Download or read book The Empire of the Steppes written by René Grousset and published by Rutgers University Press. This book was released on 1970 with total page 724 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: .While the early history of the steppe nomad is shrouded in obscurity, The Empire of the Steppes brings both the general reader and the specialist the majestic sweep, grandeur and the overriding intellectual grasp of Grousset's original. Hailed as a masterpiece when first published in French in 1939, and in English in 1970, this great work of synthesis brings before us the people of the steppes, dominated by three mighty figures--Atilla, Genghiz Khan, and Tamberlain--as they marched through ten centuries of history, from the borders of China to the frontiers of the West. The book includes nineteen maps, a comprehensive index, notes, and bibliography. The late Rene Grousset was director of the Cernuschi Museum and curator of the Muse Guimet in Paris, a member of the French Academy and author of many works on Asia Minor and the Near East.
Download or read book The Bulgars and the Steppe Empire in the Early Middle Ages written by Tsvetelin Stepanov and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2010-02-15 with total page 200 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book is about Steppe Eurasia and China, Persia, Byzantium, as well as the 'Inside' and 'Outside' Other. This dual approach helps the reader to better understand the attitudes of the Steppe to both the southern sedentary empires (in this book, the 'Outside' Other) and to the women and shamans/magicians within the nomadic confederations (in this book, the 'Inside' Other), in the so-called 'Golden Age' of the Steppe Empire, e.g. between the sixth and ninth/tenth centuries.The result is a new and vivid picture of the Steppe's attitudes to 'otherness' and 'usness'. The book covers not only a long period of time, but also a vast territory, from Mongolia to the Black Sea and South-Eastern Europe. It studies many peoples and societies and their images of the 'Other', interpreted through different approaches and methodologies.
Download or read book The Avars written by Walter Pohl and published by Cornell University Press. This book was released on 2018-12-15 with total page 663 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Though the book was first published in German in 1988, this English version includes many revisions and updates and will be the definitive English-language study of the Avar empire for years to come. It will be invaluable for those interested in medieval history or in the impact of nomadic steppe empires on sedentary civilizations." ― Choice The Avars arrived in Europe from the Central Asian steppes in the mid-sixth century CE and dominated much of Central and Eastern Europe for almost 250 years. Fierce warriors and canny power brokers, the Avars were more influential and durable than Attila's Huns, yet have remained hidden in history. Walter Pohl's epic narrative, translated into English for the first time, restores them to their rightful place in the story of early medieval Europe. The Avars offers a comprehensive overview of their history, tracing the Avars from the construction of their steppe empire in the center of Europe; their wars and alliances with the Byzantines, Slavs, Lombards, and others; their apex as the first so-called barbarian power to besiege Constantinople (in 626); to their fall under the Frankish armies of Charlemagne and subsequent disappearance as a distinct cultural group. Pohl uncovers the secrets of their society, synthesizing the rich archaeological record recovered from more than 60,000 graves of the period, as well as accounts of the Avars by Byzantine and other chroniclers. In recovering the story of the fascinating encounter between Eurasian nomads who established an empire in the heart of Europe and the post-Roman Christian cultures of Europe, this book provides a new perspective on the origins of medieval Europe itself.
Download or read book The Khazars written by Mikhail Zhirohov and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2019-01-24 with total page 50 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Khazars were one of the most important Turkic peoples in European history, dominating vast areas of southeastern Europe and the western reaches of the Central Asian steppes from the 4th to the 11th centuries AD. They were also unique in that their aristocratic and military elites converted to Judaism, creating what would be territorially the largest Jewish-ruled state in world history. They became significant allies of the Byzantine Empire, blocking the advance of Islam north of the Caucasus Mountains for several hundred years. They also achieved a remarkable level of metal-working technology, and their military elite wore forms of iron plate armour that would not be seen in Western Europe until the 14th century. The Khazar state provided the foundations upon which medieval Russia and modern Ukraine were built. Fully illustrated with detailed colour plates, this is a fascinating study into the armies, organisation, armour, weapons and fortifications of the Khazars.
Download or read book The Cambridge History of Early Inner Asia written by Denis Sinor and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 1990-03 with total page 542 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This volume introduces the geographical setting of Central Asia and follows its history from the palaeolithic era to the rise of the Mongol empire in the thirteenth century. Distinguished international scholars discuss chronologically the varying historical achievements of the disparate population groups in the region.
Download or read book The Plough that Broke the Steppes written by David Moon and published by Oxford University Press, USA. This book was released on 2013-02-28 with total page 340 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This is the first environmental history of Russia's steppes. David Moon focuses on the settlement of migrants from central Russia, Ukraine, and central Europe, and analyses how naturalists and scientists came to understand the steppe environment, including the origins of the fertile black earth.
