Most powerful empire that ever existed? - Page 26 - Historum

**Lord_of_Gauda** · April 30th, 2012, 06:09 PM

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Originally Posted by Guaporense

Please, you need to be able to talk in a more civilized way.

Also, in the future, when we will have interestelar civilization therefore no power from the present to the past would be considered global since global would mean the interestelar world.

No, global means 'of the globe'. Not of space. Regardless of human endavour in the future, the definition of the word 'global' doesn't change: it implies of this (or another) globe, not of multiple globes.

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So you can argue: the British Empire was a regional power because they didn't influence Alpha Centauri. Hahaha.

Technically speaking, all powers are regional powers, unless one arises to dominate the entire universe, as ultimately, the definition of the word 'regional' implies it is a region of a larger subset. In the current context- where human power projection has not left near-earth orbit, the word 'regional' implies something smaller than the largest subset we can theoretically project into: ie, a part of the globe. By this definition, The British Empire was a global power, because their ability to project power isn't representative of a smaller area of influence than what is possible today.
In the future, when alpha centauri or mars (if) comes into equation, then yes, Britain will be a regional power under the greater subset.

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It is you that clearly doesn't understand the definition of great power. Rome was not a regional power because it did not have it's influenced restricted to a region.

Rome was a great power. But it was also a regional power. It had zero influence in Scandinavia, India, China or Nigeria. Therefore, it was a regional power. There were no global power before the Spanish/Portuguese conquests on a global scale.

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Unless you define as a region any subset of the planet surface. Well, in the distant future the whole Earth can become a region of a interestelar civilization. So the British Empire was regional.

Yes, in future, if that is possible, ie, when the human capability of power projection becomes greater than this planet, then and only then, britain is consigned to being a regional power. Until then, they were a superpower of global proportions because they projected power in the maximum space capable of humanity as of yet.

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First, you need to have a political system. There wasn't any political system spanning the planet earth 2,000 years ago.

Yes, there was. Its absolute monarchy. The semantics might've differed, but the absolute monarch was the norm for humanity, globally. From the Americas to Fiji, the predominant structure was of a king who could do practically anything he/she wanted.

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The Romans ruled the entire political system in which they existed which was the Mediterranean World System.

Irrelevant.

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If you count as a great power only those of Earth spanning influence them you are left with the Early Modern European Great Powers and the USA.

That is correct. That is what the definitions imply.

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Only these countries could be characterized as global powers by our definition:

Portugal
Spain
France
Netherlands
UK
Russia
Germany
USA

Only these and nothing more.

Correct.

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Tiny Portugal had achieved world power projection capabilities in the early 16th century. Hence by our definition, Portugal was a global power, while the Ottoman Empire and the Qing Empires were regional powers.

Correct.

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For example, tiny Netherlands, managed to keep a colony in China and fought Qing forces in the 17th century, while the Qing never managed to project power onto Holland. So by our definition in 1650 AD, Netherlands was a greater power than Qing China.

Greater power is not the same as being a regional or a global power. A regional power (such as Mughal India or Qing China) could be far greater in their ability to bring force into bearing than a global power (Holland, England circa 1700s). But what makes Holland/Britain global power is their ability to project power anywhere on the planet and what made Mughal India or Qing China regional power is their inability to do so anywhere on the planet.

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Early 20th century Germany a regional power????

WTF????

Germany was not in any way shape of form a regional power in 1913. Germany was the world's leading scientific power, had the world's most powerful army and the second largest economy.

Germany was in many ways more powerful than the UK in 1913. In fact the UK had to make an alliance with France to balance the growth of German power.

irrelevant. Germany was a greater regional power than UK was a global power in 1913 in pure power comparisons. But while the UK could project power anywhere on the planet, the Germans were at the British mercy to get out into the Atlantic. Therefore, Germany was a regional power, Britain was a global power.

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It is true that Germany focused most of their attention to Europe while the UK had a more global focus. However, the reason for that was that Europe in the early 20th century was simply vastly more important than

irrelevant. Germany was incapable of projecting power globally circa 1913. Therefore, it wasn't a global power.

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No, there isn't. In terms of stats according to the archaeological evidence the Roman Empire had around 90-95% of the world's output of metals, for example.

That is academically dishonest, typical of Eurocentrics.

