Michael A. REYNOLDS. Shattering Empires

Scholars have long endeavored to understand the history of empires: their formation and governance; the forces, identities, and personalities that hold them together and generate some form of loyalty; the various strategies that imperial elites have used to manage social, ethnic, and religious difference; and especially the question of how empires end. In this marvelous book, Michael A. Reynolds offers a new and highly persuasive exploration of the nearly simultaneous and intricately interconnected collapse of the Ottoman and Russian empires in the wake of World War I. In the process, Reynolds contributes in meaningful ways to the broader history of the war, highlighting the importance of the almost-always ignored Caucasian front to its overall trajectory and the ensuing revolutions. He also offers valuable new context for understanding the horrifying fate of Armenians in the war years. The book was exhaustively researched in archives and libraries in Turkey, Russia, Germany, and the United States. It is also written with praiseworthy clarity and style, and an engaging attention to local details and the contingency of individual decisions in the midst of broader geostrategic patterns.

Ancient history · Archaeology · CLARITY · Context (archaeology) · Contingency · Epistemology · Political science · Sociology · Global Maritime and Colonial Histories · Historical and Contemporary Political Dynamics · Historical Studies and Socio-cultural Analysis · History · Law · Philosophy