Rome in the World History of Universal Empire

Radically new history

This project launches a radically new kind of ancient history: global in scope, comparative in approach. Its aims are three:

1. It seeks to situate the Roman Empire within a world history of universal empires.
2. To do so, a group of scholars has been formed, each to produce a comparative monograph to explore key dimensions of Roman imperial power in a world-historical context.
3. The end in view is to fill a gap in the currently most successful macro-sociological theory and account of organized power in human society, which is that of Michael Mann.

Cross-cultural and comparative imperial history

How situate the Roman Empire in world history? Answering this question calls for a new kind of scholarship: cross-cultural, comparative and pre-industrial world history. This project aims to deliver just that and to do so by integrating two forceful, yet partly separate scholarly discourses.

One is the long tradition of treating Roman imperial history as the foundation of European civilization. The other is the fast-evolving discourse on global history, dominated by a focus on Central and East Asia.

Read more about the project.