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In a series of pioneering comparative studies, leading historians break new ground by exploring government and power relations in the two largest empires of the ancient world. They shed new light on key issues such as elite formation, the rise of bureaucracies, and the determinants of urban development.
List of contents
- Contributors
- Chronology
- Maps
- Introduction
- Walter Scheidel
- 1 Kingship and elite formation
- Peter Fibiger Bang and Karen Turner
- 2 Toward a comparative understanding of the executive decision-making process in China and Rome
- Corey Brennan
- 3 The Han bureaucracy: its origin, structure and development
- Dingxin Zhao
- 4 The common denominator: late Roman imperial bureaucracy from a comparative perspective
- Peter Eich
- 5 State revenue and expenditure in the Han and Roman empires
- Walter Scheidel
- 6 Urban systems in the Han and Roman empires: state power and social control
- Carlos Noreña
- 7 Public spaces in cities in the Roman and Han empires
- Mark Lewis
- 8 Ghosts, gods, and the coming apocalypse: empire and religion in early China and ancient Rome
- Michael Puett
- Bibliography
- Index
About the author
Walter Scheidel is Dickason Professor in the Humanities and Professor of Classics and History at Stanford University. He is the author, editor, or co-editor of fourteen books, including Rome and China and The Oxford Handbook of the State in the Ancient Near East and Mediterranean.
Summary
In a series of pioneering comparative studies, leading historians break new ground by exploring government and power relations in the two largest empires of the ancient world. They shed new light on key issues such as elite formation, the rise of bureaucracies, and the determinants of urban development.