Download or read book Russia s Steppe Frontier written by Michael Khodarkovsky and published by Indiana University Press. This book was released on 2004-12-15 with total page 305 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Drawing on sources and archival materials in Russian and Turkic languages, Russia's Steppe Frontier presents a complex picture of the encounter between indigenous peoples and the Russians. It is an original and invaluable resource for understanding Russia's imperial experience. Michael Khodarkovsky is Professor of History at Loyola University Chicago.
Download or read book Empires and Exchanges in Eurasian Late Antiquity written by Nicola Di Cosmo and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2018-04-26 with total page 1284 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Empires and Exchanges in Eurasian Late Antiquity offers an integrated picture of Rome, China, Iran, and the Steppes during a formative period of world history. In the half millennium between 250 and 750 CE, settled empires underwent deep structural changes, while various nomadic peoples of the steppes (Huns, Avars, Turks, and others) experienced significant interactions and movements that changed their societies, cultures, and economies. This was a transformational era, a time when Roman, Persian, and Chinese monarchs were mutually aware of court practices, and when Christians and Buddhists criss-crossed the Eurasian lands together with merchants and armies. It was a time of greater circulation of ideas as well as material goods. This volume provides a conceptual frame for locating these developments in the same space and time. Without arguing for uniformity, it illuminates the interconnections and networks that tied countless local cultural expressions to far-reaching inter-regional ones.
Download or read book Sasanian Persia written by Eberhard Sauer and published by Edinburgh University Press. This book was released on 2017-06-05 with total page 336 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Details Persias growing military and economic power in the late antique worldThe Sasanian Empire (3rd7th centuries) was one of the largest empires of antiquity, stretching from Mesopotamia to modern Pakistan and from Central Asia to the Arabian Peninsula. This mega-empire withstood powerful opponents in the steppe and expanded further in Late Antiquity, whilst the Roman world shrunk in size. Recent research has revealed the reasons for this success: notably population growth in some key territories, economic prosperity, and urban development, made possible through investment in agriculture and military infrastructure on a scale unparalleled in the late antique world. Our volume explores the empires relations with its neighbours and key phenomena which contributed to its wealth and power, from the empires armed forces to agriculture, trade and treatment of minorities. The latest discoveries, notably major urban foundations, fortifications and irrigations systems, feature prominently. An empire whose military might and culture rivalled Rome and foreshadowed the caliphate will be of interest to scholars of the Roman and Islamic world.Challenges our Eurocentric world view by presenting a Near-Eastern empire whose urban culture and military apparatus rivalled that of Rome Covers the latest discoveries on foundations, fortifications and irrigation systemsIncludes case studies on Sasanian frontier walls and urban culture in the Sasanian Empire
Download or read book Taming the Wild Field written by Willard Sunderland and published by Cornell University Press. This book was released on 2016-03-10 with total page 258 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Stretching from the tributaries of the Danube to the Urals and from the Russian forests to the Black and Caspian seas, the vast European steppe has for centuries played very different roles in the Russian imagination. To the Grand Princes of Kiev and Muscovy, it was the "wild field," a region inhabited by nomadic Turko-Mongolic peoples who repeatedly threatened the fragile Slavic settlements to the north. For the emperors and empresses of imperial Russia, it was a land of boundless economic promise and a marker of national cultural prowess. By the mid-nineteenth century the steppe, once so alien and threatening, had emerged as an essential, if complicated, symbol of Russia itself.Traversing a thousand years of the region's history, Willard Sunderland recounts the complex process of Russian expansion and colonization, stressing the way outsider settlement at once created the steppe as a region of empire and was itself constantly changing. The story is populated by a colorful array of administrators, Cossack adventurers, Orthodox missionaries, geographers, foreign entrepreneurs, peasants, and (by the late nineteenth century) tourists and conservationists. Sunderland's approach to history is comparative throughout, and his comparisons of the steppe with the North American case are especially telling.Taming the Wild Field eloquently expresses concern with the fate of the world's great grasslands, and the book ends at the beginning of the twentieth century with the initiation of a conservation movement in Russia by those appalled at the high environmental cost of expansion.
Download or read book Palgrave Concise Historical Atlas of Central Asia written by R. Abazov and published by Springer. This book was released on 2016-04-30 with total page 137 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This atlas graphically illuminates the region's history tracing back to the 8th-7th century B.C. From the spread of Islam to the invasion of the Mongols, the area has been at the crossroads of some of the world's most important developments, all succinctly explained in this book.
