The Rule of Empires
Those Who Built Them Those Who Endured Them and Why They Always Fall
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Narrated by:
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Thomas Fawley
About this listen
In The Rule of Empires, Timothy Parsons gives a sweeping account of the evolution of empire from its origins in ancient Rome to its most recent twentieth-century embodiment. He explains what constitutes an empire and offers suggestions about what empires of the past can tell us about our own historical moment. Parsons uses imperial examples that stretch from ancient Rome, to Britain's "new" imperialism in Kenya, to the Third Reich to parse the features common to all empires, their evolutions and self-justifying myths, and the reasons for their inevitable decline.
Parsons argues that far from confirming some sort of Darwinian hierarchy of advanced and primitive societies, conquests were simply the products of a temporary advantage in military technology, wealth, and political will. Beneath the self-justifying rhetoric of benevolent paternalism and cultural superiority lay economic exploitation and the desire for power. Yet imperial ambitions still appear viable in the twenty-first century, Parsons shows, because their defenders and detractors alike employ abstract and romanticized perspectives that fail to grasp the historical reality of subjugation.
Writing from the perspective of the common subject rather than that of the imperial conquerors, Parsons offers a historically grounded cautionary tale rich with accounts of subjugated peoples throwing off the yoke of empire time and time again. In providing an accurate picture of what it is like to live as a subject, The Rule of Empires lays bare the rationalizations of imperial conquerors and their apologists and exposes the true limits of hard power.
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T. R. Fehrenbach brilliantly delineates the contrasts and conflicts between the many Mexicos, unraveling the history while weaving a fascinating tapestry of beauty and brutality: the Amerindians, who wrought from the vulnerable land a great indigenous Meso-American civilization by the first millennium BC; the successive reigns of Olmec, Maya, Toltec, and Mexic masters, who ruled through an admirably efficient bureaucracy and the power of the priests, propitiating the capricious gods with human sacrifices; the Spanish conquistadors, and much more.
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Good book bad narration
- By M. A. Chris Raine on 03-23-19
By: T. R. Fehrenbach
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A Short History of the World
- By: Christopher Lascelles
- Narrated by: Guy Bethell
- Length: 7 hrs and 20 mins
- Unabridged
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While this book explores world history from the big bang to the present day, it principally covers key people, events, and empires since the dawn of the first civilizations in and around 3500 BC. Epic in scope but refreshingly concise, A Short History of the World is an excellent place to start to bring your historical knowledge up to scratch.
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Apt introduction to World's History
- By rpluss on 12-22-16
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Iran
- A Modern History
- By: Abbas Amanat
- Narrated by: Derek Perkins
- Length: 41 hrs and 53 mins
- Unabridged
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This history of modern Iran is not a survey in the conventional sense but an ambitious exploration of the story of a nation. It offers a revealing look at how events, people, and institutions are shaped by currents that sometimes reach back hundreds of years. The book covers the complex history of the diverse societies and economies of Iran against the background of dynastic changes, revolutions, civil wars, foreign occupation, and the rise of the Islamic Republic.
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A Nuanced, and Objective Masterpiece !!!!!
- By Chris Carl on 01-16-20
By: Abbas Amanat
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A Concise History of Italy
- By: Christopher Duggan
- Narrated by: Jonathan Keeble
- Length: 11 hrs and 54 mins
- Unabridged
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Since its formation in 1861, Italy has struggled to develop an effective political system and a secure sense of national identity. Christopher Duggan's acclaimed introduction charts the country's history from the fall of the Roman Empire in the West to the present day, and surveys the difficulties Italy has faced during the last two centuries in creating a unified country. Duggan successfully weaves together political, economic, social and cultural history, and stresses the alternation between materialist and idealist programs for forging a nation-state.
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Concise indeed
- By nikex on 03-22-21
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American Nations
- A History of the Eleven Rival Regional Cultures of North America
- By: Colin Woodard
- Narrated by: Walter Dixon
- Length: 12 hrs and 51 mins
- Unabridged
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North America was settled by people with distinct religious, political, and ethnographic characteristics, creating regional cultures that have been at odds with one another ever since. Subsequent immigrants didn't confront or assimilate into an "American" or "Canadian" culture, but rather into one of the 11 distinct regional ones that spread over the continent each staking out mutually exclusive territory. In American Nations, Colin Woodard leads us on a journey through the history of our fractured continent....
