Empires - vast states of territories and people united by force and ambition - have dominated the political landscape for more than two millennia. "Empires in World History" departs from conventional European and nation-centered perspectives to take a remarkable look at how empires relied on diversity to shape the global order. Beginning with ancient Rome and China and continuing across Asia, Europe, the Americas, and Africa, Jane Burbank and Frederick Cooper examine empires' conquests, rivalries, and strategies of domination - with an emphasis on how empires accommodated, created, and manipulated differences among populations. Burbank and Cooper examine Rome and China from the third century BCE, empires that sustained state power for centuries. They delve into the militant monotheism of Byzantium, the Islamic Caliphates, and the short-lived Carolingians, as well as the pragmatically tolerant rule of the Mongols and Ottomans, who combined religious protection with the politics of loyalty. Burbank and Cooper discuss the influence of empire on capitalism and popular sovereignty, the limitations and instability of Europe's colonial projects, Russia's repertoire of exploitation and differentiation, as well as the "empire of liberty" - devised by American revolutionaries and later extended across a continent and beyond. With its investigation into the relationship between diversity and imperial states, "Empires in World History" offers a fresh approach to understanding the impact of empires on the past and present.

簡·伯班剋（Jane Burbank），紐約大學曆史學和俄羅斯與斯拉夫研究教授，著有《知識分子與革命》《法庭上的俄國農民》。

弗雷德裏剋·庫珀（Frederick Cooper），紐約大學曆史學教授，著有《去殖民化與非洲社會》《爭論中的殖民主義》。

柴彬，中國社會科學院曆史學博士，上海大學文學院教授，甘肅政法學院法律翻譯中心研究員，參與翻譯《新編劍橋中世紀史》（第六捲）等。