Mini State Big State

ingemann

Banned
Denmark was brought together by Gorm the Old, who seems to have originated in either a petty kingdom around the island of Zealand or the town of Jelling on Jutland.

Seeing as several king is mentioned as king of Denmark in up to 4 centuries before Gorm the Old Gorm and one (Godfred) defeated Charles the Great several times before he was murdered, I think we can safely say that Gorm the Old and his son Harald Bluetooth only reunited Denmark.
 
For Ethiopia, we could look back to Aksum, which probably existed as a city-state before expanding to become the powerful Aksumite kingdom that was contemporary with Rome. We could also look at D'mt, the first polity known to have emerged as a power around Ethiopia and Eritrea. D'mt collapsed and fell into obscurity, but may have continued to existed as a small remnant state centered around its capital of Yeha until the formation of the Aksumite empire.

Thailand can be traced back to either Sukhothai or Lavo.

I don't think D'mt would count, but that's just me.
 
Seeing as several king is mentioned as king of Denmark in up to 4 centuries before Gorm the Old Gorm and one (Godfred) defeated Charles the Great several times before he was murdered, I think we can safely say that Gorm the Old and his son Harald Bluetooth only reunited Denmark.
yeah i thought it it was disputed and no one really knows who united Danemark.
 
I think every state that currently exists can be put into one of these categories:
1) Small state / entity conquers its neighbours and grows into its current state. Sometimes this happened so far back, that it's not much in the cultural consciousness of the people (e.g. Denmark, Sweden, England re Wessex), sometimes it's not so long ago and there are regions that till harken back to their old independence (the U.K. based on England, with Scotland, Ireland and Wales still feeling -ahem- "differently" about the Union; Russia & Muscovy; Modern Germany and Prussia; Italy and Sardinia-Piedmont; Spain & Castilia).
2) Part of a pre-existing state gains independence; this part may have been a sovereign state before (e.g. the Baltic Republics) or simply have gained a separate identity over time (e.g. Belarus) or they may be administrative constructs of the former imperial power (e.g. most African countries). Such countries often define themselves in relation to the country to which they belonged before, especially if the struggle for independence was long and bloody and happened relatively recently.

France is a case of 2) - like the HRE, it's a successor state to the Kingdom of the Franks (and BTW, the French start counting their kings from Clovis, and count Charlemagne as one of the French kings - they see themselves as the successor of the Frankish kingdom); in the early Middle Ages, there was a period when the power of the French kings didn't reach far beyond Paris, and later they consolidated their kingdom from that point - which is similar to the way the Svear united Sweden or the Piasts united Poland, only the areas united already owed allegiance to the king of France before they were united politically.

What's the third type?
 
For Ethiopia, we could look back to Aksum, which probably existed as a city-state before expanding to become the powerful Aksumite kingdom that was contemporary with Rome. We could also look at D'mt, the first polity known to have emerged as a power around Ethiopia and Eritrea. D'mt collapsed and fell into obscurity, but may have continued to existed as a small remnant state centered around its capital of Yeha until the formation of the Aksumite empire.

Thailand can be traced back to either Sukhothai or Lavo.

D'mt might play that role for Aksum, but Aksum certainly doesn't play that role for Ethiopia. Aksum would be more like the Roman Empire to today's Italy: a small state that developed into a powerful empire which left a lasting effect on the language, culture, and religion of the general region (Ge'ez, the language of Aksum, is the ancestor of several languages spoken in Ethiopia today, including its official language of Amharic, and is still used in the liturgy of the Ethiopian Church). You also have to deal with the fact that much of the land controlled by Aksum is now in Sudan, Eritrea and Djibouti, while Ethiopia's territory stretched much further south after the expansion into Oromo and Somali territories by Menelik II in the late 1800's. A better analogue might be Shewa, as it was the "kingdom" which was ruled by Menelik II before he became emperor, but this is only a limited analogy as Shewa was always a vassal of the Emperor and was actually directly incorporated into Ethiopia by Menelik's predecessor Tewodros II. However, the current capital is located there, and it has had much more influence on Ethiopian culture in the last 2 centuries, so Shewa is probably your best bet.
 
D'mt might play that role for Aksum, but Aksum certainly doesn't play that role for Ethiopia. Aksum would be more like the Roman Empire to today's Italy: a small state that developed into a powerful empire which left a lasting effect on the language, culture, and religion of the general region (Ge'ez, the language of Aksum, is the ancestor of several languages spoken in Ethiopia today, including its official language of Amharic, and is still used in the liturgy of the Ethiopian Church). You also have to deal with the fact that much of the land controlled by Aksum is now in Sudan, Eritrea and Djibouti, while Ethiopia's territory stretched much further south after the expansion into Oromo and Somali territories by Menelik II in the late 1800's. A better analogue might be Shewa, as it was the "kingdom" which was ruled by Menelik II before he became emperor, but this is only a limited analogy as Shewa was always a vassal of the Emperor and was actually directly incorporated into Ethiopia by Menelik's predecessor Tewodros II. However, the current capital is located there, and it has had much more influence on Ethiopian culture in the last 2 centuries, so Shewa is probably your best bet.

The territorial factor is a non-issue here - Prussia, the predecessor of modern Germany, contained a vast domain that is now part of Poland, Lithuania, and Russia rather than Germany itself. Aksum contained large portions of countries that now border modern Ethiopia, but its base was always northern Ethiopia. Let's also remember that while Rome isn't a predecessor of Italy, it was a predecessor of the Byzantine Empire, which did not even control the city that started it all.

