What books should I read to learn about pre-modern empires and organisations?
August 5, 2011 2:52 AM Subscribe
What is a good series / assorted collection of history books covering influential pre-modern European/North African/Asian empires and organisations?
I'm putting together a serious reading project: a collection of books that would provide a good understanding of the big, influential empires and organisations of Europe, North Africa and Asia up to the 1800s. I am interested in heavy tomes and detailed accounts, with each book dealing primarily or solely with one empire/organisation.
Examples of subject matter I am looking for are the Roman Empire, Hapsburg Family, Catholic Church, East India Trading Company, Ming Dynasty, Carthaginian Republic, etc.
Both unified series ("Bob's Big Series All About World Empires"), or suggestions for individual books to flesh out such a collection ("Bob's Big Book About the Roman Empire is a good book about the Roman Empire") are welcome.
I'm putting together a serious reading project: a collection of books that would provide a good understanding of the big, influential empires and organisations of Europe, North Africa and Asia up to the 1800s. I am interested in heavy tomes and detailed accounts, with each book dealing primarily or solely with one empire/organisation.
Examples of subject matter I am looking for are the Roman Empire, Hapsburg Family, Catholic Church, East India Trading Company, Ming Dynasty, Carthaginian Republic, etc.
Both unified series ("Bob's Big Series All About World Empires"), or suggestions for individual books to flesh out such a collection ("Bob's Big Book About the Roman Empire is a good book about the Roman Empire") are welcome.
This is a set of articles and not a monograph, but The Journal of World History has made a classic issue available for download for free. Check the notes for monographs. The Journal has great, readable articles, if you have access to Jstor or Project Muse, check it out.
posted by vincele at 4:08 AM on August 5, 2011
posted by vincele at 4:08 AM on August 5, 2011
Best answer: Ah now, this is a good question.
First, although you're looking for books concerned with single entities, you could consider looking at some more general histories that would give you more ideas for subjects to look at, give you suggestions for books about them (older ones that have 'stood the test of time' as well as more recent ones), and perhaps give you a bigger framework to help you hook your readings together. For example, Empires in World History by Jane Burbank and Fred Cooper (experts, respectively, on the Russian and French empires), or John Darwin's After Tamerlane--although these both come up to the post-1800 period, they give extensive coverage to earlier periods. I've recommended these on AskMe before, and CA Bayly's excellent Birth of the Modern World 1780–1914--though you may be more interested in his book on the British Empire around 1800, Imperial Meridian.
Dominic Lieven's Empire: the Russian Empire and its Rivals also comes into the modern period (including a section on the USSR viewed as an empire) but includes a lot on the 1500-1800 period too. It's also a comparative history, so it includes material on the Roman and Chinese empires and extended studies of the British, Ottoman, and Austro-Hungarian Empires in the same sort of period.
On the Ottoman Empire, there's Karen Barkey's historical sociology Empire of Difference, which is extremely interesting, not too long, and is much more concerned with the early and mid-period empire (c.1300–1800) than the later period. It isn't super-readable, but it is quite new (2009) and therefore incorporates material from the recent blossoming of Ottoman studies (whereas the section on the Ottoman Empire in Lieven's book, which came out ten years ago, relies on the rather more staid literature that had been published by the mid-1990s). I'm told that Cemal Kafadar's Between Two Worlds, on the early Ottoman Empire, is also really good. The Social and Economic History of the Ottoman Empire (1994) and the relevant volumes of the very recent Cambridge History of Turkey are rich indeed, but these are pretty hefty reference works (both with several editors across their volumes). Resat Kasaba's recent book A Moveable Empire is shorter, very thoughtful, and as these things go readable, but may be a bit too much of a thematic history (of the relationship between state power and mobility) for a general reader. Caroline Finkel's book Osman's Dream, which I haven't read, is meant to be a good political history. Jason Goodwin's Lords of the Horizon is racy (not to say 'terrifically over-written') but not really very informative.
