Quiet History of Power - Expansion

II. Expansion — A Quiet History of Power

Empires do not grow by accident. Someone gives the order. Someone carries it out. And someone, almost always unnamed, bears the cost.

Expansion follows the paths by which power spread across the ancient world, from the first great conquerors who marched armies beyond their own borders to the warchiefs who held loyalty together with little more than reputation, generosity, and the promise of plunder. It traces the northern peoples whose migrations and r...