As for the regime changes, the switch from the Aksumite kings to the Zagwe dynasty and then the Solomonic dynasty isn't all that much different from the transitions between the Solomonic dynasty to the Derg to the communists and finally the modern republic. One could compare it to the many dynasties and regime changes of France or China. Unlike the relationship between Rome and modern Italy, there's some sense of continuity.
 
To me I would think something like the Byzantine Empire from the Roman Empire is the opposite of a unifying state. Kind of like the Gallic or Palmyrene Empires of the Third Century being the devolution of the Roman Empire, though the East West split was more logical and efficient.
 
The territorial factor is a non-issue here - Prussia, the predecessor of modern Germany, contained a vast domain that is now part of Poland, Lithuania, and Russia rather than Germany itself.
Unless you mean after the third partition of Poland, then maybe, but at no point in time would I ever consider Prussia's domains to be vast (at least not by Roman, Russian, Aksumite, or British Imperial standards). I would consider territory an issue because the OP seems to imply that the predecessor state has to expand into territory that eventually becomes integral to the successor state, as England did with Wales and Scotland to become GB, Castile did with Aragon to become Spain, and Prussia did with the German states after Vienna (which, as far as I can tell, is when their nationalist ambitions began). Aksum decidedly did not do this.

Aksum contained large portions of countries that now border modern Ethiopia, but its base was always northern Ethiopia. Let's also remember that while Rome isn't a predecessor of Italy, it was a predecessor of the Byzantine Empire, which did not even control the city that started it all.
Yes but KoR has already established that the Byzantines are not what he's looking for, and as far as power bases go there have been many states with power bases in the same places as other ones without actually being a successor. I'm not sure either of the points you're using would help to establish your argument.

As for the regime changes, the switch from the Aksumite kings to the Zagwe dynasty and then the Solomonic dynasty isn't all that much different from the transitions between the Solomonic dynasty to the Derg to the communists and finally the modern republic. One could compare it to the many dynasties and regime changes of France or China. Unlike the relationship between Rome and modern Italy, there's some sense of continuity.
There is in the case of the Zagwe to the Solominic dynasties, but there was a long, LONG dark ages between Aksum and the Zagwe. I think it would be more reasonable to say that Aksum created the idea of a necessary Aksumitas, or a yeAksum Mengist, and credit Shewa with the rise of modern Ethiopia, since Ethiopia was about as united as the HRE before Tewodros and didn't cover most of its current territory until Menelik.
 
I just got called KoR. I feel awesome.

Just to clarify Big Empire does not equal what I am talking about here, just in case someone no understand.
 
Unless you mean after the third partition of Poland, then maybe, but at no point in time would I ever consider Prussia's domains to be vast (at least not by Roman, Russian, Aksumite, or British Imperial standards).

By "vast," I mean, of course, that a good chunk of Prussia's territory is not located within modern Germany. Let's not bring semantics into this, though - That only gets us further away from the main point.

I would consider territory an issue because the OP seems to imply that the predecessor state has to expand into territory that eventually becomes integral to the successor state, as England did with Wales and Scotland to become GB, Castile did with Aragon to become Spain, and Prussia did with the German states after Vienna (which, as far as I can tell, is when their nationalist ambitions began). Aksum decidedly did not do this.

As I said before, however, I see Aksum, the Zagwe dynasty, and the Solomonic dynasty as three continuations of the same state. Aksum did expand into territory that became integral to the sucessor state - All of its territory did become part of the Ethiopian Empire.

That Aksum had territory in modern Eritrea is irrelevant - Solomonic Ethiopia did, too, just as Prussia and the German Empire had territory in modern Poland.

Yes but KoR has already established that the Byzantines are not what he's looking for, and as far as power bases go there have been many states with power bases in the same places as other ones without actually being a successor. I'm not sure either of the points you're using would help to establish your argument.

There is in the case of the Zagwe to the Solominic dynasties, but there was a long, LONG dark ages between Aksum and the Zagwe. I think it would be more reasonable to say that Aksum created the idea of a necessary Aksumitas, or a yeAksum Mengist, and credit Shewa with the rise of modern Ethiopia, since Ethiopia was about as united as the HRE before Tewodros and didn't cover most of its current territory until Menelik.
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When the Zagwe dynasty emerged, there was still a remnant of Aksum in the region. It had largely been reduced in territory, but there was still a polity in existence and the sovereignty of this polity was transferred to the Zagwe dynasty without interruption. It is this polity that I argue is the predecessor to Ethiopia. This is different from the comparison of two states that existed in the same territory without any continuity between them, like Rome and Italy, the Incas and Peru, or Monomotapa and modern Zimbabwe.

The idea of a polity growing and then shrinking again before it reaches its modern manifestation is also part of Germany's history - In between modern Germany and earlier Reichs, there is the "remnant" of West Germany that filled in the gap for some time.

I will concede, however, that maybe my view of things is looking at a bigger, broader picture than the OP is specifying - Where the OP separates Wessex as the unifier of England and then England as the unifier of the United Kingdom, I see a straight line from Wessex to England to Great Britain to the United Kingdom. That's also where I get the idea of the ancient city-kingdom of Rome as the ultimate predecessor of the Byzantines from.
 
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