From ancient times to our modern age, western empires have shaped societies around the world. Imperial powers have impacted all aspects of human experience as well as the natural world; from trade patterns and migration to sexuality, race and the environment. The rise of cultural history has brought to the fore new methods, archives and perspectives that shape how we think about histories of empire from the ancient world to the modern day. A Cultural History of Western Empires seeks to explore the role of culture in shaping how empire took root, took shape, was maintained, challenged and brought to a close.

This volume explores the cultural history of western empires during the Renaissance, an era that, for most people, marks one of the highest points of Western culture and civilization. Guiding the reader through eight carefully chosen themes; war, trade, natural worlds, labor, mobility, sexuality, resistance and race across eight chapters, it explores the different ways in which the cultures of the Renaissance were shaped by imperial powers. In doing so, it highlights how Renaissance empires foreshadowed later imperial dynamics, but also differed from them.
A Cultural History of Western Empires presents historians, and scholars and students of related fields, with the first comprehensive and interdisciplinary overview of the cultural history of empire from ancient times to modernity.