-----------------------------------------------------9/4/01--
welcome to the decline of empires for 2001! this subject focuses on examples of empires throughout time and everywhere in the world. our main interest will be in how empires come into being and how they collapse. the central question will always be "why?" why do they come about and why do they decline the way they do?the choice of empires will mainly be yours since you will be reporting on examples of your own choosing. you will see from the SYLLABUS that i have chosen a few to talk about myself, so you should choose others.
we will also have some readings and reports on more theoretical aspects of why empires occur, and why they inevitably decline.
the readings near the end of the subject will be concerned with the 19th and 20th centuries, so we will come to talk about the u.s. at that point.
your main piece of written work in this subject will be a paper on an empire that you invent (see PAPERS). you will also report to the class on this paper.
9/6--
please try hard to have decided by class on monday which of the theoretical papers you would like to report on, so i can put together a list. you can tell from the SYLLABUS what the papers in question are.
9/10--
NOTE
21a.561 has moved from room 12-102 to 16-168
2) on 9/19 i want to start with a quick summary of the rest of the empires that are more recent than the renaissance; and say a little about the new world.
3) here is the list of the first set of reports on "what are empires":
strachey, theory of imperialism -- austin gill
weber, power -- dara jeffries
strachey, hobson-lenin -- anna folinsky
cohen, general theory -- jimmy wu
wesson, preface -- barb schultze
doyle, defining empire -- monica linden
cippola, introduction -- megan colpitts
we'll start on these reports on weds. 9/19 and probably finish them on 9/24.
you should assume that your classmates have read these,
a) but you should still summarize them,
b) then point to what you think is interesting about them,
c) and then solicit discussion.
4) after your reports we will move on to consideration of ancient
empires:
you should pick which of these you want to report on. see web page of PAPERS for "oral report" description.
some of the papers in the reader serve as good introductions to these polities, but you should read a bit more widely. i can give you some bibliography or you can dig up your own.
we will discuss this project in more detail in class.
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9/26--
1) i have just looked back at the syllabus and found that i was going to
do things differently than i said in class today. let's go the way of
the syllabus, (and bag my ramblings today) which means the following:
oct. 22: shultze on egypt, smith on persia, jeffries on punic
oct. 24: wu on merovingian-carolingian, linden and draganov on byzantine
oct. 29: mcewen on mongol, vargas on inca, cody on dutch
oct. 31: boppana on british.........
2) for those of you who have not done a report on a theoretical aspect,
please see the list of readings for 11/5 and 7. those are papers on
theories of decline. please sign up for them.
3) finally:
please look at the syllabus for readings for 10/1,3,10,14. i will
lead the discussion but would like you all to participate.
4) megan: could you get the roman worked up for 10/10? focus on the
Tainter reading on that in the syllabus (his pp. 127-152), and perhaps
also the weber. i will try to deal with the rise of the empire, its
political structure at the beginning, and what some of the crucial
elements were in that polity.
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Some references for the empires you are working on.
Egypt
Wm. Hallo, Wm Kelly Simpson, The Ancient Near East
B.G. Trigger, Kemp, et al., Ancient Egypt, a Social History
J.H. Breasted, Ancient Egypt
Cambridge Ancient History, relevant chapters.
Persia
A.T. Olmstead, History of the Persian Empire.
J. M. Cook, The Persian Empire
R. Ghirshman, Iran
R. N. Frye, Heritage of Persia
P. R. S. Moorey, The Persian Empire
Mogens Trolle Larsen, ed., Power and Propaganda
Inca
A. Metraux, The History of the Incas, 1970.
Burr Brundage, The Empire of the Inca, 1963.
J. Hemming, The Conquest of the Incas, 1970.
Father Bernabo Cobo, History of the Inca Empire, 1979 (17th century account).
H. Lechtman ed., Andean Reader (in Humanities Library Reserve Book Room, or A/A office, 20b-131).
Mongols
Rene Grosset, The Empire of the Steppes: History of Central Asia (1970)
Thomas Barfield, The Perilous Frontier: Nomadic Empires and China (1988).
Thomas Allsen, Mongol Imperialism...1251-59 (1987).
Luc Kwanton, Imperial Nomads--A History of Central Asia (1979).
Carolingian Empire
Geoffrey Barraclough, The Crucible of Europe, 1976.
Einhard, Life of Charlemagne.
Marc Bloch, Feudal Society, 1961.
H. Fichtenau, The Carolingian Empire, 1957.
F. L. Ganshof, The Carolingians and the Frankish Monarchy, 1971.
H. Pirenne, Economic and Social History of Medieval Europe, 1937.
Friedrich Heer, The Medieval World
Byzantine
D.A. Miller, The Byzantine Tradition, 1966.
George Ostrogrosky, History of the Byzantine State, 1957.
H.W. Haussig, A History of the Byzantine Civilization, 1979.
D.M. Nicol, The End of the Byzantine Empire, 1979.
Look at papers in Eisenstadt, The Decline of Empires.
Cyril Mango, Byzantium (1980).
Dutch
C.R. Boxer, The Dutch Seaborne Empire, 1965.
J. Huizinga, Dutch Civilization in the 17th century, 1941 (1969).
C.H. Wilson, The Dutch Republic and Civilization of the 17th century, 1968.
Simon Schama, Embarassment of Riches: An Interpretation of Dutch Culture in the Golden Age (1987)
G.V. Scammell, The World Encompassed: The First European Maritime Empires, 1982.
British
John Strachey, The End of Empire, 1959.
Lord Elton, Imperial Commonwealth, 1945 (very tendentious !)
Lacey B. Smith ,ed., A History of England:
Wm. Willcox, The Age of Aristocracy, 1688-1830, 1976.
W.L. Arnstein, Britain Yesterday and Today: 1830-Present, 1976.
Look at rest of series.
A. P. Thornton, various books on British Empire, including The Habit of Authority.
Trevor Owen Lloyd, The British Empire, 1558-1983 (1984).
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reports on readings--
nov. 5: draganov on tainter, boppana on yoffee and cowgill, vargas on
kaufman.
nov. 7: smith on doyle, cody on weber, mcewen on abernethy.