The volume will focus on a comparative level on a specific group of states that are commonly labelled as “empires” and that we encounter through all historical periods. Although they are very successful at the very beginning, like most empires are, this success is very ephemeral and transient. The era of conquest is never followed by a period of consolidation. Collapse and/or reduction to much smaller dimension run as fast as the process of wide-ranging conquest and expansion. The volume singles out a series of such “short-term empires” and aims to provide a methodologically clearly structured as well as a uniform and consistent approach by developing a general set of questions that guarantee the possibility to compare and distinguish. This way it intends to examine not only already well established empires but also to illuminate forgotten ones. Front Matter ....Pages i-viii Approaching Short-Term Empires in World History, a First Attempt (Robert Rollinger, Julian Degen, Michael Gehler)....Pages 1-21 The European Union: A Short-Term Empire? (Michael Gehler)....Pages 23-55 The Hunnic Empire of Attila (Peter Heather)....Pages 57-86 The Timurid Empire (Beatrice F. Manz)....Pages 87-101 The Latin Empire of Constantinople (1204–1261): Rise and Fall of a Short-Term State in the Romania (Ekaterini Mitsiou)....Pages 103-128 Mithradates VI and the Pontic Empire (Sabine Müller)....Pages 129-153 The Ghaznavids of Eastern Iran, a Postcolonial Muslim Empire (Lucian Reinfandt)....Pages 155-165 Because Empire Means Forever: Babylon and Imperial Disposition (Seth Richardson)....Pages 167-187 The Medes of the 7th and 6th c. BCE: A Short-Term Empire or Rather a Short-Term Confederacy? (Robert Rollinger)....Pages 189-213 In a League of Its Own? Nāder Šāh and His Empire (Giorgio Rota)....Pages 215-226 The Barcids and Hannibal (Kai Ruffing)....Pages 227-244 Theoderic and the Ostrogoths—a Short-Term Empire? Decapitated or Defective? (Christoph Schäfer) .... Pages 245-261 The Rise of Hitler’s Empire and Its Apex (1933–1942) (Arnold Suppan) .... Pages 263-305 From Warlord to Emperor: The Careers of Shamshi-Adad and Hammurabi (Marc Van De Mieroop)....Pages 307-316 The ‘Empire’ of the Hephthalites (Josef Wiesehöfer, Robert Rollinger) .... Pages 317-329 Back Matter .... Pages 331-344