Ancient empires : from Mesopotamia to the rise of Islam / Eric H. Cline, Mark W. Graham.

Includes bibliographical references (p. 347-355) and index.

Introduction: what is an (ancient) empire? -- Definition of empire -- Empire, response, and resistance -- Empires, ancient and modern -- 1. Prelude to the age of ancient empires -- The dawn of empire -- Between Amarna and Qadesh : realpolitik Bronze Age style -- Collapse of the international system -- 2. The rise of the age of ancient empires -- The levels of historical time and the rise of the age of ancient empires -- Climate change and the birth of a new age -- The Neo-Assyrian revival -- The logic of Assyrian domination -- The demise of Assyrian domination -- 3. Dealing with empires : varieties of responses -- Secondary state formation : Urartu -- Coalition and collapse : Syria and its neighbors -- Revival of East-West trade : the Phoenicians/Canaanites -- Conflict and covenant : Israel and Judah -- 4. Beyond the Near East : the Neo-Babylonian and early Achaemenid Persian Empires -- The rise (and fall) of the Neo-Babylonian Empire -- Neo-Babylonian rulership in action -- Interlude : the People of the Book -- Enigmatic Nabonidus and the Persian takeover -- Rise of a multiculturalist empire : the Achaemenid Persians -- Pragmatics of a multicultural empire -- Responding to empire -- 5. The crucible of history : East meets West -- The Greek expansion and the birth of the Polis -- The Ionian intellectual revolution and the limits of Persian tolerance -- The crucible of history -- The Greco-Persian war -- Postlude : East, West and Orientalism -- 6. Democracy and empire between Athens and Alexander -- A golden age (at Athens) -- Can a democracy run an empire? The Peloponnesian War -- The empire strikes back : Alexander the Great -- 7. "Spear-won" empires : the Hellenistic synthesis -- Alexander's "funeral games" -- The Hellenistic IEMP synthesis -- Empire and the city -- The individual in the Hellenistic world -- Resistance and revolt : Mauryans and Maccabees -- 8. The Western Mediterranean and the rise of Rome -- Roman beginnings : inside and outside -- The roots of Roman Imperialism -- 9. Imperium sine fine : Roman Imperialism and the end of the old order -- Rome versus Carthage -- Symploké : Rome and the Hellenistic East -- The late republic and the end of the old order -- 10. The new political order : the foundations of the Principate -- Mr. IEMP : Octavian/Augustus -- Pax Romana -- Into the arena : a microcosm of imperial society in the Principate -- "Barbarians" through Roman eyes : the Romans encounter the "other" -- 11. Ruling and resisting the Roman Empire -- Power and the provinces -- The Imperial cult and Roman rule -- Resisting Roman rule -- 12. Imperial crisis and recovery -- The "Third-Century crisis" -- The rise of Christianity -- The Dominate : Cosmos restored -- 13. Universal empires and their peripheries in late antiquity -- Roman political and religious universalism -- Renovatio : Byzantium, the new Rome -- The rise of the Sasanid Persian Empire -- Politics, resistance, and heterodoxies at the peripheries of the empires -- 14. The formation of the Islamic World Empire -- The clash of empires and the end of the (ancient) world -- The Arabs and the rise of Islam -- The Umayyads : the first Islamic (and the last ancient) empire.

"Ancient Empires is a relatively brief yet comprehensive and even-handed overview of the ancient Near East, the Mediterranean, and Europe, including the Greco-Roman world, Late Antiquity, and the early Muslin period. The book emphasizes the central, if problematic, connection between political and ideological power in both empire-formation and resistance. By defining the ancient world as a period strectching from the Bronze Age into the early Muslim world, it is broader in scope than competing books; yet at the same time its tight thematic concentration keeps the narrative engagingly focused"-- Provided by publisher.