Robert Rollinger & Julian Degen 
Short-term Empires in World History [PDF ebook] 

The volume will focus on a comparative level on a specific group of states that are commonly labelled as “empires” and that we encounter through all historical periods. Although they are very successful at the very beginning, like most empires are, this success is very ephemeral and transient. The era of conquest is never followed by a period of consolidation. Collapse and/or reduction to much smaller dimension run as fast as the process of wide-ranging conquest and expansion. The volume singles out a series of such “short-term empires” and aims to provide a methodologically clearly structured as well as a uniform and consistent approach by developing a general set of questions that guarantee the possibility to compare and distinguish. This way it intends to examine not only already well established empires but also to illuminate forgotten ones.

Table of Content

Preface.- Approaching Short-term Empires in World History, a first Attempt.- The European Union: A new Post-democratic, Post-modern, and Post-national Short-term Empire?.- The Hunnic Empire of Attila.- The Timurid Empire.- The Latin Empire of Constantinople (1204-1261): Rise and Fall of a Short-term State in the Romania.- Mithradates VI and the Pontic Empire.- The Ghaznavids of eastern Iran, a postcolonial Muslim Empire.- Because Empire Means Forever: Babylon and Imperial Disposition.- The Medes of the 7th and 6th c. BCE: a Short-term Empire or rather a Short term Confederacy?.- In a League of Its Own? Nāder Šāh and His Empire.- The Barcids and Hannibal.- The Ostrogothic Empire of Theoderic the Great.- The Rise and Decline of Hitler’s Empire (1933–1942).- From Warlord to Emperor: the careers of Shamshi-Adad and Hammurabi.- The ‘Empire’ of the Hephthalites.

About the author

Robert Rollinger is professor of Ancient History and Ancient Near Eastern Studies at the University of Innsbruck.


Julian Degen is postgraduate at the University of Innsbruck.


Michael Gehler is professor of History at the University of Hildesheim.