Download or read book Knowledge and the Ends of Empire written by Ian W. Campbell and published by Cornell University Press. This book was released on 2017-03-07 with total page 418 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In Knowledge and the Ends of Empire, Ian W. Campbell investigates the connections between knowledge production and policy formation on the Kazak steppes of the Russian Empire. Hoping to better govern the region, tsarist officials were desperate to obtain reliable information about an unfamiliar environment and population. This thirst for knowledge created opportunities for Kazak intermediaries to represent themselves and their landscape to the tsarist state. Because tsarist officials were uncertain of what the steppe was, and disagreed on what could be made of it, Kazaks were able to be part of these debates, at times influencing the policies that were pursued.Drawing on archival materials from Russia and Kazakhstan and a wide range of nineteenth-century periodicals in Russian and Kazak, Campbell tells a story that highlights the contingencies of and opportunities for cooperation with imperial rule. Kazak intermediaries were at first able to put forward their own idiosyncratic views on whether the steppe was to be Muslim or secular, whether it should be a center of stock-raising or of agriculture, and the extent to which local institutions needed to give way to imperial institutions. It was when the tsarist state was most confident in its knowledge of the steppe that it committed its gravest errors by alienating Kazak intermediaries and placing unbearable stresses on pastoral nomads. From the 1890s on, when the dominant visions in St. Petersburg were of large-scale peasant colonization of the steppe and its transformation into a hearth of sedentary agriculture, the same local knowledge that Kazaks had used to negotiate tsarist rule was transformed into a language of resistance.
Download or read book Women and the Making of the Mongol Empire written by Anne F. Broadbridge and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2018-07-18 with total page 368 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: How did women contribute to the rise of the Mongol Empire while Mongol men were conquering Eurasia? This book positions women in their rightful place in the otherwise well-known story of Chinggis Khan (commonly known as Genghis Khan) and his conquests and empire. Examining the best known women of Mongol society, such as Chinggis Khan's mother, Hö'elün, and senior wife, Börte, as well as those who were less famous but equally influential, including his daughters and his conquered wives, we see the systematic and essential participation of women in empire, politics and war. Anne F. Broadbridge also proposes a new vision of Chinggis Khan's well-known atomized army by situating his daughters and their husbands at the heart of his army reforms, looks at women's key roles in Mongol politics and succession, and charts the ways the descendants of Chinggis Khan's daughters dominated the Khanates that emerged after the breakup of the Empire in the 1260s.
Download or read book Vacant Steppes written by Steven Sy and published by . This book was released on 2021-09-07 with total page 324 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "A storm was brewing over the Steppe. The skies had been clear just hours before, but they were now filled with gray clouds. A few droplets pelted the ground as Sara rode to her destination. Thunder cracked in the distance and wind howled through the Steppe like the roar of a forgotten god." As a second invasion by the Empire threatens the nomads of the Great Steppe, a new generation of leaders must mend the broken alliances of their fathers or face certain destruction. Vacant Steppes is a Mongolia-inspired epic fantasy novel about inheritance, family, and leadership in times of division and war.
Download or read book The Steppe Tradition in International Relations written by Iver B. Neumann and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2018-07-19 with total page 327 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Neumann and Wigen counter Euro-centrism in the study of international relations by providing a full account of political organisation in the Eurasian steppe from the fourth millennium BCE up until the present day. Drawing on a wide range of archaeological and historical secondary sources, alongside social theory, they discuss the pre-history, history and effect of what they name the 'steppe tradition'. Writing from an International Relations perspective, the authors give a full treatment of the steppe tradition's role in early European state formation, as well as explaining how politics in states like Turkey and Russia can be understood as hybridising the steppe tradition with an increasingly dominant European tradition. They show how the steppe tradition's ideas of political leadership, legitimacy and concepts of succession politics can help us to understand the policies and behaviour of such leaders as Putin in Russia and Erdogan in Turkey.
Download or read book Where Two Worlds Met written by Michael Khodarkovsky and published by Cornell University Press. This book was released on 1992 with total page 308 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: During the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries the expanding Russian empire was embroiled in a dramatic confrontation with the nomadic people known as the Kalmyks who had moved westward from Inner Asia onto the vast Caspian and Volga steppes. Drawing on an unparalleled body of Russian and Turkish sources--including chronicles, epics, travelogues, and previously unstudied Ottoman archival materials--Michael Khodarkovsky offers a fresh interpretation of this long and destructive conflict, which ended with the unruly frontier becoming another province of the Russian empire.Khodarkovsky first sketches a cultural anthropology of the Kalmyk tribes, focusing on the assumptions they brought to the interactions with one another and with the sedentary cultures they encountered. In light of this portrait of Kalmyk culture and internal politics, Khodarkovsky rereads from the Kalmyk point of view the Russian history of disputes between the two peoples. Whenever possible, he compares Ottoman accounts of these events with the Russian sources on which earlier interpretations have been based. Khodarkovsky's analysis deepens our understanding of the history of Russian expansion and establishes a new paradigm for future study of the interaction between the Russians and the non-Russian peoples of Central Asia and Transcaucasia.