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One of a Kind Masterpiece
- By Theo Horesh on 02-28-13
By: Colin Woodard
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Inglorious Empire
- What the British Did to India
- By: Shashi Tharoor
- Narrated by: Shashi Tharoor
- Length: 10 hrs and 33 mins
- Unabridged
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In the 18th century, India's share of the world economy was as large as Europe's. By 1947, after two centuries of British rule, it had decreased six-fold. Beyond conquest and deception, the Empire blew rebels from cannons, massacred unarmed protesters, entrenched institutionalized racism, and caused millions to die from starvation. British imperialism justified itself as enlightened despotism for the benefit of the governed, but Shashi Tharoor takes on and demolishes this position, demonstrating how every supposed imperial "gift" was designed in Britain's interests alone.
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An entertaining and provocative history
- By James Moseley on 01-07-20
By: Shashi Tharoor
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Russia in Revolution
- An Empire in Crisis, 1890 to 1928
- By: S. A. Smith
- Narrated by: Derek Perkins
- Length: 16 hrs and 17 mins
- Unabridged
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The Russian Revolution of 1917 transformed the face of the Russian empire, politically, economically, socially, and culturally and also profoundly affected the course of world history for the rest of the 20th century. Historian S. A. Smith presents a panoramic account of the history of the Russian empire, from the last years of the 19th century, through the First World War and the revolutions of 1917 and the establishment of the Bolshevik regime, to the end of the 1920s.
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Excellent centenary look at the complete revolutio
- By Privet on 09-13-18
By: S. A. Smith
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They Can Live in the Desert but Nowhere Else
- A History of the Armenian Genocide
- By: Ronald Grigor Suny
- Narrated by: Eric Jason Martin
- Length: 15 hrs and 34 mins
- Unabridged
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Starting in early 1915, the Ottoman Turks began deporting and killing hundreds of thousands of Armenians in the first major genocide of the 20th century. By the end of the First World War, the number of Armenians in what would become Turkey had been reduced by 90 percent - more than 1,000,000 people. A century later, the Armenian genocide remains controversial but relatively unknown, overshadowed by later slaughters and the chasm separating Turkish and Armenian versions of events.
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Great book, unbiased view finally
- By Raffy Afarian on 10-30-15
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The Birth of Classical Europe
- A History from Troy to Augustine
- By: Simon Price, Peter Thonemann
- Narrated by: Don Hagen
- Length: 14 hrs and 47 mins
- Unabridged
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To an extraordinary extent we continue to live in the shadow of the classical world. At every level, from languages to calendars to political systems, we are the descendants of a “classical Europe,” using frames of reference created by ancient Mediterranean cultures. As this consistently fresh and surprising new audio book makes clear, however, this was no less true for the inhabitants of those classical civilizations themselves, whose myths, history, and buildings were an elaborate engagement with an already old and revered past - one filled with great leaders and writers....
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Excellent overview of the Classical World
- By David I. Williams on 01-12-14
By: Simon Price, and others
What listeners say about The Rule of Empires
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- D. Morgan
- 03-02-22
A stark review of Empire
This book gives a compelling review & stories of history's empires & their eventual downfalls, as well as thoughtful contrasting & comparisons of common threads therein. A must read for world history buffs.
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- hili r.
- 01-11-15
Way too multi-culturalist
Would you consider the audio edition of The Rule of Empires to be better than the print version?
This book provides a lot of information I was not familiar with. However, this - very well told - story comes with an edge - the historian premise.
Would you recommend The Rule of Empires to your friends? Why or why not?
If you want to hear that the US in Iraq was not very much different that the Nazis in France, this is the book for you. If you don't - for find yourself a less leftist history book.
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1 person found this helpful
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- Fr. S.
- 06-15-21
great sweep of imperial failures
I loved thr book. The author keeps so much information in balance and demonstrate the facts of failure of empires. Their proneness to cruelty and theft is well laid out with facts. It was well told.
