Rise and Fall of Empires

John D. Hosler, professor of Military History at the Command and General Staff College at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, discusses how the army of the Fourth Crusade's attack and capture in 1204 of Constantinople marked the end of the Byzantine Empire.

The Command and General Staff College’s professor Shawn Faulkner discusses how the 300-year-old Habsburg dynasty went from holding sway over vast territories in eastern, central, and southern Europe in the early 1800s to disappearing entirely by 1918.

Military professor Geoff Babb discusses the Qing Dynasty’s rise and fall, its military campaigns amid the “Century of Humiliation,” and the events that led to the founding of the People’s Republic of China.

Military historian David W. Mills tells the surprising story of what happened during the 1955 agricultural exchange between farmers from the United States and the former Soviet republic. The exchange, not initiated by either government, exposed the USSR’s use of outdated technology, poor agricultural management, and th...

The U.S. Army Command and General Staff College returns to the Library to launch a new series on the rise and fall of empires. Harry S. Laver recounts the Battle of New Orleans in the first installment, and explains how General Andrew Jackson’s decimation of a professional army of British Redcoats foreshadowed the...