A theory about empires and frontiers

[Ecthy]

I looked it up at Amazon and it's more than €35. No thanks.

[BeBMan]

Uni library?

[Ecthy]

Shall do so. that is, shall check out StaBi

[Ecthy]

Does this mean the next empire will be Canada?

[Lorizael]

Or Mexico.

[Trifna]

Originally posted by Japher
^nerd

^not nerd enough



Thanks Albert, it was a great read. Seeing individual cities developing their own caracteristics in Civ would be quite a challenge!

[realpolitic]

Sometimes, it's just better technology, the Europeans dominated the world in the centuries following the Renesance, it hadn't been on the edge of any empire, neigther had Genghis/Kublai Khan's. The American Empire is not on the border of the previous European empires, and the Soviet Empire was not on the border of another.

[Al B. Sure!]

Sometimes, it's just better technology, the Europeans dominated the world in the centuries following the Renesance, it hadn't been on the edge of any empire, neigther had Genghis/Kublai Khan's. The American Empire is not on the border of the previous European empires, and the Soviet Empire was not on the border of another.

if a frontier can be defined as the area between two different ethnic groups (by this I mean more dramatically ethnic groups than Saxon/Bavarian... more like Turkish and Slavic), then these aren't wrong. For example, the biggest European powers from 1500 on were Spain (clearly a frontier state with the Muslims), Austria (also clearly a frontier state with the Turks), Russia (also clearly a frontier state with the Tatars), and Sweden and Prussia who weren't as dramatically frontier polities but perhaps one could argue they were with the Orthodox Slavic cultures on their borders.

America could also be seen as a frontier state, between English or Western culture and the native indians. A frontier mentality was obviously important in forming the american nation.

your 'exceptions' seem to give the idea more credence.

[chequita guevara]

China and the Eastern Roman Empire/Ottoman Empire didn't follow this path. Central Mexico rose and fell several times. Egypt fell and rose multiple times before being eclipsed. So did Mesopotamia and Iran.

What is true, however, is that social change generally begins at the edge of the old system. It was the Germans that brought feudalism to the remnents of the Roman Empire, the Arabs swept it away, England on the perifery of Europe brought capitalism to the continent, Russia was the first socialist state, etc.

[Al B. Sure!]

blah?

Chinese civilization began in the northern half of the country, alongside the pastoral Mongols and other Tataric peoples...

The Byzantine Empire was on the Roman frontier as I said earlier... and the Ottomon power base in 1420 was in the balkans, right at the frontier between Muslim and Christian.

[chequita guevara]

The Eastern Roman Empire was hardly the frontier. It was so important that the capital was moved there. Rome was the frontier by the mid 350s.

China rose and fell multiple times before it was finally overrun by the Mongols. And what emerged was not a synthesis of the two old cultures, but simply a renewed China with a foreign emperor, and that only lasted a few generations.

The Ottoman powerbase was the core of the old Eastern Roman Empire, which had been central European and Middle Eastern societis from the time of the Hittites until the 19th Century.

[Al B. Sure!]

Central Mexico rose and fell several times.

Rose and fell by continually peripheral empires... first the Mayans in the lowland jungles, eclipsed by Toltecs, then the Aztecs even further north.

and the key point here is ethnic borders, not necessarily imperial borders. If Egypt remained on an ethnic border then it should have remained strong and solidified for some time... if another empire conquered it, well then, it 'fell' but notice how Egypt has always remained a distinct entity with each conquest first by Assyrians, then Persians, then Greeks, then Romans... all with periods of indepedence in between. this is a result of strong solidarity forged on an ethnic border with the Libyans, Nubians, and Semites.

[Al B. Sure!]

chegitz:

Byzantium not a frontier?! How many times was it successively sieged by Goths, Huns, Avars, Persians, and Arabs?

[chequita guevara]

Olmecs, Toltecs, and Aztecs all rose from and govered the same territory more or less.

[chequita guevara]

Originally posted by Albert Speer
chegitz:

Byzantium not a frontier?! How many times was it successively sieged by Goths, Huns, Avars, Persians, and Arabs?

That means little. It was the crossroads of Western and Middle civilization, and easily accessible. Even the powerful Ottomans were barely able to fend off repeated attempts by Crusaders to reach Constaninople (before they took it).

In any event, Constaniople's proximity to its frontiers had the opposite effect that you posit, and the Ottomans pushed their frontiers far beyond it (to anything they could reach within a season's march from the city).