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In any way you measure it, the Roman Empire had about 90% of:

1 - world's shipwrecks dated from antiquity were in Roman waters

Irrelevant and spurious. The mediterranean shipwrecks are mapped. The Arabian sea, Bay of Bengal and the various China seas shipwrecks are unmapped. Since the whole earth's coastal waters hasn't been mapped, one cannot say that Roman empire represents 90% of the shipwrecks from antiquity. They represent 90% of what we have gathered so far, which is heavily tilted in Roman favour, since Roman waters are far better explored than others for archaeological remains.

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2 - ruins dated from antiquity were inside the Roman Empire

Irrelevant. China built with wood, India with bricks, Rome predominantly with stone. The latter is more resilient, hence it survives better. Roman empire's region has never been genocided or razed carte blanche through the last 2000 years, while China and india have had areas the size of France or bigger completely flattened. These events will skew archaeological finds.
Further, climate plays a huge role in preservation of artefacts. You will find far greater remains in the dry mediterranean than you will in the super-wet Singapore. Unqualified data means nothing.

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3 - levels of metal pollution in the greeland ice caps show that with the decline and fall of the roman empire the levels of pollution in terms of lead declined by 95% and in terms of copper by 85%. This implies that Rome had around 90% of the world's output of lead and copper.

Greenland ice-cores are irrelevant to the global trend. All the world's particlates doesn't precipitate in Greenland. The Incans could've had 100x the metal production of western Europe but Greenland won't include an iota of that precipitate. Basic understanding of major air currents and particulate precipiatation indicates that the prime location of the mediterranean origin particulate precipitation is Greenland to Novoya Zemlya. The prime location for middle eastern/Iranian particulate precipitation is Caucasus mountains, the prime location for South Asia is the Himalaya-Tibet region and the prime region for China/East Asian particulate precipitation is eastern Siberia to Yukon.

Ie, Greenland ice-cores are irrelevant, since Greenland ice core low atmospheric particulate precipiation is fundamentally from Europe in the first place.
What Greenland's data indicates, is that 90% of metal production in EUROPE in antiquity came from the Roman mediterranean, with the rest 10% from rest of Europe.

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You can have the sources for this data if you want.

I would like to see these academically dishonest sources.

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Anyway, the point is that before the 16-17th centuries the world was not integrated enough so that countries could project power onto every region of Earth.

Correct. As a result, there wasn't a global world power before 17th century.

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3 - The simple fact that entire planet today is the civilization that was inside the borders of the roman empire is quite a significant fact. No other empire in history has ever achieved global domination in the sense of dominating the entire western world.

The simple fact that the entire world's technological and economic progress is possible due to the decimal and base-10 numeric system is of far greater import. No Indian numerals and decimal system= no stock market, 5x greater turnaround times for calculations of numbers and data, therefore 5x the retardation in any numeric-related topic- from your grocery bill to the tolerances of a space shuttle.

The idea that global civilization is an expansion of the microcosm that was the Greco-Roman world is nothing more than wishful eurocentric nonsense. For the global civilization owes far more to the Northern Europeans independent and indegenous development of sciences and politics than to the defunct system of the Greco-Romans, which is of speculative import to the modern world.
Just because they lived like us 2000 years ago is irrelevant, since 4000 years ago, Indus valley people lived like us too- in apartments, cities, etc.

**Zarin** · April 30th, 2012, 08:04 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Lord_of_Gauda

No, global means 'of the globe'. Not of space. Regardless of human endavour in the future, the definition of the word 'global' doesn't change: it implies of this (or another) globe, not of multiple globes.

Technically speaking, all powers are regional powers, unless one arises to dominate the entire universe, as ultimately, the definition of the word 'regional' implies it is a region of a larger subset. In the current context- where human power projection has not left near-earth orbit, the word 'regional' implies something smaller than the largest subset we can theoretically project into: ie, a part of the globe. By this definition, The British Empire was a global power, because their ability to project power isn't representative of a smaller area of influence than what is possible today.
In the future, when alpha centauri or mars (if) comes into equation, then yes, Britain will be a regional power under the greater subset.

Rome was a great power. But it was also a regional power. It had zero influence in Scandinavia, India, China or Nigeria. Therefore, it was a regional power. There were no global power before the Spanish/Portuguese conquests on a global scale.

Yes, in future, if that is possible, ie, when the human capability of power projection becomes greater than this planet, then and only then, britain is consigned to being a regional power. Until then, they were a superpower of global proportions because they projected power in the maximum space capable of humanity as of yet.

Yes, there was. Its absolute monarchy. The semantics might've differed, but the absolute monarch was the norm for humanity, globally. From the Americas to Fiji, the predominant structure was of a king who could do practically anything he/she wanted.

Irrelevant.

That is correct. That is what the definitions imply.

