No Colonization, No Empires

Assuming it happened, biodiversity and cultural isolation and divergence would develop greatly. Trade, communication, travel and war over ideals would be the two biggest influences.
 
What? Welcome to the forum, but we generally deal in the nitty-gritty of history. Broad trends are okay, but are often demonstrably false in some way or another.

Could you extrapolate on what exactly it is that you mean?
 

DISSIDENT

Banned
Population movement is pretty much impossible to stop in general. Politically organized colonization by European powers is not impossible to prevent and I assume that's what he means.

Most of the places Europe colonized were doing better than Europe beforehand. So its basically a matter of keeping Europe (Britain, France, etc.) down so everyone else stays on top in their own regional spheres.

How?

Ideas:

Ogadei lives longer and the Mongols flatten Europe and leave a Khanate that conquers or vassalizes the rest of Europe. The resultant oppression of Europe before the Renaissance slows or stops European growth and expansion and leaves it a backwater when the Mongols collapse.

The Catholic Church manages to subdue the various monarchies and keep large scale political power. Colonization is stifled as the Church tries to keep people in Europe under its thumb.
 
I was thinking along the lines of philosophical, logical, or religious differences hitting a brick wall. The other scenario is a melding fusion, but that only occurs in small communities or in places like Lijiang. I guess it's impossible to stop physical colonization from happening. The closest example I know is that of changing another country's government without wanting political control of it or at least leave autonomy to those regions.

The other more plausible story I have in mind is changing the history before Qin Shi Huang.
 
If you stop European colonization, you do so by extending Mongol colonization. You remove the conquistadors, the Tlaxcalans find themselves stretched out over the Aztec altars with their hearts on the menu. You take out the European powers, China eventually takes southeast Asia and crushes the cultures there by forcing their culture on the local people through the pen and the sword (mostly the sword, most likely).

Humans are bastards. Unless you change human nature, stopping colonization is impossible. If the Europeans don't do it, someone else will and the results will be about the same.
 
That being said, the Kuomintang did leave Tibet pretty much in autonomy even though they had a post out there.

I guess the prehistoric tribes in China would eventually eat each other but maintain matriarchy, as opposed to the patriarchy upheld by Emperor Zhuanxu.
 
Top