In the 'stood the test of time' category is Marshall Hodgson's mammoth (but uncompleted) sequence The Venture of Islam, which studies the Islamic empires (from the Arab conquests of the 600s to the early modern 'gunpowder empires' of the Ottomans, Safavids, and Mughals a thousand years later) as world empires.
The Oxford History of the British Empire is now a bit more than a decade old but I think represents the c.2000 state of the art that people have been building on since then--a reference work too, though. Niall Ferguson's Empire would have you cheering the British and their splendidly productive allocation of capital all around the world (I haven't read it yet, though I'll get round to it eventually--no doubt it's a dashing read). Very readable, less gung-ho, and focused on a particular sort of person caught up in the imperial enterprise is Linda Colley's Captives: the British Empire and the World, 1600–1850. John Darwin's The Empire Project: the Rise and Fall of the British World-System, 1830-1970 is really good, but might be a bit 'late' for you. I also really like James Belich's Replenishing the Earth, which is a history of Anglophone migrations rather than a history of the British Empire--again, this goes beyond your period (up to 1939) but it's largely concentrated in the 1800s.
Sorry not to include links to all these, but it'd take too long! A quick copy/paste into Google should bring 'em up immediately. Happy to answer questions in-thread or by memail, and if anything else comes to mind I'll drop in again.
On preview, I'm looking forward to picking up vincele's suggestions.
posted by lapsangsouchong at 4:17 AM on August 5, 2011
First, although you're looking for books concerned with single entities, you could consider looking at some more general histories that would give you more ideas for subjects to look at, give you suggestions for books about them (older ones that have 'stood the test of time' as well as more recent ones), and perhaps give you a bigger framework to help you hook your readings together. For example, Empires in World History by Jane Burbank and Fred Cooper (experts, respectively, on the Russian and French empires), or John Darwin's After Tamerlane--although these both come up to the post-1800 period, they give extensive coverage to earlier periods. I've recommended these on AskMe before, and CA Bayly's excellent Birth of the Modern World 1780–1914--though you may be more interested in his book on the British Empire around 1800, Imperial Meridian.
Dominic Lieven's Empire: the Russian Empire and its Rivals also comes into the modern period (including a section on the USSR viewed as an empire) but includes a lot on the 1500-1800 period too. It's also a comparative history, so it includes material on the Roman and Chinese empires and extended studies of the British, Ottoman, and Austro-Hungarian Empires in the same sort of period.
On the Ottoman Empire, there's Karen Barkey's historical sociology Empire of Difference, which is extremely interesting, not too long, and is much more concerned with the early and mid-period empire (c.1300–1800) than the later period. It isn't super-readable, but it is quite new (2009) and therefore incorporates material from the recent blossoming of Ottoman studies (whereas the section on the Ottoman Empire in Lieven's book, which came out ten years ago, relies on the rather more staid literature that had been published by the mid-1990s). I'm told that Cemal Kafadar's Between Two Worlds, on the early Ottoman Empire, is also really good. The Social and Economic History of the Ottoman Empire (1994) and the relevant volumes of the very recent Cambridge History of Turkey are rich indeed, but these are pretty hefty reference works (both with several editors across their volumes). Resat Kasaba's recent book A Moveable Empire is shorter, very thoughtful, and as these things go readable, but may be a bit too much of a thematic history (of the relationship between state power and mobility) for a general reader. Caroline Finkel's book Osman's Dream, which I haven't read, is meant to be a good political history. Jason Goodwin's Lords of the Horizon is racy (not to say 'terrifically over-written') but not really very informative.
In the 'stood the test of time' category is Marshall Hodgson's mammoth (but uncompleted) sequence The Venture of Islam, which studies the Islamic empires (from the Arab conquests of the 600s to the early modern 'gunpowder empires' of the Ottomans, Safavids, and Mughals a thousand years later) as world empires.
