The Best Books on Empires: Rome, the Mongols, the Silk Roads and the Great Powers

Empires have shaped the map, the languages we speak and the way goods and ideas move around the world. The books on this list follow some of the greatest of them, from Persia and Rome to the Mongols and the great powers of the modern age. Together they show how empires rise, how they hold on and why, sooner or later, they fall.

What these books have in common

Reading about empires is a good way to see the big forces of history at work: trade, war, religion, technology and the plain logistics of governing people across great distances. The books below range from lively narratives to broad, argument-driven surveys. We have mixed them deliberately, because the most rewarding way to explore empires is to set a close-up story against a wide-angle view. Each one stands on its own, so start with whichever empire most interests you.

SPQR

Mary Beard's history of Rome is really a book about how an empire was built. She follows the city from its legendary founding to AD 212, when the emperor Caracalla extended citizenship to almost all free inhabitants of the empire. Along the way she asks how Rome managed such a vast territory and what being Roman actually meant.

Beard is careful to separate myth from evidence, which makes this a model of how to think about any empire. Our ancient Rome reading list has many more books for the next step.

Persian Fire

Tom Holland tells the story of the Persian Empire's expansion and its wars with the Greek city-states, culminating in the famous battles of Marathon, Thermopylae and Salamis. Crucially, he gives the Persians their due as a sophisticated imperial power rather than simply as the villains of a Greek story.

It reads with the pace of a novel and makes a fine companion to Herodotus's The Histories, the ancient source on which much of the story depends. See also our ancient Greece and Persia reading list.

Genghis Khan and the Making of the Modern World

Jack Weatherford traces the rise of Genghis Khan from a precarious childhood on the steppe to the creation of the largest contiguous land empire in history. He argues that the Mongol Empire did more than conquer: it opened trade routes, moved ideas and technologies across Eurasia and practiced a pragmatic religious tolerance.

The book makes a strong and sympathetic case, and some historians think it underplays the destruction of the conquests. That debate is part of what makes it worth reading. It works well before or after The Silk Roads.

The Silk Roads

Peter Frankopan's world history centers on the region between the Mediterranean and China, showing how empires from Persia and Rome to the Mongols and the British all depended on or competed for the routes that crossed it. It is a book about connection, and it makes the story of empires feel global rather than regional.

Its breadth is its strength, and it rewards readers who like seeing patterns over centuries. More books in this vein are on our big history shelf.

The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers

Paul Kennedy examines the leading powers from around 1500 to the late twentieth century and argues that their fortunes depended on the balance between economic strength and military commitments. Powers that took on more than their economies could sustain, he suggests, tended to decline.

This is the most analytical book on the list, with plenty of economic data, so it suits readers ready for an argument-driven work. It is especially rewarding if you have already read a narrative history or two about the modern era.

The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire

Edward Gibbon's great work, published in the late eighteenth century, follows the Roman Empire from its height through the fall of the West and on to the fall of Constantinople in 1453. Its elegant, ironic prose has made it a classic of English literature as well as history.

Modern scholars have revised many of Gibbon's judgments, so it is best read as a monument of historical writing rather than an up-to-date account. Few readers tackle the whole thing; an abridged edition is a sensible way in.

Peter the Great

Robert K. Massie's biography follows the tsar who dragged Russia toward Europe: traveling west to study shipbuilding and statecraft, building a navy, fighting a long war with Sweden and founding St. Petersburg. Through one forceful personality you see an empire remaking itself.

It is long but highly readable. Massie's Catherine the Great continues the story of the Russian Empire later in the same century.

Empires compared

A suggested reading order

If you want to read your way through this list, we suggest beginning with Persian Fire and SPQR, which show two ancient empires in action and are both enjoyable reads. Move on to Genghis Khan and the Making of the Modern World, then widen the lens with The Silk Roads, which ties many of these stories together. Save The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers for when you want a sustained argument about the modern world, and dip into Gibbon whenever you are in the mood for a classic. Peter the Great fits anywhere you fancy a single, vivid life.

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