Correct.

Correct.

Greater power is not the same as being a regional or a global power. A regional power (such as Mughal India or Qing China) could be far greater in their ability to bring force into bearing than a global power (Holland, England circa 1700s). But what makes Holland/Britain global power is their ability to project power anywhere on the planet and what made Mughal India or Qing China regional power is their inability to do so anywhere on the planet.

irrelevant. Germany was a greater regional power than UK was a global power in 1913 in pure power comparisons. But while the UK could project power anywhere on the planet, the Germans were at the British mercy to get out into the Atlantic. Therefore, Germany was a regional power, Britain was a global power.

irrelevant. Germany was incapable of projecting power globally circa 1913. Therefore, it wasn't a global power.

That is academically dishonest, typical of Eurocentrics.

Irrelevant and spurious. The mediterranean shipwrecks are mapped. The Arabian sea, Bay of Bengal and the various China seas shipwrecks are unmapped. Since the whole earth's coastal waters hasn't been mapped, one cannot say that Roman empire represents 90% of the shipwrecks from antiquity. They represent 90% of what we have gathered so far, which is heavily tilted in Roman favour, since Roman waters are far better explored than others for archaeological remains.

Irrelevant. China built with wood, India with bricks, Rome predominantly with stone. The latter is more resilient, hence it survives better. Roman empire's region has never been genocided or razed carte blanche through the last 2000 years, while China and india have had areas the size of France or bigger completely flattened. These events will skew archaeological finds.
Further, climate plays a huge role in preservation of artefacts. You will find far greater remains in the dry mediterranean than you will in the super-wet Singapore. Unqualified data means nothing.

Greenland ice-cores are irrelevant to the global trend. All the world's particlates doesn't precipitate in Greenland. The Incans could've had 100x the metal production of western Europe but Greenland won't include an iota of that precipitate. Basic understanding of major air currents and particulate precipiatation indicates that the prime location of the mediterranean origin particulate precipitation is Greenland to Novoya Zemlya. The prime location for middle eastern/Iranian particulate precipitation is Caucasus mountains, the prime location for South Asia is the Himalaya-Tibet region and the prime region for China/East Asian particulate precipitation is eastern Siberia to Yukon.

Ie, Greenland ice-cores are irrelevant, since Greenland ice core low atmospheric particulate precipiation is fundamentally from Europe in the first place.
What Greenland's data indicates, is that 90% of metal production in EUROPE in antiquity came from the Roman mediterranean, with the rest 10% from rest of Europe.

I would like to see these academically dishonest sources.

Correct. As a result, there wasn't a global world power before 17th century.

The simple fact that the entire world's technological and economic progress is possible due to the decimal and base-10 numeric system is of far greater import. No Indian numerals and decimal system= no stock market, 5x greater turnaround times for calculations of numbers and data, therefore 5x the retardation in any numeric-related topic- from your grocery bill to the tolerances of a space shuttle.

The idea that global civilization is an expansion of the microcosm that was the Greco-Roman world is nothing more than wishful eurocentric nonsense. For the global civilization owes far more to the Northern Europeans independent and indegenous development of sciences and politics than to the defunct system of the Greco-Romans, which is of speculative import to the modern world.
Just because they lived like us 2000 years ago is irrelevant, since 4000 years ago, Indus valley people lived like us too- in apartments, cities, etc.

Great Britain will always be considered a "global" power in terms of Earth's history. Because this global definition is that of the Earth's global shape. When the history of Mars (which has already begun) has started to be compiled with a human presence on a permanent basis; Great Britain will still be considered a global power on Earth and as a part of Earth's history. Mars will have its' own human history from that point onward. The period of history in which humans permanently live on other bodies will probably acquire a new name or terminology. Trans-Terran History or whatever. Great Britain will never be considered a regional power in the way you suggest. It may, however, become a footnote in the history of humanity in 10,000 years and only known about by those who even deign to consider the history of their planet of origin and that is assuming Earth hasn't been lost or destroyed somehow and reduced to some legendary mythos.
However, if there are large numbers of British citizens emmigrating to other bodies off Earth, they may choose to emphasize the history of Great Britain as an educational requirement for their descendants. Proudly teaching the history of the time when their ancestors were a global power of the first rank. Give or take of the patriotic spin.

