The great empires of the ancient world / edited by Thomas Harrison

London : Thames and Hudson, 2009. 1st edition. Hardcover. An exceptional copy; fine in an equally fine dw. Particularly well-preserved; tight, bright, clean and especially sharp-cornered. Literally as new and still in the publisher's protective shrink-wrap. Physical description: 256 pages: illustrations (black and white, and colour), maps. Contents: Introduction: new visions of ancient empires / Thomas Harrison -- The empire of New Kingdom Egypt, 1539-1069 BC / Bill Manley -- The Hittite empire, 1650-1200 BC / Trevor Bryce -- The empires of Assyria and Babylonia, 900-539 BC / Marc Van De Mieroop -- The first Persian empire, 550-330 BC / Lloyd Llewellyn-Jones -- The Athenian empire, 478-404 BC, 378-338 BC / Alastair Blanshard -- The empire of Alexander and his successors, 338-60 BC / Michael Sommer and Thomas Harrison -- The Parthian and early Sasanian empires, c. 247 BC-AD 300 / Ted Kaizer -- The Roman empire, 27 BC-AD 476 / Michael Sommer -- The early empires of South Asia, 323 BC-AD 500 / Robin Coningham and Mark Manuel -- The early empires of China, 221 BC-AD 220 / W.J.F. Jenner. Subjects: Civilization, Ancient. History, Ancient. Imperialism History To 1500. Civilization, Ancient; Pictorial works.Genre: Bibliography. Illustrated. Summary: A distinguished team of internationally renowned scholars surveys the great empires from 1600 BC to AD 500, from the ancient Mediterranean to China, in ten comprehensive chapters, taking in the empires of New Kingdom Egypt; the Hittites; Assyria and Babylonia; Achaemenid Persia; Athens; Alexander; Parthian and early Sasanian Persia; Rome; India; and Qin and Han China. Each chapter conveys the main narrative of events, their impact on ancient societies and the dominant rulers who shaped that history, from Ramesses II in Egypt to Chandragupta in India, from Rome's Augustus to China's Shi-huangdi. Exploring the very nature of empire itself, the authors show how profoundly imperialism in the distant past influenced the 19th-century powers and the modern United States.