Limits of Empire

Published in honor of historian Geoffrey Parker this volume explores the working of European empires in a global perspective focusing on one of the most important themes of Parker's work: the limits of empire which is to say the centrifugal forces - sacral dynastic military diplomatic geographical informational - that plagued imperial formations in the early modern period (1500-1800). Whilst the thirteen chapters in this book focus on a number of geographic regions and adopt different approaches each shares a focus on and interest in the working of empires and the ways that imperial formations dealt with - or failed to deal with - the challenges that beset them. Taken together they reflect a new phase in the evolving historiography of empire.