**Lord_of_Gauda** · April 30th, 2012, 08:12 PM

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Originally Posted by Zarin

Great Britain will always be considered a "global" power in terms of Earth's history. Because this global definition is that of the Earth's global shape. When the history of Mars (which has already begun) has started to be compiled with a human presence on a permanent basis; Great Britain will still be considered a global power on Earth and as a part of Earth's history. Mars will have its' own human history from that point onward. The period of history in which humans permanently live on other bodies will probably acquire a new name or terminology. Trans-Terran History or whatever. Great Britain will never be considered a regional power in the way you suggest. It may, however, become a footnote in the history of humanity in 10,000 years and only known about by those who even deign to consider the history of their planet of origin and that is assuming Earth hasn't been lost or destroyed somehow and reduced to some legendary mythos.
However, if there are large numbers of British citizens emmigrating to other bodies off Earth, they may choose to emphasize the history of Great Britain as an educational requirement for their descendants. Proudly teaching the history of the time when their ancestors were a global power of the first rank. Give or take of the patriotic spin.

IMO, the scenario you describe: human inter-stellar civilization/inter-planetary civilization, would see Great Britain, technically, being a 'regional power'- in this context, 'regional' doesnt mean 'region of globe', it means 'region of human span'.

Technically, the word 'region' means it is a subset of something bigger. If you are the entire set of possible data, you are not 'regional', you are <insert nomenclature for the total possible dataset, eg: global, solar, inter-stellar, inter-galactic, etc>.
Britain, by current human feasability of power projection, was a global power, not a regional power- as globe is the maximum possible sphere of human power projection and britain encompassed that.

By future definition, the word 'global' itself becomes a 'regional' definition, as it becomes a subset of a greater set of possible span (inter-planetary/inter-stellar, etc).

**Midas** · April 30th, 2012, 08:32 PM

I went with the Roman Empire. It had duration and at its peak it was far ahead of its time. No other empire has ever been so successful. The Romans had the balls, any other comparison is by comparing the "hairs".

**Midas** · April 30th, 2012, 08:35 PM

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Originally Posted by Lord_of_Gauda

It had zero influence in Scandinavia, India, China or Nigeria.

For the sake of correctness it had influence on Scandinavia. One example are the Runes...

**Zarin** · April 30th, 2012, 09:05 PM

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Originally Posted by Lord_of_Gauda

IMO, the scenario you describe: human inter-stellar civilization/inter-planetary civilization, would see Great Britain, technically, being a 'regional power'- in this context, 'regional' doesnt mean 'region of globe', it means 'region of human span'.

Technically, the word 'region' means it is a subset of something bigger. If you are the entire set of possible data, you are not 'regional', you are <insert nomenclature for the total possible dataset, eg: global, solar, inter-stellar, inter-galactic, etc>.
Britain, by current human feasability of power projection, was a global power, not a regional power- as globe is the maximum possible sphere of human power projection and britain encompassed that.

By future definition, the word 'global' itself becomes a 'regional' definition, as it becomes a subset of a greater set of possible span (inter-planetary/inter-stellar, etc).

The definition of region is (according to Merriam Webster) is: an often indefinitely defined part or area.
Regional is defined as:1.Of or relating to a geographical region. 2. Of or relating to a bodily region.
Of course Earth will have its own distinguished and separate historical record. But your are using a very strange and highly elastic definition of the word "region." One that most likely will never be apllied to Earth based history because Earth based history will always be that...Earth based. And since Great Britain was a global power on Earth, it will always be referred to as such. And a "region" of any combination of extra terrestrial bodies would be patently ludicrous and downright confusing.
However, once there is more than one occupied body in the solar system or beyond, some semanticist may refer to Great Britain as a "regional" power of the Earth/Moon system, or possibly the Terran Solar System. However such usage would be very misleading and most likely never referred to or used in this way. Moreover, this could only really be considered as a possibility if Great Britain is also an important player in the Earth/Moon or Solar System History. But Great Britain will never be referred to as a "regional" power on Earth.

heavenlykaghan · May 1st, 2012, 06:26 AM

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Please, you need to be able to talk in a more civilized way.

And this coming from a person that started saying things like "you don't understand geopolitics"?

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It is you that clearly doesn't understand the definition of great power. Rome was not a regional power because it did not have it's influenced restricted to a region. Unless you define as a region any subset of the planet surface. Well, in the distant future the whole Earth can become a region of a interestelar civilization. So the British Empire was regional.

I am applying a modern definition as the term global power or superpower are themselves modern inventions. Hence there is no need to reinterpret these definitions. For if we apply any other subjective definitions, alot of states, even tribal societies who are cut off from the rest of the world can be considered superpowers.

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First, you need to have a political system. There wasn't any political system spanning the planet earth 2,000 years ago. The Romans ruled the entire political system in which they existed which was the Mediterranean World System.

