The Rise and Fall of Empires: A Comparative Study
Keywords:
Rise and Fall of Empires, Roman Empire, Mongol Empire, Ottoman Empire, British Empire, Mughal Empire, Comparative History, Governance, Military Power, Economic Systems.Abstract
This research paper examines the emergence, expansion, and collapse of major empires through a comparative, interdisciplinary historical analysis. Focusing on five influential political structures—the Roman Empire, Mongol Empire, Ottoman Empire, British Empire, and Mughal Empire—the study investigates the military, economic, administrative, cultural, and geopolitical factors that enabled their rise, along with the internal vulnerabilities and external pressures that drove their decline. Through a comprehensive review of classical and contemporary scholarship, the paper develops a conceptual framework based on five pillars of
imperial sustainability: military capacity, economic resilience, administrative governance, cultural integration, and environmental-geopolitical context.
The findings reveal that although each empire evolved within distinct historical, cultural, and regional settings, their trajectories exhibit recurring structural patterns. Internal challenges such as fiscal crises, bureaucratic corruption, succession disputes, and social fragmentation combined with external threats such as invasions, colonial rivalries, and global economic changes to weaken imperial authority. The comparative study illustrates how the rise and fall of empires remain relevant for understanding contemporary governance, geopolitics, and systemic sustainability in the modern nation-state world order.
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