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Empire: the story on HearLore | HearLore
Empire
In 1976, the Central African Republic declared itself the Central African Empire. This state existed for only three years before reverting to a republic in 1979. No new territory was gained during those years. Yet the word empire still applied because the ruler assumed the title of emperor. This single act demonstrates how definitions of empire vary wildly across history and geography. An empire is an aggregate of many separate states or territories under a supreme ruler or oligarchy. It might be a state affecting imperial policies or a particular political structure. Empires are typically formed from diverse ethnic, national, cultural, and religious components.
Michael W. Doyle defined empire as effective control, whether formal or informal, of a subordinated society by an imperial society. Rein Taagepera described it as any relatively large sovereign political entity whose components are not sovereign. Peter Bang characterized empire as composite, layered, and anything but uniform in their internal organization of power. These scholars distinguish empires from nation-states through hierarchy. In an empire, one group of people usually has command over other groups. There is a hierarchy of rights and prestige for different groups of people. Josep Colomer noted that empires were vastly larger than states and lacked fixed boundaries. States had fixed boundaries while empires had compound diverse groups with asymmetric links to the center.
The term empire derives from the Roman concept of imperium. The Latin word originally referred to a magistrate's authority, usually in a military sense. Successful generals received the title imperator, meaning commander. As the Roman state expanded overseas, the term began to describe Rome's authority over its colonies. Augustus established a new de facto monarchy but sought to maintain the appearance of a republican government. He used the informal titles augustus and princeps. Over time, the title of imperator came to denote what we now call emperor. The modern concepts of Empire and Emperor did not appear until several centuries later.
When did the Central African Republic declare itself an empire?
The Central African Republic declared itself the Central African Empire in 1976. This state existed for only three years before reverting to a republic in 1979.
Who defined empire as effective control of a subordinated society by an imperial society?
Michael W. Doyle defined empire as effective control, whether formal or informal, of a subordinated society by an imperial society. Rein Taagepera described it as any relatively large sovereign political entity whose components are not sovereign.
What was the largest contiguous empire in world history and when did it exist?
The Mongols created the largest contiguous empire in world history during the 13th century. It traversed nine modern time zones and integrated all major regional powers of Eurasia into a single geopolitical space.
Which empire became the largest in world history by size and population?
The British Empire established an absolute imperial record in size and became the largest empire in world history. By 1922, the British Empire presided over 458 million people and comprised more than 13 million square miles.
When did the Roman concept of imperium originate and what did it mean?
The term empire derives from the Roman concept of imperium which originally referred to a magistrate's authority usually in a military sense. Successful generals received the title imperator meaning commander before Augustus used the informal titles augustus and princeps.
Southern Egypt divided into three kingdoms around 3200 BC. Hierapolis conquered the other two cities over two centuries. This growth became the country of Egypt. The Akkadian Empire emerged in the 24th century BC under Sargon of Akkad. It spread into Anatolia, the Levant, and Ancient Iran. Shamshi-Adad I of Assyria and Hammurabi of Babylon repeated this imperial achievement in the 19th and 18th centuries BC. In the 15th century BC, Thutmose III ruled the New Kingdom of Ancient Egypt as ancient Africa's major force. He incorporated Nubia and the ancient city-states of the Levant.
The Amarna Period spanned from the 15th to 13th centuries BC. Egypt, the Middle Assyrian Empire, Hittite Empire, Mitanni, and Elamites formed a club of great powers. Egypt and the Hittites emerged as dominant empires within that club. They clashed in the Battle of Kadesh in 1274 BC. That confrontation was not decisive. Soon the Amarna international system dissolved during the late Bronze Age collapse. All its empires declined. The first empire to recover was the Neo-Assyrian Empire between 916 and 612 BC. By 673 BC, Assyria conquered the entire Fertile Crescent including Cyprus and Egypt. The Assyrian capital Nineveh fell to combined armies in 612 BC. Never again would a world leading empire be centered in a great River Valley.
From 600 BC, the area of the largest empire never fell below one million square kilometers. This size had never been reached before 600 BC. The Axial threshold marks an unprecedented imperial expansion in the Indo-Mediterranean region and China. From 550 to 330 BC, the Achaemenid Empire covered Mesopotamia, Egypt, parts of Greece, Thrace, the Middle East, much of Central Asia, and North-Western India. It is considered the first great empire in history or the first world empire. Alexander the Great overthrew it and replaced it with his own short-lived empire. His empire was succeeded by three Empires ruled by the Diadochi: the Seleucid, Ptolemaic, and Antigonid.
Medieval Global Expansions
In the 8th century, the Caliphate became the largest so far empire in area. The Caliphate and China crossed the whole Old World from the Atlantic to the Pacific. In the 9th century, China under the Song dynasty established the all-time record in share of world population at 38 percent. That percentage remains the largest any empire has ever reached. In the 13th century, the Mongols created the largest contiguous empire in world history. It traversed nine modern time zones. For the first time, all major regional powers of Eurasia were integrated into a single geopolitical space.
