Empires were the largest political systems of the ancient and early modern world. Empires have "risen" and "fallen" in all parts of the globe over several millennia, yet there has been surprisingly little comparative analysis of them. This book is designed to fill that gap by bringing together distinguished scholars in anthropology, archaeology, history, and the classics. The empires discussed are drawn from Central and South America, the Mediterranean, Europe, the Near East, South East Asia, and China, ranging from the first millennium BC to the early modern era.