bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025_split huggingface dataset:
Ternate, Sultanate of
Authors: Dalziel Nigel R. 
Published: January 2016

Abstract
The Sultanate of Ternate in the Moluccas (Maluku Islands, Indonesia) was an important power in the eastern archipelago in the Early Modern period. Its wealth gained in the growing international spice trade, and rivalries with other local kingdoms, encouraged expansionary ambition. The Portuguese threat stimulated greater political and cultural unity in the region, galvanized by the adoption of Islam which itself bolstered local opposition to European economic exploitation. In 1570 Sultan Baabullah inaugurated Ternate's new bid for regional hegemony and an increased share of commercial wealth as well as freedom from Portuguese control. Political centralization and territorial expansion continued into the early 17th century, but Ternate succumbed to the power of the Dutch who assumed a monopoly of the spice trade and undermined Ternate's economic base in shipping, trade, and clove production. The unity of the region and Ternate's mini‐empire fractured as sub‐rulers and island communities were alienated from the sultans who became paid agents of the Dutch.
Massina Empire
Authors: Brodnicka Monika 
Published: January 2016

Abstract
The Massina Empire was one of the most organized theocratic states of its time on the African continent. Founded by Seku Amadu (Cheikhou Amadou) in the early 19th century, the Massina Empire, and its capital Hamdallay, held sway in the surrounding regions for over 40 years. At its zenith, the empire spread from Timbuktu in the northeast to Segu in the southwest region and the territories surrounding the Diaka, Niger, and Bani rivers. The empire was organized as an Islamic state, with strong democratic tendencies. Seku Amadu, along with the executive, legislative, and judicial leadership of the Grand Council, developed a sophisticated social, political, economic, and military system in the empire that created stability and development in the region.
Shona empires
Authors: MacKenzie John M. 
Published: January 2016

Abstract

The Shona of Zimbabwe are a major people of south‐central Africa, inhabiting the plateau between the Rivers Limpopo and Zambezi as well as an area of northern South Africa, and parts of Mozambique, Zambia, and Botswana. They are invariably divided into various subgroups and speak a variety of dialects collectively known as the Shona language. They may have occupied this region since the 10th century
ce
. Their complex social structure, their religious beliefs, and their cattle‐keeping, agricultural, and trading economy survived into modern times and over the centuries they have interacted with the Muslims of the East African coast, the Portuguese from the 16th century, the Ndebele people in the early 19th, and the British who established their colonial power over them from 1890. Their claim to have been an indigenous “empire” derives from the extensive nature of the territory they covered, and evidence of their centralized state systems and of the incorporation of other peoples.
Goryeo (Koryo) Kingdom
Authors: Hahn Lee Kang 
Published: January 2016

Abstract

Goryeo (Koryŏ, Koryo) (918–1392
ce
) was a country that was more open to the outside world than any other dynastic state that occupied the Korean Peninsula throughout the history of the Korean people. Politically, it was a period in which the unity of Korean society was significantly enhanced in terms of central leadership, local administration, and military organization. Economically, trade flourished, and for the first time, the Korean people experienced a surge in the arrival of foreign merchants and a constant flow of domestic merchants venturing into foreign markets. Culturally, its society exhibited a considerable level of equality between males and females, a beneficial result of welcoming foreign immigrants, Buddhist sincerity, and Confucian determination, and also a recognition of their own historical roots. Diplomatically, the people of Goryeo not only developed strategies to maintain peace with neighboring rivals, but also continued studying foreign cultures in order to modify and improve the Goryeo people's own condition while preserving the essence and characteristics of their Goryeo identity.
Russia: 1. Rus’ and the Riurikid dynasty (9th century to c.1240)
Authors: Shepard Jonathan 
Published: January 2016

