AP World History
Empire: The term was first used in English in 1297 to indicate
an extensive territory made up of formerly independent states. A further
refinement might be to add that an empire is a politically unified state
in which one people dominates its neighbors.
The Conrad Demarest Model of Empire: Basic Principles
I. Necessary preconditions for the rise of empires:
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state-level government
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high agricultural potential in the area
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an environmental mosaic
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several small states with no clearly dominant state (power vacuum)
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mutual antagonisms among those states
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adequate military resources
II. The primary reason a state succeeded in empire building was
an ideology supporting personal identification with the state, empire,
conquest, and militarism.
III. The major rewards of empire:
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economic rewards, reaped especially in the early years and redistributed
to the elite and often to all levels of the citizenry
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population increase, often supported by the government and its ideology
IV. Empires fall because:
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the ideology of expansion and conquest fueled attempts at conquest beyond
practical limits
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failure to continue conquest indefinitely and to continue to bring home
its economic fruits eroded faith in the ideology that supported the empire
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revolutions toppled the empire
Homework: Read Chapter 5 in The Earth and Its Peoples to
find specific examples of each of the above indicators for the Roman and
Han empires.