If America remains British, can Britain rule the world?

While it's true that empires do reach some limits of control/management, that limit has expanded with technology and flexible management schemes. For instance, the ancient empires were quite small, Rome (with good roads and semi-distributed leadership) was able to manage bigger, England (with fast shipping) was able to manage a widely dispersed one, and then the US / USSR (with radio, aircraft, telephone, internet, etc) were able to manage even large ones.

Oh sure, it'd be big; just not world-conqueringly big.
 
What do you mean by "rule the world"? If you mean "physically conquer most of the world," then lol. France and Germany would balance against it, and deny Britain land control of Continental Europe, the most economically important part of the world until the late 20th century.

Re empire building, the problem with drawing wanked maps of British colonialism everywhere is that, as noted by others, it wasn't terribly useful. If you believe the excellent but problematic Pseudoerasmus, Britain didn't care much about African colonies (link), and readily compromised with other European colonial powers about divvying up Africa, provided its interests in India were not challenged. The biggest pressure for settlement expansion did not come from the center, just as the westward expansion of English settlement in the US came from the American colonists, especially the backcountry ones, and not from Britain. Cecil Rhodes defined himself in opposition to centralized rule from London, and championed white settlers in Africa against the metropole, which he viewed as meddlesome. Few to no extra settlers would be available for such expansion in the ATL, which means there's no reason to expect deeper white settlement in Africa than in OTL, and hence no reason to expect drastically more UK colonialism there.

One thing that would change from OTL is that the transition from British to American political dominance would be smooth, and under the aegis of a single state. In OTL, this transition involved two world wars and an interregnum without a dominant world power from 1914 to 1945. Of course, the US had a much larger economy than Britain even in 1913, by a factor of more than 2, but it had very low military spending, so it wasn't as globally powerful as Britain was. In the ATL, Germany would never challenge the UK on its own, but instead gradually form something like a Britain-less EU to balance against it.
 
France and Germany would balance against it

Because France and Germany have always allied with each other, compromising on Alsace-Lorraine and the Rhineland.

Continental Europe, the most economically important part of the world

Continental Europe was outclassed industrially and agriculturally by Britain, New England, and the Great Lakes States, as well as the Chernozem-rich region of Russia. Germany only surpassed Britain in industrial output at the very end of the 19th century and never surpassed the US or Russia in agricultural output.
 
If so, at some point Britain is split into about ten states (Ireland, Scotland, Wales, and the heptarchy), the capital moves from London to Chicago, and "America" rules the world...

Best,

I've always thought a British Empire that retains/expands to cover North America, and in turn becomes increasingly centered on it, would make an interesting timeline.

In my idle musings, I thought an appropriate end point would be when some kind of calamity makes London unusable as a capital, leading to it being moved to North America. (New York?)
 

TFSmith121

Banned
I've always thought a British Empire that retains/expands to cover North America, and in turn becomes increasingly centered on it, would make an interesting timeline.

In my idle musings, I thought an appropriate end point would be when some kind of calamity makes London unusable as a capital, leading to it being moved to North America. (New York?)

See, it could be interesting, but realities being what they are, the "British" would balk at it. Ocean-spanning super states just can't address the realities that all politics are local. It's not the best example, but East and West Pakistan certainly demonstrate some of the problems, and at least they were on the same subcontinent.

Best,
 
See, it could be interesting, but realities being what they are, the "British" would balk at it. Ocean-spanning super states just can't address the realities that all politics are local. It's not the best example, but East and West Pakistan certainly demonstrate some of the problems, and at least they were on the same subcontinent.

Best,
But Bangladesh and Pakistan speak different languages and have different cultures.
 

TFSmith121

Banned
And the US and UK do not?

Distance is really an obstacle to nation state creation; the fact that Pakistan and the UAR in the Egypt and Syria incarnation are about the only ones that even come close to what is suggested here is pretty telling, I think...

Best,
 
And the US and UK do not?
Not in 1776, not really. Same language, and an array of similar, politically allied religions. The cultural difference between England and the 13 colonies was less than the difference between northern England and southern England, or western England and eastern England.

Distance is really an obstacle to nation state creation; the fact that Pakistan and the UAR in the Egypt and Syria incarnation are about the only ones that even come close to what is suggested here is pretty telling, I think...
Egypt and Syria haven't had the same cultures for 500-1400 years. Pakistan and Bangladesh haven't had the same cultures for about 2000 years. Distance wasn't really a major factor in their dissolution.

