Greatest 'could-have-been' Empires
- Thread starter paskapytty
- Start date
Again, the Cholas would like to speak with you in private...
Please, go on and tell me where and how exactly they had a seafaring empire.
Surviving Khazar state, battling it out for the steppe with Russia in the 18th century would be sweet.
MarshalBraginsky
Banned
How about Brunei as the dominant force in SE Asia that acts as the "Prussia" of the Indonesian Archipelago, unifying the other Malay kingdoms into a unified Mahamalay entity?
Cuāuhtemōc
Banned
The Germiyanids had the most potential to become a Turkic power and prior to the Ottomans becoming so prominent, it was them and the Karamanids who were the rising powers amongst the Anatolian beyliks. Most of the southern beyliks were tributaries to Germiyan and would had likely been consolidated into a single centralized polity.
Some really intresting ones come from South America in the form of Peru-Bolivia, Gran Columbia, and La Plata.
Also for Mexico to be a kick ass empire they don't even necessarily need a weaker America, but a better exit from the Spanish empire. Even with the loses of Central America and the American west they could do kick ass.
Another idea is a Portuguese empire that remains in a union with Brazil, or a Spanish empire that keeps it's American colonies
Also for Mexico to be a kick ass empire they don't even necessarily need a weaker America, but a better exit from the Spanish empire. Even with the loses of Central America and the American west they could do kick ass.
Another idea is a Portuguese empire that remains in a union with Brazil, or a Spanish empire that keeps it's American colonies
I'm detecting some semantic nuance in your interpretation of "Seafaring Empires". Was the medieval Chola empire a classic thalassocracy? Strictly speaking, no, because it had considerable inland holdings and interests. Did the Cholas of the 11th-12th C. the most formidable navy of the Indian Ocean of its time? Absolutely, and the navy had a considerable socio-political power in the empire of that time. Furthermore, as a major commercial powerhouse of the region, it required a navy to protect its wide ranging trading fleet (throughout the Indian Ocean and especially SE Asia, as well as trade with Sung China).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chola_Navy for an intro.
A map of Chola holdings (dk. gray) and areas of influence.
Flocculencio
Donor
If you're going to use the European definition of Empire, no Indian polity really qualifies because Indian political theory was about vassalage and hegemony, not direct rule. If you mean a dominant maritime power with a network of vassal states across SE Asia then the Chola definitely qualify.
Indeed, we seem to be on semantic territory here: If one takes vassalage and indirect control into account, then the Chola certainly qualify as an empire, yes; I have to admit that I was rather thinking about entities which exert their control and influence in a more direct manner, through hierarchic colonial administration, inevitably coupled with a sustained military presence in the controlled oversea holdings.
Majapahit could've endured much longer, even perhaps essentially up to this day. The civil war could've happened the different way that it will centralize the state, rather then permanently shatter its structure. From there, it can present a regional power that can at least act similarly to Latin American countries in its relation with Europe during the height of colonialism, if not simply uniting Indonesian archipelago much earlier.
Flocculencio
Donor
That's a very European style of administration- even the Mughals or Vijayanagar don't count as empires under that definition since they too relied mainly on local autonomous kings acting as vassals of the Emperors.
Flocculencio
Donor
Colonization doesn't just happen- there has to be a reason and the Indonesian empires didn't really work that way. They were about trade networks not settlement.