The Limits of Universal Rule Eurasian Empires Compared

All major continental empires proclaimed their desire to rule 'the entire world', investing considerable human and material resources in expanding their territory. Each, however, eventually had to stop expansion and come to terms with a shift to defensive strategy. This volume explores the factors that facilitated Eurasian empires' expansion and contraction: from ideology to ecology, economic and military considerations to changing composition of the imperial elites. Built around a common set of questions, a team of leading specialists systematically compare a broad set of Eurasian empires - from Achaemenid Iran, the Romans, Qin and Han China, via the Caliphate, the Byzantines and the Mongols to the Ottomans, Safavids, Mughals, Russians, and Ming and Qing China. The result is a state-of-the art analysis of the major imperial enterprises in Eurasian history from antiquity to the early modern that discerns both commonalities and differences in the empires' spatial trajectories.

Foreword; Introduction. Empires and their Space Yuri Pines, with Michal Biran and Jörg Rüpke; 1. From the Mediterranean to the Indus Valley: Modalities and Limitations of the Achaemenid Imperial Space Pierre Briant; 2. Limits of All-under-Heaven: Ideology and Praxis of 'Great Unity' in Early Chinese Empire Yuri Pines; 3. The Roman Empire Wolfgang Spickermann; 4. The Medieval Roman Empire of the East as Spatial Phenomenon (300-1204 CE) Johannes Preiser-Kapeller; 5. Early Islamic Imperial Space A. C. S. Peacock; 6. The Mongol Imperial Space: From Universalism to Glocalization Michal Biran; 7. The Territories and Boundaries of Empires: Ottoman, Safavid and Mughal Stephen F. Dale; 8. Delimiting the Realm under the Ming Dynasty David M. Robinson; 9. The Expansion of the Qing Empire Before 1800 Matthew W. Mosca; 10. All under the Tsar: Russia's Eurasian Trajectory Jane Burbank.

Yuri Pines is Michael W. Lipson Professor in Chinese Studies at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.
Michal Biran is Max and Sophie Maydans Foundation Professor in the Humanities at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.
Jörg Rüpke is Fellow in Religious Studies and Vice-Director of the Max Weber Centre at Erfurt, Germany.