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. 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. Empires in world history power and the politics of difference by jane burbank and frederick cooper princeton nj princeton university press 2010 pp xiv 511 39 illustrations 39 maps hardback gbp3995 isbn 978 0 691 12708 8 paperback gbp1795 isbn 978 0 691 15236 3 volume 9 issue 3 jon wilson. The answers to these and many other questions is the subject of the recently published book by jane burbank and francis cooper empires in world history power and the politics of difference the presented work is not a typical factual academic monograph its purpose was rather to show the creation of great empires and their decline as a process as one knows this process was influenced by a diversity of factors they decided not only about the life of the individual state organisms but