ABSTRACT
This chapter deals with one of the continuities in the history of human civilization: empire in the context of global history. One of the stated aims for the chapter as a whole is to exemplify the possible uses of interdisciplinary theories of globalization as models and tools for alternative historical analysis developed in close collaboration with national and regional histories'. Another stated aim is to construct a conceptual and theoretical bridge between the theory and practice of global history by using local sources to create a blueprint that young historians may use in defining their research goals'. The hope is that a theoretical perspective can help researchers to interpret local sources in a broad context and compare them to similar sources elsewhere, rather than assuming local experiences to be unique. An undergraduate researcher might, for example, analyze how modern historians have explained and interpreted the history of a particular empire.
