vodkazvictim
Why save the world, when you can rule it?
I had been under the impression that in the old days it was easier to keep an empire together due to less sophistication, less communication and limited travel speed keeping threats at a relative distance.
I had assumed that as humanity progressed, distance got smaller and commiunications increased in speed and range that this effectively shrunk the time of empires
I looked up some stats to check it out and for the major empires I saw the following:
Chinese empire - 2133 years. (From BC 221)
Roman empire - 1961 years (from BC 509)
Ottoman Empire - 623 years (from 1299)
British empire - 396 years. (From 1603)
Soviet empire - 69 Years (From 1922)
american empire - 95 years (from 1945 to 2040 - projected)
So what time do we project for the rise of the new chinese empire? How long do we predict the Indian empire that will rise to counter it will last?
Can we predict empires will be shorter in the future? Since it's traditionally the poorest countries that rise to become empires (they can industrialise a lot cheaper and people are more motivated and less dissilusioned) will the last continent to give rise to empires be Africa? does that mean that the Africans, the traditional underdogs of the world, will get the last laugh by having the last empire?
Will more empires arise after the collapse of the African empire?
Will the worlds human population survive long enough to end the cycle of empires?
What do you think? Have I just cherry picked my figures to fit in with my theory? Why?
Figures source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_empires
I've used only a few empires from the list, being as they're the ones I believe most people would think of as "the big ones" if you want to include an empire, just say so.
I'm gonna go out on a limb here and say that Trident1 will want to include this one: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serbian_Empire .
I had assumed that as humanity progressed, distance got smaller and commiunications increased in speed and range that this effectively shrunk the time of empires
I looked up some stats to check it out and for the major empires I saw the following:
Chinese empire - 2133 years. (From BC 221)
Roman empire - 1961 years (from BC 509)
Ottoman Empire - 623 years (from 1299)
British empire - 396 years. (From 1603)
Soviet empire - 69 Years (From 1922)
american empire - 95 years (from 1945 to 2040 - projected)
So what time do we project for the rise of the new chinese empire? How long do we predict the Indian empire that will rise to counter it will last?
Can we predict empires will be shorter in the future? Since it's traditionally the poorest countries that rise to become empires (they can industrialise a lot cheaper and people are more motivated and less dissilusioned) will the last continent to give rise to empires be Africa? does that mean that the Africans, the traditional underdogs of the world, will get the last laugh by having the last empire?
Will more empires arise after the collapse of the African empire?
Will the worlds human population survive long enough to end the cycle of empires?
What do you think? Have I just cherry picked my figures to fit in with my theory? Why?
Figures source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_empires
I've used only a few empires from the list, being as they're the ones I believe most people would think of as "the big ones" if you want to include an empire, just say so.
I'm gonna go out on a limb here and say that Trident1 will want to include this one: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serbian_Empire .
