Western civilization began with the Greeks. From the highpoint of the 5th century BC through the cultural triumphs of the Alexandrian era to their impact on the developing Roman empire, the Greeks shaped the philosophy, art, architecture, and literature of the Mediterranean world. Beginning with the Homeric period, once believed to be a realm of myth, Paine takes the reader on a journey through more than 12 centuries of Greek culture. He shows what archaeologists have revealed of the Trojan Wars and Mycenae, outlines the glories of Athens at its height, and provides a gripping narrative of the struggle between the Greeks and the mighty Persian empire. The guide also highlights the careers of great political and military leaders, such as Pericles and Alexander the Great, and explores the importance of great philosophers, including Plato and Aristotle. Dramatists and demagogues, stoics and epicureans, aristocrats and helots all take their place in the unfolding story of Greek achievement.
The Ottoman Empire and its conflicts provide one of the longest continuous narratives in military history. The Ottomans were never overthrown by a foreign power, and no usurper succeeded in taking the throne. This volume covers the rise of the Ottomans, and their early years of fighting for a foothold across the Bosphorous, before exploring the main campaigns and the part played by such elite troops as the Janissaries and the Sipahis. At its height under Suleyman the Magnificent, the Ottoman Empire became the most powerful state in the world - a multinational, multilingual empire that stretched from Vienna to the upper Arab peninsula.
Review `This volume is a significant contribution to global historical archaeologyis work brings forth a new perspective and opens up new possibilities. ' American Antiquity,67:1 (2002)
Archaeology in the Middle East and the Balkans rarely focuses on the recent past; as a result, archaeologists have largely ignored the material remains of the Ottoman Empire. Drawing on a wide variety of case studies and essays, this volume documents the emerging field of Ottoman archaeology and the relationship of this new field to anthropological, classical, and historical archaeology as well as Ottoman studies.
The Grand Strategy of the Russian Empire, 1650-1831 by John P. LeDonne
At its height, the Russian empire covered
eleven time zones and stretched from Scandinavia to the Pacific Ocean.
Arguing against the traditional historical view that Russia, surrounded
and threatened by enemies, was always on the defensive, John P. LeDonne
contends that Russia developed a long-term strategy not in response to
immediate threats but in line with its own expansionist urges to
control the Eurasian Heartland. LeDonne narrates how the government
from Moscow and Petersburg expanded the empire by deploying its army as
well as by extending its patronage to frontier societies in return for
their serving the interests of the empire. He considers three theaters
on which the Russians expanded: the Western (Baltic, Germany, Poland);
the Southern (Ottoman and Persian Empires); and the Eastern (China,
Siberia, Central Asia). In his analysis of military power, he weighs
the role of geography and locale, as well as economic issues, in the
evolution of a larger imperial strategy. Rather than viewing Russia as
peripheral to European Great Power politics, LeDonne makes a powerful
case for Russia as an expansionist, militaristic, and authoritarian
regime that challenged the great states and empires of its time. (Amazon.Com)
In this assessment of British imperialism, the underlying social, economic and political forces that facilitated expansion during the key period of 1870-1914 are examined. The book emphasizes that the British Empire was first and foremost established by predatory methods to fulfil the financial goals of imperial power without regard to the welfare of indigenous people. This short volume focuses upon the British empire and the development and growth of the country’s imperial system between 1870 and the outbreak of World War I, in the context of historically unprecedented global expansion by certain European powers.