Abstract
The dynamics the development of Rus’ differed from those of more conventional empires which enjoyed outbursts of expansion only to fragment once momentum slackened, or to overstretch the capabilities of any single ruler. The very haphazardness of Rus's emergence made possible its resilience long after its inception. At first, a loose superstructure under a grandly titled khagan co‐existed with kaleidoscopic enterprises of fur‐ and slave‐traffickers between the Gulf of Finland, the Middle Danube, and the Black Sea and Caspian. A tighter structure formed under Riurikid princes on the Middle Dnieper in the 10th century. Its frailties showed up after the passing of giants like Princes Vladimir and Iaroslav (instillers of Christianity on Rus’), with the ceaseless proliferation of their offspring. Yet dynastic squabbles usually played out within the “rules of the game,” in which kissing of the Cross and adherence to agreements sealed by this rite played an important role. A political culture promoting Saints Boris and Gleb as both universal models of Christian conduct and warrior‐princes set the Riurikids apart. This collective identity had resonance far beyond the level of elites. Many inhabitants of the urban networks engaged in long‐distance trade that hinged on exchanging furs from the north for deluxe goods and manufactures from the Byzantine world and Western Europe. This made them interdependent, and in need of princes to protect communications and maintain a modicum of order. Gradually, elites and entrepreneurs in forests remote from the main riverways were drawn into the trading nexus. The 12th and 13th centuries saw the consolidation of princely authority and spreading of Christianity far from the Middle Dnieper, notably in Galich to the southwest, and Vladimir‐Suzdal to the northeast. Unlike most empires, Rus’ enjoyed steady internal expansion.
China, People's Republic of
Authors: Belsky Richard 
Published: January 2016

Abstract
The People's Republic of China (PRC) was founded in 1949 and continues to be ruled by the Communist Party of China (CPC), which maintains control over the state, the military, and important social and economic institutions. Given the wealth of available information on a broad range of issues related to the PRC, this entry focuses on those aspects of the PRC and its history that can be usefully understood as imperial or as in some way related to empire. The PRC is indirectly, via the intervening Republic of China (1912–1949), the territorially coterminous successor of the earlier multinational empire ruled by the Manchu Qing dynasty (1644–1911). As such it possesses two important attributes characteristic of empire: administrative authority over an extensive territory and an ethnically diverse population comprising many “peoples.” PRC official ideology and policies have changed greatly over the course of its existence. At its founding the PRC might reasonably be judged to have been a multinational state. However, in the years since its founding and most notably in recent decades Chinese political and intellectual elites have promoted reconceptualization of the PRC as a nation‐state. China's evolution over the course of a century from empire to multinational state to nation‐state, and all within borders that have changed remarkably little over that time, is a process that is still incomplete and filled with contradictions. Although the PRC cannot be judged an empire in any narrow sense of the term, an appreciation for China's recent imperial roots and the shaping influences the territorial and demographic legacies of empire have had, and still have on that country, proves illuminating in several ways.
Bengal, Sultanate of
Authors: Mishra Patit Paban 
Published: January 2016

Abstract

In the medieval period, the eastern region of the Indian subcontinent had endeavored to carve out a separate entity free from the central rule of Delhi. In the struggle between centripetal and centrifugal forces, Bengal not only tried to assert its independence, but also created a distinct socioeconomic structure. The latter was not always similar to the general Indo‐Islamic culture pervading under the Delhi Sultanate. A unique
Bengali
culture developed, which continued later on. The interaction between Islam and Hinduism ushered in a new era in the history of Bengal.
Germany: 1. Colonialism, Early Modern period
Authors: Biskup Thomas 
Published: January 2016

AbstractAlthough no German state maintained a continuous colonial presence outside Europe before the 1800s, Early Modern Germany formed an important part of European expansion on several levels, which had repercussions for German society and economy as well as for other colonial empires and extra‐European regions. Characteristic is the pattern of “mediated” German encounters, whereby merchants, sailors, missionaries, and scholars took part in colonial ventures under non‐German flags.
Akkadian Empire
Authors: Schrakamp Ingo 
Published: January 2016

