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Discuss the significant themes of Peoples and Empires by Anthony Pagden.

The subject of Pagden's Peoples and Empires is the way European empires developed throughout history, starting in ancient Greece with Alexander the Great. Pagden defines empires as "government over vast territories" (page xxii). The themes of his book are the ways in which European empires conquered lands and people who were incredibly diverse. As Pagden writes of European empires, "It was in their sheer variety as much as their size that both their identity and their glory were to be found" (page xxiii). Pagden states that because of their diversity, most empires developed into cosmopolitan societies, as imperial powers had to become more tolerant to rule over vast territories.


Another theme is the dynamic way empires changed both the conqueror and conquered. Conquest and imperial control changed the conqueror, and conquest also changed the lands under control. Empires had diverse effects on conquered people, providing some with greater freedom and restricting the freedom of others (such as slaves during the Atlantic slave trade). As Pagden notes, sometimes conquest widens the horizons of the conquered people (xxiv). For example, the Roman empire offered conquered people not only access to Roman architecture and roads, but also access to the opulence and grandeur that defined the Roman Empire (page 26). At the same time, empires can also result in brutality and suffering; for example, the European slave traders who captured African slaves and forced them to migrate to the New World caused endless suffering.

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