A review of “The Great Empires Of Asia” edited by Jim Masselos
Long before European powers encircled the globe, Asia was home to some of the greatest empires ever seen. This excellent work describes seven of those empires covering a wide range of geography and time. It does so in a concise and readable manner with each chapter having a short table of key dates and a helpful map. The book is edited – with introductory and concluding chapters – by Australian academic Jim Masselos and then each chapter is written by a different academic who is expert on that particular empire. The seven topics are:
- Central Asia: The Mongols 1206-1405 This was – and remains – the largest contiguous empire in history. By 1260, the empire stretched from the Sea of Japan in the east to the Mediterranean Sea and the Carpathian Mountains in the west and it could mobilise approximately a million men under arms. A remarkable aspect of this empire was its policy of religious toleration in an era of religious strife across much of Eurasia. The initial driving force was the man we now call Chinggis Khan, but other noted Khans were his second son Ogodei, Mongke and Hulegu.
- China: The Ming 1368-1644 As a consequence of this empire, for 276 years a population far greater than than of Europe enjoyed long periods of peace. Astonishingly, between 1405 and 1421, the emperor Yongle commissioned six major maritime expeditions under the command of Zheng Ye, reaching as far as the east coast of Africa. Yet the Ming period was one of technological stagnation and, as a result, China failed to make the transition to an industrial revolution. Instead Ming society was highly bureaucratised with an elaborate system of examinations involving an emphasis on Confucian classics.
- South-East Asia: The Khmer 802-1566 This was a long-lived empire that reached its apogee at the end of the 12th century, covering much of modern day Cambodia, north-eastern Thailand, most of the Mekong Delta area of Vietnam, and southern Laos. However, our knowledge of this empire is limited because so few written records from these times survive. What we do have is a a vast collection of temples and other edifices, most famously Angkor Wat which is the world’s largest religious monument. A key feature of this empire was the Khmer mastery of water resources with an elaborate system of canals.
- Asia Minor and Beyond: The Ottomans 1281-1922 Lasting over six centuries, this multi-ethnic and multi-religious polity was among the militarily most formidable, bureaucratically best-administered and culturally most splendid empires in world history. At its most expansive, it covered modern day Turkey plus much of the Middle East, the southern rim of the Mediterranean, all the Balkans, and even Hungary. Indeed, in 1529 and again in 1683, the Ottoman armies marched on the gates of Vienna (but both times were defeated). It’s capital – Constantinople, later Istanbul – straddled Europe and Asia.
- Persia: The Safavids 1501-1722 This empire reached its greatest geographical extent during the reign of Shah Abbas I ‘The Great’ in the early 17th century. It was shaped – as is modern day Iran – by a particular form of Shia Islam which revers the twelfth imam, a direct descent of the Prophet who disappeared in 873 and is expected to return at ‘the end of days’. The capital shifted from Tabriz to Qazvin to Isfahan, the last being the site for stupendous architecture which survives in the Image of the World Square.
- India: The Mughals 1526-1858 The Mughals – a corruption of the dynastic name Mongol – were a Sunni Muslim dynasty who ruled over a predominantly Hindu South Asia covering all but the most southern tip of the Indian sub-continent. The empire was founded by Babur who was succeeded by Akbar (who was the greatest of the Mughals), Jahangir (who took a Persian wife), Shah Jahan (who built the Taj Mahal) and Aurangzeb (who was the most conservative ruler). The end of the Mughal empire saw its acquisition by the British empire.
- Japan: The Meiji Restoration 1868-1945 It lasted only 50 years, but it was the only non-Western empire of modern times. Following a rapid modernisation of it military forces (with Western help), Japan defeated China and then Russia, later took over Taiwan and Korea as well as Manchuria, before allying itself with Germany and Italy in the Second World War and rapidly occupying most of south-east Asia. The defeat of the empire was sudden and total with the dropping of atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki and its occupation by the USA.