Angkor was the primary home of nobles in the latter half of the empire. Neighboring civilizations fought for control of Angkor when the Khmer's power began to wane. The Thai migration of the 12thth centuries C. Eventually, the Thai created their own small kingdoms, and as these kingdoms grew in power, they started to attack imperial territories and took Angkor in C. Considering the length of its rule, we know surprisingly little about the day-to-day activities of the Ethiopian Empire.
From there, the dynasty went on to become an empire by incorporating new civilizations within Ethiopia under its rule [source: New World Encyclopedia ]. It wasn't until , when Italy declared war against it that the Ethiopian Empire began to falter.
Ethiopia held off its invaders, but Italy wasn't done. In , Italian soldiers invaded Ethiopia in a war that raged for seven months before Italy was declared victorious. From until , Italians ruled over the country [source: New World Encyclopedia ]. The Ethiopian kingdom didn't overstretch its bounds or exhaust its resources, as we have seen in previous examples. Civil wars contributed to its weakened state, but in the end it was Italy's desire for expansion that led to Ethiopia's fall.
We know precious little about the Kanem Empire and how its people lived. Over time, its primary religion became Islam, although the introduction of the religion may have brought internal strife in the empire's early years. The Kanem Empire was established sometime around C.
The empire's history is split between two different dynasties, the Duguwa and the Sayfawa — the latter being the driving force to bring Islam to the country. Its expansion continued, including a period in which the king declared a holy war or jihad against all surrounding tribes [source: New World Encyclopedia ]. The military system devised to facilitate the jihad created a governmental system based on hereditary nobility, in which soldiers were rewarded with the land they conquered, which they passed down to their sons.
That system resulted in civil war that weakened the territory and made it vulnerable to attack. Bulala invaders were able to quickly take Njimi in and eventually take control of the entire Kanem Empire [source: New World Encyclopedia ]. The lesson of the Kanem Empire is that unpopular decisions can create internal conflict, leaving a once powerful people defenseless. It's a story repeated throughout history. The name, however, comes from the fact that while the emperor was chosen by electors, he was crowned by the pope in Rome.
The empire lasted from to C. After the Thirty Years War in , the kingdom was fragmented, planting the seed of independence [source: New World Encyclopedia ]. In , France was in the midst of revolt.
Similar to the Ottoman and Portuguese empires, the Holy Roman Empire was made up of various ethnic backgrounds populated with lesser kingdoms.
Ultimately, the lesser kingdom's desire for independence caused the greater empire to tumble. Details are sketchy concerning the beginning stages of the Silla Empire, but we know by the sixth century it was a highly complex, lineage-based society where pedigree decided everything from the types of clothes one would wear to the size of their house. While this system helped the empire initially gain land, it would eventually lead to its fall [source: World History Encyclopedia ].
The Silla Empire began in 57 B. King Bak Hyeokgeose was the first to reign in the region. Silla continually expanded the empire, conquering a number of kingdoms on the Korean Peninsula. Eventually, a monarchy was formed. The Chinese Tang Dynasty and the Silla Empire were at war in the seventh century over the northern kingdom of Goryeo, but the Silla were able to fend them off [source: World History Encyclopedia ]. A century of civil war among high-ranking families as well as the conquered kingdoms doomed the empire.
Eventually, in C. Historians don't know the exact circumstances that led to the demise of the Silla Empire, but it's generally held that neighboring nations were unhappy with the kingdom's continuing expansion across the Korean Peninsula. Theories suggest a smaller, ruling class may have fought back to gain sovereignty.
The pride of the Venetian Empire was its massive naval fleet , which enabled its rapid expansion across Europe and the Mediterranean, eventually conquering historically important cities such as Cyprus and Crete. The Venetian's ruled for over 1, years, from the late seventh century to C. It began when a collection of lagoon communities joined together for mutual defense against the Lombards, Huns and other steppe peoples as the power of the Byzantine Empire dwindled in northern Italy.
The empire went through several significant changes, but consistently expanded across what is now known as the Republic of Venice, eventually warring with — among others — the Turks and the Ottoman Empire [source: New World Encyclopedia ]. An abundance of wars left the Venetian Empire with little in the way of defenses. The city of Piedmont fell to France, and Napoleon Bonaparte seized parts of the empire. Venice was brought under Napoleon's rule in [source: New World Encyclopedia ]. Even those institutions that were supposed to reorder the world after have a distinctly imperial bent.
For what else are the five permanent members of the U. Security Council if not a cozy club of past empires? We tend to assume that the life cycle of empires, great powers, and civilizations has a predictable regularity to it.
Yet the most striking thing about past empires is the extraordinary variability in the chronological as well as geographic expanse of their dominion.
Especially striking is the fact that the most modern empires have a far shorter life span than their ancient and early modern predecessors. Take the Roman case. The Roman Empire in the West can be dated from 27 B. It ended when Constantinople was established as a rival capital with the death of the Emperor Theodosius in , making a total of years.
