Xiongnu: The World's First Nomadic Empire

Xiongnu: The World's First Nomadic Empire

《匈奴：世界第一个游牧帝国》

作者: Bryan K. Miller

出版社: Oxford University Press

出版年: 2023-12-14

页数: 384

定价: USD 85.00

装帧: Hardcover

ISBN: 9780190083694

This book raises the case of the world's first nomadic empire, the Xiongnu, as a prime example of the sophisticated developments and powerful influence of nomadic regimes. Launching from a reconceptualization of the social and economic institutions of mobile pastoralists, the collective chapters trace the course of the Xiongnu Empire from before its initial rise, traversing the wars that challenged it and the reformations that made it stronger, to the legacy left after its eventual fall.

Xiongnu expounds the economic practices and social conventions of steppe herders as fertile foundations for institutions and infrastructure of empire, and renders a model of "empires of mobilities," which engaged the control less of towns and territories and more of the movements of communities and capital to fuel their regimes. By weaving together archaeological examinations with historical investigations, Bryan K. Miller presents a more complex and nuanced narrative of how an empire based firmly in the steppe over two thousand years ago managed to formulate a robust political economy and a complex political matrix that capitalized on mobilities and alternative forms of political participation, and allowed the Xiongnu to dominate vast realms of central Eurasia and leave lasting geopolitical effects on the many worlds around them.

Bryan K. Miller is Assistant Professor of Central Asian Art & Archaeology in History of Art and Assistant Curator of Chinese Archaeology at the Museum of Anthropological Archaeology at the University of Michigan.

Copyright Page

Dedication

Acknowledgments

Prologue

1 Nomad Protagonists

The Nomadic Alternative

The Mobile State

Reconfiguring the Narrative

2 Kingdoms of Those Who Draw the Bow

A Matrix of Steppe Worlds

Inner Asian Innovations

3 Masters of the Steppe

The New Order

Foddering the Regime

The Spoils of Conquest

4 Rule by the Horse

Institutions of the Empire

Body of the Empire

Arms of the Empire

Harnessing Eurasia

5 Of Wolves and Sheep

Empires in Arms

Other Kings and Other Kingdoms

6 Masters of the Continental Worlds

On the Global Stage

Great Reformations

Communities of the Empire

The Resilient Regime

7 Hunnic Heritage

What’s in a Name

A Whole New World

Pacifying the Barbarians

Epilogue

Appendix (Chanyu Rulers)

ExpandNotes

References

Index