In contrast with a few decades ago intercultural comparison is now an accepted part of historical studies. This holds e.g. for the study of empires, with the juxtaposition of the ancient Chinese and Roman empires being considered especially instructive. The Stanford historian Walter Scheidel has long been a protagonist of this area of research. Here he presents a second collection of essays devoted to the comparison of ancient China and Rome. The new collection has a clearer focus than its predecessor.1 In the context of the inquiry about the ways and means that made possible the "dramatic expansion of the scale of human cooperation" (3) that we observe throughout history, it investigates different aspects of the workings of state power in the two empires.