Abstract

At the end of the 24th century, c.2300
±30
bce
, Sargon of Akkade (2324–2285
±30
bce
) defeated Lugalzagesi, king of Uruk, unified the whole of Babylonia proper in a single territorial state, and laid the foundation of the Akkadian Empire. Sargon, his sons Rimush and Manishtushu, and his grandson Naramsuen led their armies as far as the Mediterranean in the west, reached the springs of Euphrates and Tigris in the north, and campaigned as far as highland Iran in the east and the Arabian Gulf in the south, dominating the political landscape of Mesopotamia for more than a century (2300–2181
±30
bce
). Under Sharkalisharri, westerners and Guteans penetrated the empire, provinces defected, and Akkade was reduced to a petty state. After a short period of confusion, Dudu and Shudurul (2177–2142
±30
bce
) presided over an Akkadian resurgence, but the Guteans successively conquered central and northern Babylonia and thus eliminated Akkade from the political stage.
Anglo‐Norman Empire
Authors: Raich Susan 
Published: January 2016

AbstractThe Anglo‐Saxon Kingdom of England and the Duchy of Normandy formed the territorial core of the Anglo‐Norman Empire (late 11th and 12th centuries). For a period of about 140 years after the Norman conquest of England in 1066, these distinct territories were linked by rule under the same individual or family. While administrative, financial, and legal systems maintained order in the king‐duke's absence, this empire was subject to internal discord and repeated succession crises and fell apart in the face of growing external threats. Historians have debated how workable such a vast cross‐Channel polity ever could have been, not to mention its status as an empire. Nevertheless, the Norman conquest and its aftermath created a fusion of English, Norman, British, Scandinavian, and French traditions unique to, and influential within, the rest of Europe.
Mughal Empire
Authors: MacKenzie John M. 
Published: January 2016

AbstractThe Mughal Empire was one of the most remarkable empires of the Early Modern period. Spanning the years between the early 16th and the early 18th centuries, it represented the imposition of power over large tracts of India by an Islamic Central Asian dynasty. At its height, it covered a vast extent of territory in the Indian subcontinent and it exhibited strikingly competent military, administrative, developmental, and revenue‐raising characteristics. It also created one of the richest and most celebrated of all imperial cultures, spanning architecture, town planning, garden design, the visual arts, music, literature, and jewelry. The dynasty produced six remarkable emperors, each exhibiting different qualities in the creation and maintenance of the empire. They ruled at the time that Europeans were beginning to make encroachments into Asia, but were initially able to cope with this threat. However, the dynasty ultimately broke down, partly because of internal tensions, partly because it failed to maintain the incorporative and liberal techniques on which its success was originally based, partly because of “overstretch” in its military ambitions, and also because of the rising power of Europeans. Theoretically it continued in an attenuated form until the mid‐19th century.
Islam and empire
Authors: Emiralioğlu Pınar 
Published: January 2016

AbstractThe study of Islamic empires presents an array of unique challenges for the historian and student. Misperceptions and misinformation abound, some of it dating all the way back to when the armies of the Ottoman sultan stood outside Vienna's walls. In this short historical overview it becomes apparent that rather than a monolithic force, Islamic empires comprised a complicated patchwork of influences, adaptations, and motives.
Carolingian Empire
Authors: Nelson Jinty 
Published: January 2016

Abstract
The Frankish kingdom under the Merovingian dynasty, c.500–751, inherited from the Roman Empire Christianity, Latinity, aspects of law, and government. It was weakened by intra‐dynastic conflicts linked to elite opposition. Eighth‐century geopolitical shifts created opportunities. A new Carolingian dynasty seized power in 751 and created the Carolingian Empire. Charlemagne (768–814) focused the sights of dynasty and elites on conquest – Italy (774), Bavaria (788), Catalonia (801), Saxony, finally (804) – Christianizing pagan neighbors, internalizing a service ethic, and shaping a Christian culture shared by diverse peoples and provinces. The size of the kingdom had doubled by 800, when Charlemagne was crowned emperor. Devolution, and enlistment of ecclesiastical and lay elites in serving the dynasty, maintained the empire. Rivalries within the dynasty threatened it. The empire, divided, continued to field able rulers who generated loyalty. Lack of legitimate male heirs caused the empire's end in 888. Its cultural impacts were lasting.
Hoysala Empire
Authors: Dalziel Nigel R. 
Published: January 2016