That's not to say distance isn't an obstacle to nation state creation... but it isn't really an obstacle to nation state maintenance, not in a <200 year timeline. Otherwise far east Siberia would have broken off of Russia by now.

If the economics are sound, the empire is sound.
 

TFSmith121

Banned
Not in 1776, not really. Same language, and an array of similar, politically allied religions. The cultural difference between England and the 13 colonies was less than the difference between northern England and southern England, or western England and eastern England.

Egypt and Syria haven't had the same cultures for 500-1400 years. Pakistan and Bangladesh haven't had the same cultures for about 2000 years. Distance wasn't really a major factor in their dissolution.

That's not to say distance isn't an obstacle to nation state creation... but it isn't really an obstacle to nation state maintenance, not in a <200 year timeline. Otherwise far east Siberia would have broken off of Russia by now.

If the economics are sound, the empire is sound.

And Ireland and Britain are separated by the Irish Sea; how'd that work out?

Best,
 
And Ireland and Britain are separated by the Irish Sea; how'd that work out?

Best,
Ireland predominantly spoke Gaelic and was Catholic. Only after the Potato Famine did it predominantly speak English, and that same, partially engineered famine ruined relations between Great Britain and Ireland for decades.

Scotland was quite different from England (and equally distant from London as Ireland is), yet mysteriously has remained in the UK.
 
At some point, the political and economic center is going to move to North America, even if the capital of the empire remains at London. This means that British North America will dictate a lot of foreign policy, or else British North America will see no point in being in the empire sooner later. This goes the other way too--once that happens, what is the advantage that Britain gets from being in the empire? It could end up with Britain having to have to secede from its own empire because interests are so focused on the New World.

But there are a lot of diverse interest groups in North America too, so much I wonder if there might end up being dominions there and no one can unite the whole of British territory there under one dominion. Federation in Australia took a long while to put in place, and North America would be even more diverse.

This is an interesting point. Would this hypothetical BNA still attract the same levels of immigration? Europe will still need a valve for surplus population, and after all, Canada, NZ, and Australia still receive plenty of immigrants despite being British Dominions.

Probably. Germans and Russian Jews moved in large numbers to the United Kingdom itself in the 19th century, so I can't see why they wouldn't go to North America just because North America isn't technically independent.
 

RousseauX

Donor
And the US and UK do not?

Distance is really an obstacle to nation state creation; the fact that Pakistan and the UAR in the Egypt and Syria incarnation are about the only ones that even come close to what is suggested here is pretty telling, I think...

Best,
OTOH you can see examples where temporary political division created permanent national/cultural divisions and national identities, North/South Korea, China/taiwan/hong kong, and the Arab world as a whole are good examples
 

RousseauX

Donor
While it's true that empires do reach some limits of control/management, that limit has expanded with technology and flexible management schemes. For instance, the ancient empires were quite small, Rome (with good roads and semi-distributed leadership) was able to manage bigger, England (with fast shipping) was able to manage a widely dispersed one, and then the US / USSR (with radio, aircraft, telephone, internet, etc) were able to manage even large ones.
The thing is though Rome was extremely decentralized to the point where it's questionably to what extent it represented a state: and at the same time it was frequently wrecked by civil wars and political instability. And you aren't at the point of the late 19th-early 20th century when railroads and telegraphs removed most of the traditional barriers to large land empires (only for new ones like nationalism to pop up)
 
Why is every assuming America would be a single Dominion?
Westminster would want to maintain its dominance as much as possible so I can see them wanting to separate out the British provinces and colonies in North America as much as they can.
Otherwise a LTTWesque scenario might be the best option.
 
Why is every assuming America would be a single Dominion?
Westminster would want to maintain its dominance as much as possible so I can see them wanting to separate out the British provinces and colonies in North America as much as they can.
Otherwise a LTTWesque scenario might be the best option.

Yeah, the best solution is maybe a southern dominion (East of the Appalachians from Mayland to Florida) and a western dominion (would start with everything west of the Appalachians including Ontario or at least a good deal of it, but the borders might need to change later as those regions evolve). I'm not sure how I'd divide up the rest. A New England+Maritimes dominion, maybe? And then a Mid-Atlantic division? Or combine the two? Quebec is another odd one, I'm not sure where it would get placed.
 

TFSmith121

Banned
Ireland predominantly spoke Gaelic and was Catholic. Only after the Potato Famine did it predominantly speak English, and that same, partially engineered famine ruined relations between Great Britain and Ireland for decades. Scotland was quite different from England (and equally distant from London as Ireland is), yet mysteriously has remained in the UK.

Because the Scots run the UK.
 
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