I meant that the Roman Empire was an anomaly within European-Mediterranean history. It is unusual for the European-Mediterranean region specifically to be unified.
Oh yeah for sure. Europe is very unique in this regard, only really sharing it with West Africa. I don’t have any definitive reasons why Europe specifically tends towards disunity, but I would say it is mostly culture.
The Frankish Empire got very close to dominating the entirety of the West (I feel like that’s close enough), but then Charlemagne died, and it was split into three due to succession laws. Later, the Holy Roman Empire got close again (around the time of Otto II), but castles and the ratio between the ease-of-building and the defensibly prompted further disunity. The very fine balance of power between the Catholic Church, the nobility, the serfs, and burghers also prevented one from gaining too much power (in Rome the nobility and the urban-poor banded together).
Maybe geography played a small part, because there are no large irrigation-based river bodies to control, but there is the Rhine, Danube, and others (I’m not European, so I don’t know which rivers require irrigation). Also, there was the Mediterranean, which Rome used.
Sidenote: I just wrote 150 words on ancient history, completely unprovoked.
I think we’re on the same page. Three more people who came close to dominating the region include Napoleon Bonaparte, Adolf Hitler and Joseph Stalin. I think there are good arguments for both sides to the argument of whether Europe’s disunity comes from culture or geography.
I didn’t know West Africa is like Europe in this regard. That is interesting.
I would also include Charlemagne, Otto II, and Justinian onto that list.
For West Africa, I need to read more on the topic, but I believe that a couple empires came and left (Mali and Ghana?), but their descendants eventually split into various small kingdoms and polities. Although, I guess you could include the French as being one unifier.
I meant that the Roman Empire was an anomaly within European-Mediterranean history. It is unusual for the European-Mediterranean region specifically to be unified.
Oh yeah for sure. Europe is very unique in this regard, only really sharing it with West Africa. I don’t have any definitive reasons why Europe specifically tends towards disunity, but I would say it is mostly culture.
The Frankish Empire got very close to dominating the entirety of the West (I feel like that’s close enough), but then Charlemagne died, and it was split into three due to succession laws. Later, the Holy Roman Empire got close again (around the time of Otto II), but castles and the ratio between the ease-of-building and the defensibly prompted further disunity. The very fine balance of power between the Catholic Church, the nobility, the serfs, and burghers also prevented one from gaining too much power (in Rome the nobility and the urban-poor banded together).
Maybe geography played a small part, because there are no large irrigation-based river bodies to control, but there is the Rhine, Danube, and others (I’m not European, so I don’t know which rivers require irrigation). Also, there was the Mediterranean, which Rome used.
Sidenote: I just wrote 150 words on ancient history, completely unprovoked.
I think we’re on the same page. Three more people who came close to dominating the region include Napoleon Bonaparte, Adolf Hitler and Joseph Stalin. I think there are good arguments for both sides to the argument of whether Europe’s disunity comes from culture or geography.
I didn’t know West Africa is like Europe in this regard. That is interesting.
I would also include Charlemagne, Otto II, and Justinian onto that list.
For West Africa, I need to read more on the topic, but I believe that a couple empires came and left (Mali and Ghana?), but their descendants eventually split into various small kingdoms and polities. Although, I guess you could include the French as being one unifier.