The Oxford History of the British Empire is now a bit more than a decade old but I think represents the c.2000 state of the art that people have been building on since then--a reference work too, though. Niall Ferguson's Empire would have you cheering the British and their splendidly productive allocation of capital all around the world (I haven't read it yet, though I'll get round to it eventually--no doubt it's a dashing read). Very readable, less gung-ho, and focused on a particular sort of person caught up in the imperial enterprise is Linda Colley's Captives: the British Empire and the World, 1600–1850. John Darwin's The Empire Project: the Rise and Fall of the British World-System, 1830-1970 is really good, but might be a bit 'late' for you. I also really like James Belich's Replenishing the Earth, which is a history of Anglophone migrations rather than a history of the British Empire--again, this goes beyond your period (up to 1939) but it's largely concentrated in the 1800s.
Sorry not to include links to all these, but it'd take too long! A quick copy/paste into Google should bring 'em up immediately. Happy to answer questions in-thread or by memail, and if anything else comes to mind I'll drop in again.
On preview, I'm looking forward to picking up vincele's suggestions.
posted by lapsangsouchong at 4:17 AM on August 5, 2011
Sorry to jump back in, I promise it will be my last post.
The World History Association has a list of recommended books that will be of interest to you.
Also, on The Journal of World History website are free downloads of favorite early articles. (These are different from the ones I linked to above. I've read most of both sets of articles. They are accessible and fascinating.)
posted by vincele at 6:21 AM on August 5, 2011
The World History Association has a list of recommended books that will be of interest to you.
Also, on The Journal of World History website are free downloads of favorite early articles. (These are different from the ones I linked to above. I've read most of both sets of articles. They are accessible and fascinating.)
posted by vincele at 6:21 AM on August 5, 2011
Kinross Ottoman Centuries. Braudel The Mediterrenean (but, cf, Braudel Revisited)
posted by IndigoJones at 6:21 AM on August 5, 2011
posted by IndigoJones at 6:21 AM on August 5, 2011
I'm a quarter of the way through The House of Wisdom: how Arabic science saved ancient knowledge and gave us the Renaissance, by Jim al-Khalili. Very interesting.
posted by bentley at 8:27 AM on August 5, 2011
posted by bentley at 8:27 AM on August 5, 2011
Lords of the Atlas: The Rise and Fall of the House of Glaoua, 1893-1956
As some have mentioned, not a strictly academic book, but a cracking good read.
posted by HopperFan at 5:58 PM on August 5, 2011
As some have mentioned, not a strictly academic book, but a cracking good read.
posted by HopperFan at 5:58 PM on August 5, 2011
The writings of Ibn Battuta are great for the Islamic world (circa 1300-1360). He's not that commonly read these days, but has some really good insight.
posted by guster4lovers at 10:00 PM on August 5, 2011
posted by guster4lovers at 10:00 PM on August 5, 2011
Best answer: Seconding John Darwin's After Tamerlane as an overview work, I also enjoyed "Robert B. Marks, The Origins of the Modern World. A Global and Ecological Narrative from the Fifteenth to the Twenty-first Century".
Though I haven't read (all of) it yet Jonathon D. Israel's Dutch Republic Greatness and Fall 1477-1806 is considered the best complete work on the Dutch Empire, which kinda skirts the line of pre-modern, but it's definitely early-modern.
posted by Marcc at 5:03 AM on August 6, 2011
Though I haven't read (all of) it yet Jonathon D. Israel's Dutch Republic Greatness and Fall 1477-1806 is considered the best complete work on the Dutch Empire, which kinda skirts the line of pre-modern, but it's definitely early-modern.
posted by Marcc at 5:03 AM on August 6, 2011
Response by poster: Thank you everyone for your suggestions. Time for me to go book hunting.
posted by kithrater at 6:14 PM on August 6, 2011
posted by kithrater at 6:14 PM on August 6, 2011
This thread is closed to new comments.
My friend, a non-specialist, picked up Tignor and started reading it just because it is so well-written and interesting.
I like Tignor's approach to world history. You'll come away with a great understanding of what constitutes modern/premodern and a balanced view of non-Western and Western history. If I remember correctly, they begin the modern era with the Mongol Empire.
I also recommend The World that Trade Created by Pomeranz and Topik. It's organized somewhat annoyingly as vignettes, but it covers the trading companies and is a great read.
I am a professional historian and this is professional advice!
posted by vincele at 4:05 AM on August 5, 2011