Handbook of Hittite Empire

Empire Studies and the imperial turn are flourishing in the last decades. Empires have been scrutinized through various aspects and focused on by different perspectives and approaches. However, there are still major shortcomings and lacunae in all these previous studies that have to be addressed. The classifications and definitions so far proposed are still debatable and the selection of what is regarded to represent an "empire" is rather unsystematic. Comprehensive structural connections that transcend epochs and historical periods are only partially taken into consideration. This is often due to a lack of concrete questions and concepts and an only recently arising awareness of different types of empires through all periods. Last but not least, recent empire studies still tend to be mainly focused on the modern and contemporary era. As a consequence, they are not only chronologically concentrated on the last centuries but are also prone to a Eurocentric perspective. The newly established series intends to overcome these deficits by putting comparative empire studies on an entirely new basis.