Description: What were the critical characteristics that distinguished the imperial period of the state from its pre-imperial period? In a provocative study on comparative empire, noted historians identify periods of transition across history that reveal how and why empires emerge.
Brief description: Kimberly Kagan is president of the Institute for the Study of War in Washington, DC.
Review Quotes: This is a thoughtful, wide-ranging contribution to debates on the past and future of empire. Taken as a whole, the volume offers new ways to think about identity and empire and highlights how the rise of empires transforms the international system; usually creating instability, uncertainty, and new hierarchies of power. This impressive book offers a comparative analysis and fresh approach for the study of empire that makes it valuable for a broad readership interested in world history and international politics.--Jeremi Suri, author of Henry Kissinger and the American Century