AbstractThe Hoysala dynasty emerged in the area of Malnad in southwest India in the 10th centuryce. At its peak in the 13th century the Hoysala Empire was pre‐eminent in South India and covered much of modern‐day Karnataka, extending into Telangana, Andhra Pradesh, Kerala, and Tamil Nadu. The Hoysala rulers gained increasing power and territory as feudatory generals of the Chalukyas, but established their own fully independent empire under Ballala II (r.1173–1220). It was identified with a strongly Kannada‐speaking culture and Hindu Vaishnava faith. Religious tolerance was important and under Vinayaditya (r.1047–1098), who converted from Jainism, a rich tradition of temple‐building took hold. This encouraged social and economic development, but also represented and buttressed the power of the Hoysala dynasty. Their rule is associated with a flowering of architectural, artistic, literary, and religious culture. The dynasty came to an end following the onslaught of the Sultanate of Delhi in the early 14th century and was succeeded by Vijayanagar.
Timurid Empire
Authors: Kilic‐Schubel Nurten 
Published: January 2016

AbstractThe Timurids were a Muslim dynasty of Turco‐Mongol origin who ruled large parts of Persia and Central Asia from the late 14th to the early 16th century, until they were ultimately replaced by the Safavid dynasty in Iran and the Shibanid‐Uzbeks in southern Central Asia. The founder of the dynasty, Temür (r.1370–1405) was one of the last great nomadic conquerors of Eurasia who reshaped the political and cultural environment from the Caucasus to northern India. Despite his vast conquests and self‐conscious emulation of Chinggis Khan (Genghis Khan) (r.1206–1227), the core of his empire remained limited to the western part of the Mongol Empire, especially the settled areas of Persia and part of Central Asia. Temür's descendants, the Timurids, engaged in a series of destructive succession struggles and by the mid‐15th century had lost control of parts of their empire. Nevertheless, they presided over one of the most artistically brilliant periods in Islamicate history, often dubbed “the Timurid Renaissance.” Their broad cultural and artistic patronage led to the development of one of the most sophisticated courts in premodern Eurasia. Having emerged in the wake of the fragmentation of the unified Mongol Empire in the mid‐14th century, a crucial period of transition in Central Eurasia, the Timurid Empire lasted only a century and half. But the artistic and cultural legacy of the dynasty influenced the art, culture, and politics of its successor states as well as the great premodern Islamicate empires – the Ottomans in Anatolia, the Safavids in Iran, and especially the Mughals in northern India, where the descendants of Temür under Zahir al‐Din Muhammad Babur (d.1530), established a new and long‐lasting Timurid empire in South Asia.
Eastern Ganga and Gajapati empires
Authors: Mishra Patit Paban 
Published: January 2016

Abstract
The modern state of Odisha (earlier Orissa) in its heyday extended from the Ganga River in the north to the Godavari in the south, and from the Bay of Bengal in the east to the town of Amarakantaka in the west. During the imperial rule of the Eastern Gangas (1038–1434) and Gajapatis (1434–1539) the territorial and cultural unity of the region extended over a large part of eastern, central, and southern India. The kings established the cult of Jagannath to legitimize their rule over such a vast territory. It was a glorious epoch in the history of eastern India, when internal and overseas trade flourished, and art, architecture, and literature witnessed tremendous growth.
Hunting and empire
Authors: Gissibl Bernhard 
Published: January 2016

