Tributary Empires in Global History is one of a very select few to pioneer comparisons between the great historical empires of agrarian societies, such as the Roman, Mughal and Ottoman empires, and others. As such, it is an exercise in global and comparative history over time. It examines and interrogates our basic historiographical, theoretical and comparative models and conceptions about how large pre-colonial empires expanded, operated and declined. In 14 chapters, all of them explicitly comparative, a group of leading historians, sociologists and anthropologists illuminate tributary...