Table of Contents

I. The Birth of the Imperial Order
A. The Idea of `Empire': Its Genesis before and its Unfolding after the Emergence of the Empire
1: Albrecht Dihle: City and Empire
2: Zhu Weizheng: Interlude: Kingship and Empire
3: Michael Nylan: The Rhetoric of `Empire' in the Classical Era in China
B. Historiography and the Emerging Empire
1: Yuri Pines: Imagining the Empire? Concepts of `Primeval Unity' in Pre-Imperial Historiographic Tradition
2: Huang Yang & Fritz-Heiner Mutschler: The Emergence of Empire: Rome and the Surrounding World in Historical Narratives from the Late Third Century BC to the Early First Century AD
II.The Firmly Established Empire
A. Imperial Grandeur and Historiography à la Grande
1: Fritz-Heiner Mutschler: The Problem of `Imperial Historiography' in Rome
2: Achim Mittag: Forging Legacy: The Pact between Empire and Historiography in Ancient China
B.The Spatial Dimension of the Unified World: Imperial Geography and Cartographical Representations
1: Helwig Schmidt-Glintzer: Mapping China. The Spatial Dimension of the Unified World: Imperial Geography and Cartographical Representations in Early Imperial China
2: Katherine Clarke: Text and Image: Mapping the Roman World
C. Self-Image and the Formation of Imperial Rhetorics
1: Martin Kern: Announcements from the Mountains: The Stele Inscriptions of the Qin First Emperor
2: Christian Witschel: The Res Gestae Divi Augusti and the Roman Empire
D. The Power of Images: Imperial Order and Imperial Aura as Represented in Art and Architecture
1: Rolf Michael Schneider: Image and Empire: The Shaping of Augustan Rome
2: Michèle Pirazzoli-t'Serstevens: Imperial Aura and the Image of the Other in Han Art
III. The Waning of the Imperial Order
A. History-Writing in the Face of Crisis
1: Hans Armin Gärtner & Ye Min: The Impact of the Empire's Crises on Historiography and Historical Thinking in Late Antiquity
2: Achim Mittag & Ye Min: Empire on the Brink: From the Demise of the Han Dynasty to the Fall of the Liang Dynasty. Notes on Chinese Historiography in the Wei-Jin-Nanbeichao Period
B. When the Imperial Order Disintegrates: Rethinking the `Empire' under Religious Auspices
1: Gerard O'Daly: New Tendencies, Religious and Philosophical, in the Roman Empire of the Third to Early Fifth Centuries
2: Thomas Jansen: New Tendencies, Religious and Philosophical, in the Chinese World of the Third through Sixth Centuries
Epilogue

About the Author

Fritz-Heiner Mutschler is Professor of Classics at Dresden University. Achim Mittag is Professor of Chinese Studies at Tübingen University.

Reviews

This remarkably rich book represents a highly valuable contribution to cross-cultural studies of Rome and China
*Jinyu Liu, The Classical Review*

The book is an admirable demonstration of the great potential that lies in comparative analysis of the Greco-Roman world Ancient China.
*Hyun Jin Kim, Bryn Mawr Classical Review*

This is not only a matter of ancient history, but of history with a sharp contemporary relevance.
*Christopher Kelly, Times Literary Supplement*