AbstractThe associations between empire and the pursuit, killing, or trapping of feral animals are manifold, complex, and ancient. As one of the oldest forms of human domination over animals and nature, hunting has been an important and persistent repertoire of empires across continents and for millennia. Egyptian pharaohs, Persian satraps, Mongolian khans, Mughal emperors, Ottoman sultans, European kings, colonial governors in imperial provinces, or Nazi leaders like Hermann Göring used hunting as a ritual assertion of political power within far‐flung, heterogeneous polities. Empire was a political ecology constellation in which animals were resources as well as agents, and their violent appropriation was a dominant and continuous theme in imperial history. Although essentially a performance and display of imperial hierarchies, hunting was more than a symbol or something that merely “stood in” for empire or colonialism. Rulers sought the potentially dangerous situation of the hunt to display courage and qualification for leadership. Hunting advanced imperial frontiers and procured forms of capital and resources indispensable for colonial rule. Settlers cleared the land of harmful animals in order to protect their crops; governors and administrators did so to engage in “predatory care” for imperial subjects. In all these cases, hunting was metaphorically or materially linked to colonialism and empire. At times, it was the very act and process, identical with colonization or imperialism itself. Perhaps the attractiveness of imperial hunting and its ultimate significance for the working and expansion of empire results from the fact that discourse and practice, event and process, individual action and structural condition collapsed in the act of hunting. Empire was performed every time imperial man the hunter confronted the animal embodiment of the wild at gunpoint.
Chalukya dynasty
Authors: Mahalakshmi R. 
Published: January 2016

Abstract

The Chalukyas of Badami were an important power that ruled from the mid‐6th to the mid‐8th centuries
ce
in the western Deccan. The process of agrarian expansion and intensification is attested to in the numerous land grants they issued. They were strategically located along an important trade route in southern India, and hence declared themselves the lords of Daksinapatha. They were an important player in the geopolitical contestations for power and established a line of rulers in the eastern Deccan centered around Vengi by the 7th century. Despite being eclipsed by the Rashtrakutas in the 8th century, lineages claiming ancestry from the Badami Chalukyas emerged in the 9th century, with their center of influence now shifted to Kalyana.
Brazil, Empire of
Authors: O'Rourke Shane 
Published: January 2016

Abstract
The Empire of Brazil was proclaimed in October 1822 and lasted for 67 years until it was overthrown by a military coup in November 1889. It had two emperors: Dom Pedro I (1822–1831) and Dom Pedro II (1840–1889). The empire was an anomaly in a hemisphere of republics and a continent of nation‐states; and, unusually, it retained its huge territorial reach inherited from the Portuguese Empire. Independence brought new problems including the constitutional relationship between monarch and parliament, the central government relationship with its regions, and, above all, the problem of slavery. The empire had successes and failures which continue to affect Brazil to this day, but, largely due to the empire, Brazil remained a unified, consolidated state with a strong and growing sense of national identity.
Humanitarianism and empire
Authors: Paulmann Johannes 
Published: January 2016

Abstract
Colonial practices have long had a crucial yet complex relationship with modern humanitarianism. The concern for distant strangers originated in colonial and missionary encounters, its development depended on imperial infrastructures, and its justification was strongly imbued with imperial ideologies and civilizational hierarchies. In turn, humanitarianism strengthened imperial governance, even prolonging imperial ideas and practices beyond decolonization. Yet it also contributed to anti‐colonial sentiment and to support for liberation movements. It manifested itself in a broad field of activities encompassing campaigns for the abolition of slavery, the protection of indigenous populations, missionary work, famine relief, provision of shelter, health and rehabilitation for those suffering from war, humanitarian intervention by military force, and the advocacy of human rights and development. Religious and secular motivations often intermingled. Decolonization, the transformation of colonial missionary work, and the evolution of international organizations gradually carried humanitarianism beyond empire during the 20th century.
War, weaponry, and empire: 2. Modern
Authors: Pizzo David 
Published: January 2016

AbstractThis entry deals with the evolution of military technology as it applies to the building and maintenance of empires from 1000ceto the present. The period from 1000 – and particularly from 1800 – to the present has been one of tremendous technological change, and perhaps no area of technology has changed more rapidly than the technology of warfare. At the beginning of the period in question, warfare was still characterized by the use of swords, bows, and other human‐powered devices and in many ways did not differ significantly from warfare in the ancient world. Today, on the other hand, we are witnessing the rapid weaponization of outer space. The millennium that began in 1000ceencompassed three momentous changes that affected the relationship between war, weaponry, and empire: the gunpowder revolution of the Early Modern period, the rise of the modern bureaucratic state, and various phases of the ongoing Industrial Revolution.