Political systems are subjective classifications, and the Romans knew about the world outside of the Mediterranean.

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If you count as a great power only those of Earth spanning influence them you are left with the Early Modern European Great Powers and the USA.

Thats precisely what the definition of global powers are.

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Only these countries could be characterized as global powers by our definition:

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Portugal
Spain
France
Netherlands
UK
Russia
Germany
USA

Only these and nothing more.

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Tiny Portugal had achieved world power projection capabilities in the early 16th century. Hence by our definition, Portugal was a global power, while the Ottoman Empire and the Qing Empires were regional powers.

Yes, that would be correct. But as I also stated, being global powers does not mean it is superior in strength to regional powers as these are nothing more than labels.

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For example, tiny Netherlands, managed to keep a colony in China and fought Qing forces in the 17th century, while the Qing never managed to project power onto Holland. So by our definition in 1650 AD, Netherlands was a greater power than Qing China.

No, that is not what I implied, please read back about my post on Germany vis a vis Britain, the former was a regional power, but challenged British power nonetheless.

heavenlykaghan · May 1st, 2012, 06:41 AM

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No, there isn't. In terms of stats according to the archaeological evidence the Roman Empire had around 90-95% of the world's output of metals, for example.

In any way you measure it, the Roman Empire had about 90% of:

1 - world's shipwrecks dated from antiquity were in Roman waters

2 - ruins dated from antiquity were inside the Roman Empire

3 - levels of metal pollution in the greeland ice caps show that with the decline and fall of the roman empire the levels of pollution in terms of lead declined by 95% and in terms of copper by 85%. This implies that Rome had around 90% of the world's output of lead and copper.

You can have the sources for this data if you want.

Anyway, the point is that before the 16-17th centuries the world was not integrated enough so that countries could project power onto every region of Earth. As result it is worthless to make statistical comparisons between powers that never met. Such as our infantile denial of Rome's power.

It is nonsense to say that Rome and Han were the two superpowers of the ancient world, for instance, because Rome and Han never were parts of the same world.

Contemporary Han China was larger and had a bigger military establishment, with more horse reserves, a larger iron industry, and a more organized government. Even the Kushan Empire had a sizable population, territory, and military force. Rome was far from the only great power on the globe.

The Romans and the Han were in the same world, just cut off politically from each other, but they knew each other's existence.

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Rome was a world empire that conquered the entire mediterranean world. Han China was a world empire that dominated the entire world of the Yangtze and Yellow river valleys. Both were world empires. It is nonsense to say that one was more or less powerful than another because they were not part of the same system of international relations.

By such logic even tribal societies in America can be considered superpowers. Yet you chose Rome and not these other powers.

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Now, if you want to classify the world's most powerful empire as the empire influence over it's political system, them we would have several empires with 100% shares of power over their respective political systems:

1 - Assyrian Empire - near eastern world system, 700 BC
2 - Mauryan Empire - indian world system, 300 BC to 180 BC
3 - Roman Empire - mediterranean world system, 150 BC to 450 AD
4 - Han China - Chinese world system, 200 BC to 180 AD
5 - Tang China - Chinese world system, 650 AD to 900 AD
6 - Northern Song China - Chinese world system

These a few that I can point out. All these Empires had total hegemony over their respective world systems.

Apparently, later on we don't have any cases of total hegemony over world systems as world systems got larger and larger and hence it became more difficult for a single power to establish domination. Ming China, for instance, was not able to rule Japan and Korea, now part of the same East Asian world system. While Europe and India remained fragmented as ever.

You are completely wrong here because you are creating imaginary world systems that doesn't have any real physical existence.

The Mauryan Empire knew about other Empires like the Seleucid, and even fought with them, so clearly, they did not have total control over everyone.

The Roman Empire never conquered the Germanic people or the Parthians.

Han China also didn't conquer many of its nomadic neighbour such as the Xianbei, Qiang, and the Xiongnu for most its history.

Tang China was even worse than Han in this respect as states like Silla and Tibet were all independent. Tibet even became a rival in later times.

As for the Northern Song, its not even the most powerful polity of East Asia, let alone the dominant one. The contemporary Liao was its political equal and the Song had to pay annual sums of cash to maintain peace.

By your logic, Japan was also not of the same world system as the Ming since the Ming were only concerned about China.

The Qing also ruled its own world system, before the British shocked them into reality of world politics.
The Incas ruled its own world system, before the Spaniards conquered them. To repeat, ignorance is not a sign of strength.