About the book: 2024 / What is the distinctive feature of empire as a socio-political form? What is the path to the formation of “Asian-type” empires and how do they differ from Western formations of this kind? Why does the economic essence of a great power make constant territorial expansion inevitable? What is the reason for its suspension and is there a relationship between geographical location and the limit of such expansion? Why is the main enemy of the “eastern” empire its own bureaucratic apparatus? How did European states manage to break out of the logic of cyclical development within which Asian polities existed and build colonial powers? Why, in contrast, do authoritarian regimes triumph in the vast majority of land empires? What is the fate of modern "empires" and "imperialism"? These questions are answered on the basis of a synthesis of socio-economic and geopolitical approaches in the presented work, addressed to specialists and a wide range of readers..