Genghis Khan expanded the Mongol Empire across vast territories. Within two generations, the empire separated into four discrete khanates under Genghis Khan's grandsons. Kublai Khan conquered China and established the Yuan dynasty with the imperial capital at Beijing. One family ruled the whole Eurasian land mass from the Pacific to the Adriatic and Baltic Seas. The emergence of the Pax Mongolica significantly eased trade and commerce across Asia. In Western Asia, the term Persian Empire came to denote Iranian imperial states established in pre-Islamic times and beginning with the Safavid Empire.
The Islamic gunpowder empires started developing from the 15th century. In the Indian subcontinent, the Delhi Sultanate conquered most of the peninsula and spread Islam across it. Later it disintegrated with the establishment of Bengal, Gujarat, and Bahmani Sultanates. In the 16th century, the Mughal Empire was founded by Babur, a direct descendant of Timur and Genghis Khan. His successors Humayun, Akbar, Jahangir, and Shah Jahan extended the empire. Aurangzeb expanded the Mughal Empire over most of South Asia in the 17th century and imposed Sharia law.
The Colonial Surge
In 1547, Ivan the Terrible was coronated as Emperor of Russia. He transformed Russia from a medieval state into a fledgling empire and began the conquest of Siberia. That conquest completed by 1778 made the Russian Empire the second contiguous empire in size after the Mongol Empire. The Portuguese established the first global empire and trade network in the early 16th century together with the Spanish Empire. Beginning in the 15th century, west European countries reached and colonized overseas regions across the globe.
Ushering the Age of Discovery, imperial expansion advanced to a new global scale. The extensive overseas expansion particularly in South Asia and Americas by the Portuguese and Spanish later joined by English, French, and Dutch created empires on which the Sun never sets. Adam Smith named the voyages of Columbus and Vasco da Gama the two greatest and most important events recorded in the history of mankind in 1776. The Portuguese Empire colonized vast portions of the Americas, Africa, Asia, and Oceania to become one of the most powerful empires of the period.
The British Empire established an absolute imperial record in size. For a century, it was the foremost global power. Britain turned towards Asia, the Pacific, and later Africa with subsequent exploration and conquests leading to the rise of the Second British Empire between 1783 and 1815. It became the largest empire in world history, encompassing one quarter of the world's land area and one fifth of its population. By 1922, the British Empire presided over 458 million people and comprised more than 13 million square miles.
Imperial Wars And Decline
Beginning around 1760, the New Imperialism or Age of Imperialism characterized a period of colonial expansion by European powers, the United States, and Japan. Though the American Revolutionary War ended the first era of European colonialism, the period featured an unprecedented pursuit of overseas territorial acquisitions. During the era of New Imperialism, European powers and Japan conquered almost all of Africa and most of Asia. The new wave reflected ongoing imperial rivalries and their imperial ambitions.
Over the course of the Scramble for Africa between 1870 and 1914, European empires separated between themselves almost all the continent. Symbolized by the Pink Map, the Portuguese claimed sovereignty over a wide land corridor stretching between the Atlantic shore of Angola and Indian shore of Mozambique. This led to the 1890 British Ultimatum as Britain aimed to establish their own longer corridor from Egypt to South Africa. In the clash of corridors, the British prevailed. The Spanish-American War of 1898 and the Russo-Japanese War of 1904-05 signaled the advent of new extra-European empires, the United States and Japan respectively.
The attack on Pearl Harbor symbolized that two non-European empires clashed on the opposite side of the globe to Europe. All great powers which waged both World Wars were empires fighting for their survival or expansion. The Ottoman, Austrian, German, and Russian Empires were defeated in the First World War. The German, Italian, and Japanese Empires were defeated in the Second World War. Weakened by the same War, the rest of the European Empires underwent significant changes.
Modern Imperial Legacies
In the postwar world came under the domination of two superpowers both of which proclaimed themselves enemies of empire. The West contained the imperialist East and the East and the South resisted the imperialist West. Imperialism became a cosmopolitan multi-front battle cry wielding many diverse and distant peoples in fighting a common enemy. As former colonies came to make up the majority of states in the United Nations, empire lost all legitimacy in this major international forum. Any state stupid enough to call itself an empire became subject automatically to UN resolutions on decolonization.
Most postwar histories of empires have been hostile, especially if authors were promoting nationalism. Traditional or overt empire destroyed and discredited itself in the World Wars. The matters are worse in the German language where empire is reich and immediately associates with the Third Reich. For the first time in history, countries which proudly called themselves empires disappeared from the map. The Roman Catholic Church spread across Europe first by activities of Christian evangelists and later by official imperial promulgation. The legal systems of France and its former colonies remain strongly influenced by Roman law.
The impacts of the British Empire period are still prominent in the current age including widespread use of the English language, belief in Protestant religion, economic globalization, modern precepts of law and order, and representative democracy. In India, Britain confronted the Sikh Empire between 1799 and 1849 in the Punjab region. Weakened by the death of its founder Ranjit Singh in 1839, that empire fell to the British after the Second Anglo-Sikh War in 1849.