I have recently been renewing my acquaintance with Rudyard Kipling Rudyard Kipling the poet, that is, as distinct from Rudyard Kipling the short-story writer and part-time novelist. R.K. the poet is very much out of favour at present, and has been these twenty years. I suppose this disfavour springs from his identification with the spirit of Empire, with the Raj, with the Great White Sahib, wit...

That definition of bibliotheca – the most common Latin term for library – is taken from the Etymologies of Isidore, Bishop of Seville, a ‘vastly important conduit for classical antiquity into the medieval world’.2 Composed in the first decades of the seventh century AD, by which time most of the Iberian peninsula had been part of the Visigothic kingdom for nearly two centuries, the Etymologies ...

"Civilizations" and "world systems" are alternative labels for the largest macropolitical entities that have existed in human history. These historical civilizations/world systems may be seen as having two polar types of power structure, the "states system" and the "universal empire." Each form has certain characteristic accompaniments, which may promote it, be promoted by it, or both. For stat...

Missionaries are no strangers to students and researchers of the British Empire. The hackneyed image of the rough-hewn Anglican vicar preaching salvation, Christ, and colonialism to legions of natives is one of the enduring archetypes of British colonialism. This image, like so many similar ones, is not without basis in historical fact. Missionaries played a notable role in British imperial exp...

This is a fascinating, highly readable, and well-illustrated tome that looks at Muscovite maps created in the seventeenth century as a still poorly exploited source that can inform our understanding of the politics and culture of the time. The book comprises two distinct parts. Chapters 1–4 focus on spatiality in the heartland, scrutinizing local maps drawn to substantiate and defend positions ...

increasingly, aq qoyunlu rule and ottoman empire were inclined to contradict in the half of 9th/15th century. access to central anatolia for aq qoyunlu was a pivotal enterprise by which could develop its commercial ties. in contrast, ottomans tried to counteract the aq qoyunlu strives and thwarted its close relation with venice since ottomans regarded the latter as an archenemy in europe. forem...

on the one hand, the vacant position of study about impact of achaemenid empire on eastern states is due to silence by classic authors in dealing with these lands; and on the other hand, it is reffered to shortage of archeological artifacts relating to achaemenids at the given region. in the present essay, by the aid of reminiscent works and economic and administrative evidences obtained from e...