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xi_tujue View Drop Down
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Atabeg

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  Quote xi_tujue Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Topic: All Empires
    Posted: 25-Nov-2007 at 13:03
Why do we try to make list and compare Empire with eachother. I mean what about the diffrence in Time, place, etc....

There are many different Empires. Who had different ideals

Millitary based ( conquering )
Trade Based (wealth)
Scholar based (expanding it's culture & exchange)
etc...


So I think it's not okay to compare differen't 'types' of Empires with eachother.

there are also Empires whi did all these things but some point more than the other.



What are your thoughts on this Big%20smile


thanks, xi_tujue
I rather be a nomadic barbarian than a sedentary savage
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  Quote Guests Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 25-Nov-2007 at 13:14

For me, "Empire" is just a declaration of size of a human organization. And "size" is not the only thing that matters at all.

Small nations, sometimes achieved more than Empires and are usually more dinamic. Nations like Athens and Venice developed and influenced the world with a strenght out of proportion to theirs sizes. Even more, tribes sometimes produced quite a lot of things interesting for its own. For instance, boomerangs, harpoons and horse riding were developed by nomads and not inside "Empires", all of the Pacific Ocean (half the surface of the planet) was conquered by small bands of Polynesians, and the most important monoteistic religions has roots in believes and a book developed by a people (the Hebrews) that was marginal to the superpowers of theirs time, and a group of merchants weak in military power, the phoenicians, not only spread old civilization throught the Mediterranean sea but developed a key invention for the West: the alphabet.
 
So, I agree, comparing civilizations and cultures against each other doesn't make much sense if we just compare numbers and statistics. It is better to compare the legacy that people leaved to us.
 
 


Edited by pinguin - 25-Nov-2007 at 13:17
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xi_tujue View Drop Down
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  Quote xi_tujue Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 25-Nov-2007 at 14:06
all true

but those Nomads you speak of have had there fair share of Empires.

+ most if not all Empires start small. Mostly it's a tribe or a city who conquers and assimilates different ones thats how countries or states were made


Edited by xi_tujue - 25-Nov-2007 at 14:08
I rather be a nomadic barbarian than a sedentary savage
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  Quote drgonzaga Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 25-Nov-2007 at 14:43
Empires by default must consist of multi-ethnic or multi-cultural components and by inference project political rule by a specific elite over others. And, yes, it is a function of size in proportion to its technology and organization. Hence, assertions such as these are stretching a definition beyond utility:
 
"all of the Pacific Ocean (half the surface of the planet) was conquered by small bands of Polynesians"
 
"the most important monotheistic religions have roots in beliefs and a book developed by a people (the Hebrews)who were marginal to the superpowers of their time."
 
To "conquer" you must have prior inhabitants with a claim to the territory in question. The dispersal of populations through the Pacific fails to meet that criteria and other defining terms are available so as to explain conditions (e.g. Hawaii). Likewise, the "Bible" conquered nothing, in fact its conception as understood today had little to do with the spread of any religion. If you understand an empire in terms of a centripetal force, you would grasp why religion will normally act as a centrifugal force in terms of imperial cohesion.
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  Quote Guests Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 25-Nov-2007 at 15:39

"conquer"? I wasn't talking about conquering when I mentioned ancient Polynesians and Hebrews. I was thinking in terms of theirs influence and importance to modern people.

In short, you can have huge empires that were less important that small comunities of the past... It is not the rule, but one should not measure the importance of "Empires" "Kindoms" or "Bands" just by counting people, squared meters or duration.

 

 

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xi_tujue View Drop Down
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  Quote xi_tujue Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 25-Nov-2007 at 16:22
I agree with you

An Empire should be measured by the impact it has on history
I rather be a nomadic barbarian than a sedentary savage
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  Quote longshanks31 Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 25-Nov-2007 at 18:36
many people love lists, im a stats fanatic, "whos biggest an best" threads are not the highest forums for debate but at the same time can be entertaining, kind of the house of commons of AE Stern%20Smile
long live the king of bhutan
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  Quote Reginmund Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 25-Nov-2007 at 19:36
House of teenage boys more likely.

Fundamentally it's nothing more than the old "my father would beat your father" discussion from elementary school.
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  Quote longshanks31 Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 25-Nov-2007 at 19:40
well put reginmund (i couldnt resist a dig at our politicians)
long live the king of bhutan
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