All major continental empires proclaimed their desire to rule 'the entire world', investing considerable human and material resources in expanding their territory. Each, however, eventually had to stop expansion and come to terms with a shift to defensive strategy. This volume explores the factors that facilitated Eurasian empires' expansion and contraction: from ideology to ecology, economic and military considerations to changing composition of the imperial elites. Built around a common set of questions, a team of leading specialists systematically compare a broad set of Eurasian empires - from Achaemenid Iran, the Romans, Qin and Han China, via the Caliphate, the Byzantines and the Mongols to the Ottomans, Safavids, Mughals, Russians, and Ming and Qing China. The result is a state-of-the art analysis of the major imperial enterprises in Eurasian history from antiquity to the early modern that discerns both commonalities and differences in the empires' spatial trajectories.

The first comparative study to explore the dynamics of expansion and contraction of major continental empires in Eurasia.

International law is much debated and discussed, but poorly understood. Does international law matter, or do states regularly violate it with impunity? If international law is of no importance, then why do states devote so much energy to negotiating treaties and providing legal defenses for their actions? In turn, if international law does matter, why does it reflect the interests of powerful states, why does it change so often, and why are violations of international law usually not punished? In this book, Jack Goldsmith and Eric Posner argue that international law matters but that it is less powerful and less significant than public officials, legal experts, and the media believe. International law, they contend, is simply a product of states pursuing their interests on the international stage. It does not pull states towards compliance contrary to their interests, and the possibilities for what it can achieve are limited. It follows that many global problems are simply unsolvable. The book has important implications for debates about the role of international law in the foreign policy of the United States and other nations. The authors see international law as an instrument for advancing national policy, but one that is precarious and delicate, constantly changing in unpredictable ways based on non-legal changes in international politics. They believe that efforts to replace international politics with international law rest on unjustified optimism about international law's past accomplishments and present capacities.

The Limits is my first work in English, with English as my second language. It dates back to1994. It has been my first intellectual attempt since I came to the U.S. in 1985. My first try in 1994 was a very hard work which, at that time, went nowhere, because of my language limitations, and because my general knowledge was not to the level of this task. However, at the beginning of 1995, I abandoned this writing as a literary work and turned toward upgrading my scientific knowledge through personal study. In 2000, I made a new attempt, and the result was the original draft of the Seven Essays on Creation, which is my second book with AuthorHouse. In 2001, I abandoned this new work and continued with my science study. A special conjecture in 2003 made me publish the first book with AuthorHouse, which was Multiple Harmonics Create the Patterns of Real World from Chaos. After publishing this at the beginning of 2004, when I threw away mountains of old papers, I discovered the Seven Essays, and I decided to give to it another chance. In three months, it became another book, which was the Seven Essays on Creation, which was also published in 2004. In September 2005, while searching among some old papers, I discovered the original draft of The Limits, and I decided to do something about it. I have to say that The Limits has been on my mind for more than ten years, and I adored this old work. However, I was afraid that I would never be again be capable of writing the way I did in 1994. In the meantime, I was happy that, at the present, I had the answer to the philosophy that I wondered about eleven years ago. It was the nonlinear thinking that changed me a lot over the years. It was real, and I decided to rewrite The Limits. I tried to preserve as much as possible from the old draft, and I inserted in each chapter some nonlinear wisdom.

Karl Polanyi’s The Great Transformation is generally acclaimed as being among the most influential works of economic history in the twentieth century, and remains as vital in the current historical conjuncture as it was in his own. In its critique of nineteenth-century ‘market fundamentalism’ it reads as a warning to our own neoliberal age, and is widely touted as a prophetic guidebook for those who aspire to understand the causes and dynamics of global economic turbulence at the end of the 2000s. Karl Polanyi: The Limits of the Market is the first comprehensive introduction to Polanyi’s ideas and legacy. It assesses not only the texts for which he is famous – prepared during his spells in American academia – but also his journalistic articles written in his first exile in Vienna, and lectures and pamphlets from his second exile, in Britain. It provides a detailed critical analysis of The Great Transformation, but also surveys Polanyi’s seminal writings in economic anthropology, the economic history of ancient and archaic societies, and political and economic theory. Its primary source base includes interviews with Polanyi’s daughter, Kari Polanyi-Levitt, as well as the entire compass of his own published and unpublished writings in English and German. This engaging and accessible introduction to Polanyi’s thinking will appeal to students and scholars across the social sciences, providing a refreshing perspective on the roots of our current economic crisis.

This book explores the aspiration to universal, imperial rule across Eurasian history from antiquity to the eighteenth century.

Human Rights or Global Capitalism examines the application of neoliberal policies from a human rights perspective and asks whether states, by outsourcing to the private sector many services with a direct impact on human rights, abdicate their responsibilities to uphold human rights and violate international law.