Age of Rogues

Book excerpt: In Age of Rogues, leading scholars engage with themes of historical and cultural legacies, contentious interactions within imperial regimes, and the biographical trajectory of men and women who challenged the political status quo of their time. Rebels, revolutionaries and racketeers played central roles in the violent process of imperial disintegration as it unfolded in the frontiers of the Ottoman, Habsburg, Romanov and Qajar empires. This is a history of these transgressive actors from the late-19th century to the interwar years. This time was marked by similar, if not shared, revolutionary experiences and repertoires of contention across the connected geography of the Balkans, the Middle East and the Caucasus.