The Roman Empire in the East can be dated from then until, at the latest, the sack of Byzantium by the Ottoman Turks in , a total of 1, years.
The Holy Roman Empire — the successor to the Western empire — lasted from , when Charlemagne was crowned emperor of the Romans, until Napoleon ended it in The "average" Roman empire therefore lasted years. Such calculations, though crude, allow us to compare the life spans of different empires.
The three Roman empires were uncharacteristically long lived. By comparison, the average Near Eastern empire including the Assyrian, Abassid, and Ottoman lasted a little more than years; the average Egyptian and East European empires around years; the average Chinese empire subdividing by the principal dynasties ruled for more than three centuries. The various Indian, Persian, and West European empires generally survived for between and years. After the sack of Constantinople, the longest-lived empire was clearly the Ottoman at years.
The East European empires of the Habsburgs and the Romanovs each existed for more than three centuries. The Mughals ruled a substantial part of what is now India for years. Of an almost identical duration was the reign of the Safavids in Persia. It is trickier to give precise dates to the maritime empires of the West European states, because these had multiple points of origin and duration. But the British, Dutch, French, and Spanish empires can all be said to have endured for roughly years.
The life span of the Portuguese empire was closer to The empires created in the 20th century, by contrast, were comparatively short. Technically, the Third Reich lasted 12 years; as an empire in the true sense of the word, exerting power over foreign peoples, it lasted barely half that time.
Only Benito Mussolini was a less effective imperialist than Hitler. Why did the new empires of the 20th century prove so ephemeral? The answer lies partly in the unprecedented degrees of centralized power, economic control, and social homogeneity to which they aspired.
The new empires that arose in the wake of the First World War were not content with the successful but haphazard administrative arrangements that had characterized the old empires, including the messy mixtures of imperial and local law and the delegation of powers and status to certain indigenous groups.
They inherited from the 19th-century nation-builders an insatiable appetite for uniformity; these were more like "empire states" than traditional empires. The new empires repudiated traditional religious and legal constraints on the use of force. They insisted on the creation of new hierarchies in place of existing social structures.
They delighted in sweeping away old political institutions. Above all, they made a virtue of ruthlessness. In pursuit of their objectives, they were willing to make war on whole categories of people, at home and abroad, rather than merely the armed and trained representatives of an identified enemy state.
It was entirely typical of the new generation of would-be emperors that Hitler accused the British of excessive softness in their treatment of Indian nationalists. The empire states of the midth century were to a considerable extent the architects of their own downfalls.
In particular, the Germans and Japanese imposed their authority on other peoples with such ferocity that they undermined local collaboration and laid the foundations for indigenous resistance. That was foolish, as many people who were "liberated" from their old rulers Stalin in Eastern Europe, the European empires in Asia by the Axis powers initially welcomed their new masters.
At the same time, the territorial ambitions of these empire states were so limitless — and their combined grand strategy so unrealistic — that they swiftly called into being an unbeatable coalition of imperial rivals in the form of the British Empire, the Soviet Union, and the United States. Empires do not survive for long if they cannot establish and sustain local consent and if they allow more powerful coalitions of rival empires to unite against them. Publicly, the leaders of the American and Chinese republics deny that they harbor imperial designs.
Both states are the product of revolutions and have long traditions of anti-imperialism. Yet there are moments when the mask slips. Even if they do not, it is still perfectly possible for a republic to behave like an empire in practice, while remaining in denial about its loss of republican virtue.
The American empire is young by historical standards. Its continental expansion in the 19th century was unabashedly imperialistic. Five years after founding the dynasty, Kublai Khan captured the capital of the rival Southern Song Dynasty and unified all of China. The dynasty enjoyed a bountiful life, encouraging trade with foreign countries as well as a visit from famed Italian merchant Marco Polo.
The Qing Dynasty covered 5. Founded when the Chinese defeated the Mongols, the Qing Dynasty ruled China from the 17th to the 20th century, with the height of its power and reach peaking in the s. The Republic of China took over the government at the end of the Qing Dynasty. The Spanish Empire covered 7.
Spain's empire began in the days of Columbus and lasted, in parts of Africa, until the latter 20th century. Spanish is now the second most spoken language in the world. The Russian Empire covered 9. Russia was the last absolute monarchy in Europe, and prior to World War I, one of five great powers in Europe.
During the time of the empire. The Russian Empire ended with the bloody Russian Revolution of The Mongol Empire covered 9.
The largest contiguous empire in history, the Mongol Empire emerged from the unification of Mongol and Turkish tribes under Genghis Khan. The Mongols achieved advancements in various technologies and ideologies during the empire. In , the Black Death began its rampage in Mongolia and brought the Empire into its long, slow decline that culminated with its annexation by Russia in The British Empire covered
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