Poll: Favorite historical empire

[Danny Ocean]

interested in fighitng a colonial war, but didn't feel like dregding that whole topic up.

Fair enough. It's a common subject for flamewars I guess. You think in a few hundred years time people will look back in the British Empire with the same awe and respect with which they regard the Macedonians and Romans?

What we have now is the Commonwealth, which is not really like an Empire at all.

We are good chums though. Remind me to get the Ashes back off Aussie, he was supposed to give them back ages ago.

 

[scire]

The dutch enslaved an entire race and made decent money out of it.
Sounds like they deserve my vote.

 

[Baradiel]

Britain!

Then again, the romans were pretty advanced. They had video tapes (cookie for the reference.) However, they did the (slightly) silly thing of recruiting their defeated enemies (the ones who had had their wives and daughters raped and murdered, their towns destroyed, and friends killed and enslaved) into their army.

Also, there were a great many others. And many more onto that if you believed the total war series

 

[Liberaliterr]

The British Empire. Nothing quite like beating down on hordes of uncivilized locals using superior technology. No wonder our Empire was so large as all we did was pick on countries weaker then us.

 

[RyVal]

The British Empire. Nothing quite like beating down on hordes of uncivilized locals using superior technology. No wonder our Empire was so large as all we did was pick on countries weaker then us.

See for reference: Most empires in existence.

You don't become the dominant power by picking fights with the big boys; you gobble up all their weedy friends until you exceed even the big boys in size.

 

[paragon1]

I gotta go Roman on this one. Those guys did it all.

 

[Obrien Xp]

My top 4 are (no order):
british
roman
german
danish

 

[Indecizion]

BRITISH! and not only because im a citizen

 

[littlerob]

Well, the Mongolian 'Empire' was the largest one ever that wasn't split by oceans and whatnot, and they did it with cavalry and looting rather than machine guns and cannons, so they win the Best Empire award.

The Roman Empire gets the Classiest Empire award. Plus, they laid the groundwork for a hell of a lot of infrastructure.

The British Empire grabs the award for the Most Dapper Empire, no questions asked. Also for best facial hair.

 

[zehydra]

Where's the American empire?

 

[El Poncho]

British for me, it has influenced the world a lot and I can't believe an Island so small ruled more than 1/4 of the Earths landmass

Rule Britannia

 

[blindthrall]

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?


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.

Lord Balfour was the one who promised Israel to, I believe, David Ben-Gurion as a way to prevent another Holocaust, completely ignoring the people who already lived there. They arbitrarily drew up the borders between Iraq and Iran, leaving the Kurds without a homeland. They didn't screw up Iraq horribly, in fact they picked the perfect time to get out. But they deposed a moderate nationalist with the help of the CIA in Iran, and their puppet the Shah was hated by the people, and his overthrow led to the current reign of the Ayatollahs.

While Karl Marx was German, his writing partner, Engels, was British. And he wrote Das Capital in the London Library. He thought the British lower class would be where the revolution would start, due to their appalling conditions and familiarity with democracy.

I'm not impressed by an empire just going down without a whimper, it should be a huge, battle of Berlin-style assault. It means they were soft all along, and everyone was just scared of them. And the Mongols lack of technology impresses me more than technological superiority. They didn't know how to construct siege engines until they captured Arab engineers. And I didn't say anything about kill-count, although the British were no slouch. They killed lots of people in India and Africa, and more depending on where you draw the line with native americans and the colonies.

The British do impress with political influence, though. And with how long it's been since they've been invaded, although mainland Japan may have them beat.

 

[blindthrall]

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.

You're no fun.

 

[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.

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?

The question never was for a continous empire. It could be argued however that even if China was often divided and torn by civil war, it always retained its' status as a major player in Asia. Not to mention that much of the culture was retained through one dynasty to the next. Not even the mongols or manchurians managed to change that.

 

[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?

The question never was for a continous empire. It could be argued however that even if China was often divided and torn by civil war, it always retained its' status as a major player in Asia. Not to mention that much of the culture was retained through one dynasty to the next. Not even the mongols or manchurians managed to change that.

An empire has to be continuous for it to be a - y'know - empire.

If it's just a series of different countries who occupy the same geographical space and power base, then it isn't an empire.

 

[Jark212]

All Glory to the Roman empire...

Where's the American empire?

Contrary to popular trolling, America was never a Imperialist Empire...

 

[ICantBelieveItGoesBoom]

Portuguese, because it doesn't get the love! Also they had Magellan who died an incredibly badass death.

 

[RanD00M]

They got Liam Neeson to play Zeus. He's already like a god, but now, he's the god of gods!

So he's going to be a God that is a God of the God's.

The new Clash of the Titans will be awesome.No exception's,for it has Liam Neeson in it.

 

[Gethsemani_v1legacy]

If it's just a series of different countries who occupy the same geographical space and power base, then it isn't an empire.

The diffrence between diffrent countries and China would be that they all saw themselves as "China", the legitimate heir to the previous empire. Not to mention the fact that most of the significant dynasties survived for at least a full century (most of them extending beyond 200 years) which puts them ahead of such fragile empires as the "mongol" empire that existed for about a decade. If you want to be really picky about it, I could say Ming Dynasty China but the truth is that the Ming Dynasty only percieved themselves as re-establishing the old empire after mongol occupation.

Besides, civil war is not a disqualifing factor for what constitutes an empire.

 

[RyVal]

If it's just a series of different countries who occupy the same geographical space and power base, then it isn't an empire.

The diffrence between diffrent countries and China would be that they all saw themselves as "China", the legitimate heir to the previous empire.

The Republic of China and the People's Republic of China both claim to be the legitimate heirs to the Qing Dynasty, yet they are radically different and you certainly wouldn't call them the same country.

Not to mention the fact that most of the significant dynasties survived for at least a full century (most of them extending beyond 200 years) which puts them ahead of such fragile empires as the "mongol" empire that existed for about a decade.

Still certainly puts them under the Western and Eastern Roman Empires, the British Empire, the Portuguese Empire, the Spanish Empire, the Ottoman Empire, the Persian Empires...

If you want to be really picky about it, I could say Ming Dynasty China but the truth is that the Ming Dynasty only percieved themselves as re-establishing the old empire after mongol occupation.

Why the Ming dynasty? They were actually one of the shorter ones.

Besides, civil war is not a disqualifing factor for what constitutes an empire.

It is when the resulting nation is radically different.