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Full Description
This book offers, at the same time, an imperial history of a region (Northeastern Central Asia under the Achaemenids) and the regional history of an Empire (how the Persians adapted their strategies of governmentality to a geographically challenging, ethnically diverse, and politically impervious space). Bringing together evidence from literary texts, archaeology, and ethnohistory, it crafts a new narrative of Central Asian history in which local actors in and outside the imperial territory are given as much, if not (at times) more agency than the King of Kings and his satraps in heralding Central Asia's first Age of Empires.
Contents
Foreword and Acknowledgements
List of Maps
Abbreviations
Note on Style and Spelling
1 Introduction
Shadows Gathering from the West
1 Prolegomenon. Strange Parallels: Of Peripheries and Empires
2 Thundering Zeus. Alexander in Baktria. Anew, Again, Why?
3 Dead Men Tell Tales. Discours de la méthode
4 Outlook of a (Hi)Story: Empires and Central Asia; Central Asia and Empires
5 Conclusions. A Place (Not) Far Away. Reimagining Baktria
2 Scalping Elephants
Sources, Where to Find, and How (Not) to Handle Them
1 How Many, How Good, If at All? Writing Central Asia
2 Digging Others' Pasts. Archaeology of Knowledge
3 Vispazanānām. Imperial Ethnographies, Ethnographies of Empire
4 Conclusions. Wonderland to Borderland
3 The Road to Oxiana: Before the Greek Came
1 Introduction. Land Behind Balḫ: Cyrus in the East
2 Stranger To Us People Here. Imperial Stories Of (Not So) Long Ago
3 Building Empire. Teispids and their "Indians"
4 Conclusions. (Re)Discovering Cyrus. Borderland Dreams of Imperial Power
4 Ahuramazdāmai̯ Upastām Abara
The Land and Its People: Sorting Things Out
1 Introduction. What I Have Done in Baktria
2 The Few, the Proud. A King's Loyal (?) Subjects
3 Banishment from Pairidaēza. Paradoxes of Imperial Power
4 Textures and Scents of Empire. Borderland Economics
5 They Called Him Dādêṛšiš
6 No Rabbits in That Big Hat: Skunḫa
7 Conclusions. Avam Ubṛtam Abaram. Mapping the Imperial Camp(s)
5 Uno Fumavit Tota Rogo?
1 Trouble in the East?
2 En attendant Haxāmazdā. A Long(er) Fifth Century
3 After Masistes. Navigating the Imperial Middle Ground
4 The Wealth of Nations. Political Ecologies in Achaemenid Baktria
5 (Mir)Shades of Empire. The World of (and Beyond) Kyzyltëpe
6 Conclusions. "That My Body (Politic) is Strong". Time and Empire in Achaemenid Central Asia
6 Camels (Not Only) of the King
Universal Rule Embedded. Sociopolitics of Achaemenid Baktria
1 Parchments and Wood. Letting Locals Speak: the ADAB
2 Tales Tallies Tale. Exploring Imperial Selectorates in Baktria
3 Conclusions. A Kingdom for a Camel
7 Lords of the Marches
Borderscapes of Ambition
1 Unnerving the Satrap
2 Resist and Accommodate: Satrapal Discontents
3 Every Friend a Slanderer. Edges of Imperial Might
4 Zero-Sum-Games? Localities of (and in) Power: A Long-Term Approach
5 Unrequested Gifts and Demanding Friendships
6 Conclusions. Thanks for the Memories
8 Naked Years
How Empires (Do Not) End
1 Anything New on the Eastern Front? In the 7th Year of Alexander, the King
2 The Viceroys. Allies, Enemies, and the Quest for the Empire
3 Thou Shall Not Covet Thy Neighbor's Wife
4 Worthy of a King?
5 Conclusions. Nothing, Everything: (Post)Imperial Legacies
9 Home of the Brave
Because Empire is a Commitment
1 Prehistory of the Golden Kings
2 Seleukos' Apprenticeship
3 The Chosen One: Shaping Seleukid Central Asia
4 Conclusions. The Way It Was. Baktria in (and) the Empire: Lives and Afterlives
10 Epilogue: A Long Farewell
Legacies of Ancient Persia
Bibliography
Index of Sources
Index of Names and Places
