid Mayar interrogates the ways turn-of-the-century American children encountered, made sense of, and produced spatial narratives and cognitive maps of the United States and the world. Mayar further probes how children's diverse patterns of consuming, relating to, and appropriating the "truths" that maps represent turned cartography into a site of personal and political contention. To investigate where in the world the United States imagined itself at the end of the nineteenth century, this book calls for new modes of mapping the United States as it studies the nation on regional, hemispheric, and global scales. By examining the multilayered liaison between imperial pedagogy and geopolitical literacy across a wide range of archival evidence, Mayar delivers a careful microhistorical study of U.S. empire.