States-as-Empires From Bronze Age to Iron Age

The Editor’s overview of the Invention of Empire

MGH: For the next couple of weeks I will focus on the origins of states and empires, including some essays in the recent 2-volume Oxford World History of Empire. From an ‘origins’ typology perspective (assuming at least prior identification of ‘egalitarian’ and ‘leadership’ societies), the earliest empires are most illuminating. Therefore, today’s extra…