This open access book makes an important and original contribution in shifting the analytical lens from 'empires' to the agency of 'resilient states'. Employing a comparative framework, which highlights strategies such as diplomacy, selective modernization, and national identity, the book provides a novel and accessible way to understand how certain states maintained sovereignty. Few countries have remained independent over the last 600 years. While many books have sought to understand why and how expansionist efforts occurred, none has turned that question around, seeking answers to why and how some nations remained independent. This book brings several (but not all) of these countries together, in one collection, capturing other histories. It presents chapters on eight countries: Afghanistan, Bhutan, Ethiopia, Iran, Japan, Mongolia, Nepal, and Thailand, from 1400 to the present, and collates their historical trajectories in independence, outlining key commonalities, and differences. It is relevant to scholars in political science, development studies, decolonial and post-colonial studies, history, and international relations.
