Poll: Favorite historical empire

[Teddy Roosevelt]

The Byzantines are my favorite, but technically Rome was the most powerful in the history of the world, relative to other empires of its time.

 

[rokkolpo]

awesome you let Dutch in the poll.

how i am very proud of it, it has never been seen as an empire before.
more like the ocean/sea/water police.(or something like that)

 

[mayney93]

Mongolian, you not seen night of de museum Genghis had problems that was all

 

[Shurikens and Lightning]

Roman, but then again im Italian so skewed opinion.

 

[Zero-Vash]

I personally find the Chinese empires (or dynasties) more interesting. Though many weren't "imperialistic" by the standards of the others, I find the history of the Chinese to have a better "story" if you will.

 

[Cosplay Horatio]

Even though I voted for the Roman Empire I know that the British Empire to this day is still great because it's still alive since it's beginning.

 

[Danny Ocean]

They carved up the Middle East into an ethnic clusterfuck that is still trying to untangle itself. And Marx, who lived in England, thought up communism mostly because of how shitty the British treated their lower class. But jolly good show going toe-to-toe with Hitler for the entire war.

I thought the problems with the Middle East were mainly caused by the creation of Israel by the League of Nations, American and Russian intervention in the cold war, and American influence since? Please educate me if I'm wrong.

Didn't Karl Marx also live in Prussia, Germany, and France? Didn't he also gain a lot of his influence from education there? And the teachings of various Philosophers, especially Rossoeu?

Oh come now, there's really no contest.

It looks impressive until you think about how many years it took to amass, and consider they never held all of that territory at one time. And much of that territory was taken without a fight, or with such a technological superiority there may as well have not been a fight. Colonial powers were simply bullies.

Well, I think it's impressive how it dissolved without much of a fight. I also think it's impressive that at some point it was the largest Empire on Earth, even though it wasn't holding all that land at the same time. I think it's impressive that they managed to gain such an immense technical advantage, and so take many places without a fight. But then I guess I have different criteria for judging Empires. I'm more about technology, sheer size, and political weight rather than raw kill-counts.

Although those are fun to compare.

 

[johnman]

The only thing to ever stop it was the Americans with the aid of the french

What? The British Empire reached its peak in the 1800's, way after America had declared its independance.

And Marx, who lived in England, thought up communism mostly because of how shitty the British treated their lower class.

Marx had a massive array of influences, its unfair to put Communism down to the Brits. Revolutionary France was probably the biggest influence, as it made him remove the Bourgoise from his writting as a friend of the prolietariat.

 

[Luca-Pellegrinelli]

I like the Roman empire, but I do find myself wondering what they've done for us lately?

 

[Danny Ocean]

The only thing to ever stop it was the Americans with the aid of the french

What? The British Empire reached its peak in the 1800's, way after America had declared its independance.

Don't forget the Spanish and the Netherlands. Two other world superpowers of the time.

The only thing that really stopped it was WWII. We only finished paying off the debts in 2006, that's how bankrupt it made us.

Although technically we do still have overseas colonies. Does that mean that technically the Empire still exists?

EDIT: Also; Yay, Johnman! Stick up for the Empire!

 

[Kirky]

I went for the British Empire.

It's nice to think that this shitty little country once managed to build itself an Empire that covered slightly more than 1/4 of the Earth's total landmass. We are history's ultimate badass.


And, just for tradition: F**K YOU HITLER!

 

[Lonan]

Mongolian. It was the largest contiguous empire in human history. The British Empire was spread out too much, and that's how it fell. (my understanding is people just thought it was too expensive and said fuck it) The Mongolian Empire was 90% the size of the British Empire, but it was all together, from China too eastern Europe. It fell when the Khan of the time decided to invade Nimpo (Japan) and was kept from making a landing by the Samurai, and then a massive Typhoon struck that night. Hundreds of thousands were killed, and the Mongolian Empire simply disappeared. The real issue with the Mongolian Empire is that it didn't invade western Europe, which it could have easily taken. Because of geographical realities it wanted to invade Nimpo.

If we were to call Russia an empire though, I would call it my favourite. It has managed to be half the size of the British Empire for thousands of years and while a few people tried to change that, they all failed. I mean, it's a country the size of a massive empire, you have to admire that.

My absolute favourite empire though is the lead by the Emperor of Man on the Golden Throne.

FOR THE EMPEROR!

 

[Gethsemani_v1legacy]

China springs to mind. A country that size that has existed as an idea for almost 3000 years and as an actual (if often divided) empire for 2000 years? Yeah, those guys know what they are doing. They are also one of the few empires that has consistently managed to assimilate their would-be conquerers into their own culture to such a degree that the conquerers eventually called themselves Chinese.

 

[RyVal]

I'm going to go with the "Most of them were equally despotic, warlike and egocentric entities living to serve only their ruling elite and we should not nostalgically masturbate over long-dead entities from a by-gone era" option.

 

[RyVal]

China springs to mind. A country that size that has existed as an idea for almost 3000 years and as an actual (if often divided) empire for 2000 years? Yeah, those guys know what they are doing. They are also one of the few empires that has consistently managed to assimilate their would-be conquerers into their own culture to such a degree that the conquerers eventually called themselves Chinese.

China is hardly a continuous empire.

It was divided and broken up so often that even the Holy Roman Empire qualifies more. If a nation is constantly erupting into civil war and radically changing, while simply retaining its previous name, how is this still the same nation?

 

[Soxafloppin]

The Greeks were pretty badd ass.

 

[Spitfire]

Persian/Ottoman

Since when are these two even remotely connected?

 

[johnman]

The only thing to ever stop it was the Americans with the aid of the french

What? The British Empire reached its peak in the 1800's, way after America had declared its independance.

Don't forget the Spanish and the Netherlands. Two other world superpowers of the time.

The only thing that really stopped it was WWII. We only finished paying off the debts in 2006, that's how bankrupt it made us.

Although technically we do still have overseas colonies. Does that mean that technically the Empire still exists?

EDIT: Also; Yay, Johnman! Stick up for the Empire!

Woooo!
I hadn't forgotten the Dutch or Spanish, or the fact that the British were'nt really interested in fighitng a colonial war, but didn't feel like dregding that whole topic up.
What we have now is the Commonwealth, which is not really like an Empire at all.

 

[brtshstel]

The sun never sets on the British Empire.

In 1900, they were the largest nation with the most powerful military, most advanced in education, science, industrial technology, medicine, arts and literature.

The reason the United States, Canada, India, and Australia exist they way they do today because they were all British colonies. It was the British Empire that developed those areas of tribes and nomadic sects into the industrialized, digitized, and mechanized nations they are today. They are also the ones who spread the Industrial Revolution to other parts of the world. The only drawback is that they had no sense of human rights for those who weren't British nobility, and anyone who wasn't an aristocrat was either treat poorly or suffered outright genocide.

The reason why English is such a common language and why most of the world is capitalist in one way or another is because of the British Empire. Yes, Egypt, Byzantine, Rome, and Greece were huge and advanced for their time, but Her Majesty's empire has more influence on the western world today than any of them ever did.

 

[Alpha Centauri]

The mofoing Aztecs!