A roundtable session entitled the “Empires of the Plains: A World Historical Perspective” was organized by the director of the project Pekka Hämäläinen at the American Historical Association (AHA), in Denver, CO, USA on 6 January, 2017. The members of the project team presented their research on nomadic empires, which was followed by comments from Jonathan Skaff, and an open discussion with the audience.

The main focus of the panel was on the processes of connectivity, mobility, action, and exchange which were the basic mechanisms for building nomadic empires and for their longevity. The presenters explored the concepts of “kinetic empires,” “empires of mobility,” nomadic “peace,” kinship, and sovereignty and placed them within a comparative perspective while discussing their individual case studies: the empires of the Lakota, Xiongnu, Blemmyes, Khazars, Golden Horde, and Rumi nomads. Numerous questions from the audience expanded this discussion further into the spheres of nomadic economic sustainability, physical and sacred geography, the silk and fur trade, the nature of the “shape-shifting abilities” of the nomadic states, such as from pastoral to “amphibian” polities.

Abstracts of the panel papers are available here: https://aha.confex.com/aha/2017/webprogram/Session15219.html