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- Marina McElrea
- 11-23-21
Generalized
It's a good generalized history of the conquest of empires. I highly recommend listening to it at a faster speed, or the narrator will turn you off completely on how slow he reads.
The book, unlike some reviews, is not biased. Try not to read too much into the introduction.
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- peter
- 06-15-14
Very Good, learned a lot, well researched
This is a very interesting book, clearly showing the common themes that connect all empires in history. They all have the same narratives to justify the violence and exploitation. Narratives that are all essential to keep the empire going since state's military assistance is always required to pick up the tab. To put the tab on the taxpayer you need a story of 'the white man's burden' 'the greater good' 'making the world safe for democracy'. The state violence is also required because the empire is usually build on an exclusive monopoly, like the British colonization of India.
It also becomes clear that every empire needs local assistance to reap the taxes of the subjects.
What was new to me is that empires seem to be less and less sustainable, since the oppressed can have more easy access to knowledge and defense. They can also easily mobilize international resistance. The Soviet empire lasted relatively short.
The author also nailed the Iraq occupation pretty well describing how a estimation of 50 billion $ of which 20 billion $ was taken from SDH, grew to a 3 trillion $ declaration bonanza for well connected companies on the tax payer's expense. The real exploited were actually in the USA. Certainly with the latest development in Iraq it seems that even the most powerful military in the world can not keep a small band of committed insurgence.
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4 people found this helpful
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- timer
- 03-13-15
Good book
The book feels like a business case study and guide to how empire builders shovel govern and integrate the conquests.
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- Brett M Miller
- 09-14-14
Please Don't Buy This Book!
What could have made this a 4 or 5-star listening experience for you?
If this had been written by one of my undergraduates, I would have given it an "F" and handed it back. While there are a variety of problems, I'll point out only a few that are indicative:
1) Research - the book claims that Constantine the Great made Christianity the religion of the Roman Empire. He did not - he legalized it. This occurred under Theodosius. That's shoddy research and makes most claims in the book suspect.
2) Logic - Parsons bases his argument on the romanticized view of "empire" in the West (which I think is accurate). However, when discussing the Umayyad Caliphate, he dismisses outright the possibility that modern groups (i.e. Al-Qaeda, ISIS, etc.) do not have a similarly romanticized view of this Caliphate, even while offering quotes that support a romanticized view. Is it ONLY Westerners who romanticize history and empire? That seems inconsistent to human behavior!
3) Case Selection - Parsons states that his list of selected cases is neither "exhaustive nor definitive." The not-exhaustive part I get. But not definitive? If at least ONE of the cases studied is not a definitive example of empire, in a book about empires, then why were these cases chosen? Further, one wonders about the logic of Parsons' case selection? Why were the Assyrians and Egyptians excluded (the Assyrians, especially, could have supported his thesis)? Similarly the Hittites, Moghuls, or Alexander's brief "empire."
I genuinely wanted to like this book - but it quickly devolved from a thorough academic examination of the excesses of empire to poorly researched revisionist history that favored histrionics over history.
What didn’t you like about Thomas Fawley’s performance?
Some of the pronunciations made my ears hurt!
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6 people found this helpful
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- James Anderson
- 01-05-20
Woke historian
Listened to the 1st few chapters and got sick of all the wokeness I nearly vomited and couldn’t go further. The amount I heard “intersectional” “oppression” & “systematic racism” made me want to punch a Baby Seal
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1 person found this helpful
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- paddy567
- 07-11-14
Terrible narration ruins book
How did the narrator detract from the book?
The narration in this book is the worst I've heard from Audible. I wish I could get a refund as it makes the book absolutely unlistenable in my opinion. Fawley reads at a snail's pace, with flat monotone, over-enunciated diction and absolutely no emphasis or colour. It is like listening to a text-to-speech computer program, there's so little connection with the text, or sense of pacing or atmosphere. It was bitterly disappointing. I strongly recommend listening to a sample before wasting a credit on it.
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5 people found this helpful
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- Anonymous User
- 01-19-24
Bland textbook style writing and reading
The reader makes this textbook even more boring to listen to than it should be. I had to give up after a few hours
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