In the past two decades, empires have increasingly attracted the attention of historians of the early modern period to the detriment of the traditional focus on states as the default political unit of analysis. The emergence of global history is not alien to this turn. This article maintains that our understanding of configurations of the early modern political map would only benefit from detaching the history of the state from its European trajectory and focusing on the multiple connections between states and empires across the world. Not only did both states and empires share the problem of having too much to rule, but their differences were not always so clear to the historical actors. Therefore, looking at their interactions at a local level might be a promising line to follow in future research.

中文翻译：

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太多的统治：早期现代世界的国家和帝国

在过去的二十年里，帝国越来越受到近代早期历史学家的关注，这对将国家作为默认政治分析单位的传统关注造成了损害。全球历史的出现与这一转变并不陌生。本文坚持认为，我们对早期现代政治版图结构的理解只会受益于将国家历史与其欧洲轨迹分离并关注世界各地国家与帝国之间的多重联系。不仅国家和帝国都面临着统治太多的问题，而且它们的差异对历史参与者来说并不总是那么清楚。因此，在地方层面观察它们的相互作用可能是未来研究中值得遵循的一条有前途的路线。