5 ms·
Empires usually last centuries, and get off to various shaky starts. I think these are just teething problems at the start of a long reign. (I am not American.)
by qubex 9y ago
Empires usually last centuries, and get off to various shaky starts. I think these are just teething problems at the start of a long reign. (I am not American.) High debt, mass unrest, controversy, and factionalism all coexist to some degree at the start of what later became very long-lived empires.
- dawnerd 9y agoI think people forget just how young the US is. When you look at the big picture, it's actually pretty amazing how far it's come in such a short amount of time.
- Lev1a 9y agoI just recently remembered again that my home town is almost 600 years older than the US. So yeah, the US is pretty young in comparison to most other nations.
- pluma 9y agoThe town I live in was originally founded in 785 CE but always feels young to me -- the town I grew up in was originally founded in 38 BCE. Then I remember how much of the US didn't even exist two centuries ago.
- qubex 9y agoI live in Milan (Italy). It was conquered by the Romans back in 222 BC. I was born in Bristol (UK). It has had a royal charter since 1155 AD.
- anigbrowl 9y agoIt's easy to come a long way with a continent's worth of almost-free resources and little indigenous capacity for opposition (due to simpler technology and relatively small populations).
- flukus 9y ago> Empires usually last centuries, and get off to various shaky starts. I think there might be some confirmation bias here. A lot of the big ones we learn about in history lasted that long, but there were many that only lasted decades or a few generations at most. The Alexandrian Empire didn't outlast the death of Alexander, the Carolingian Empire didn't make the century mark, The golden horde only lasted a few generations, many of the early Mesopotamian empires came and went in decades, etc.