alternatehistory.com

I don't have many scenarios prepared, I'm just looking for the collective wisdom of AH.com on this.

China could be said to be a 'hydraulic empire', but this state is highly specific to geography.

South-East Asia's 'mandala' system, power defined by it's center rather than it's borders, and with non-exclusive tribute/allegiance dominating over exclusive control, particularly at the frontiers.

We could do a whole thread (or forum) on how the British Raj was organised, but it certainly wasn't, and still isn't in the form of India, a typical nation-state.

Could Europe have developed differently out of Feudalism, or was nationalism always seething under the surface? Might this have failed to be exported to America, and further afield?

Mainly inspired by this fortnights map challenge, the Gun is our Government. I was going to do a map showing a historian's vision of what an 'anarchic' region was like before it came under central control. The organisation of this apparent anarchy was going to be something like the Mandala system, one that would seem totally disorganised to a European eye, but make sense to locals. But I hit the wall when I tried to put it into map form.

So?
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