Empire: The term was first used in English in 1297 to indicate an extensive territory made up of formerly independent states. A further refinement might be to add that an empire is a politically unified state in which one people dominates its neighbors.
The Conrad Demarest Model of Empire: Basic Principles
I. Necessary preconditions for the rise of empires:
- state-level government
- high agricultural potential in the area
- an environmental mosaic
- several small states with no clearly dominant state (power vacuum)
- mutual antagonisms among those states
- adequate military resources
II. The primary reason a state succeeded in empire building was an ideology supporting personal identification with the state, empire, conquest, and militarism.
III. The major rewards of empire:
- economic rewards, reaped especially in the early years and redistributed to the elite and often to all levels of the citizenry
- population increase, often supported by the government and its ideology
IV. Empires fall because:
- the ideology of expansion and conquest fueled attempts at conquest beyond practical limits
- failure to continue conquest indefinitely and to continue to bring home its economic fruits eroded faith in the ideology that supported the empire
- revolutions toppled the empire