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- Italian city-states had a level of antagonism towards each other that is not found in 2020 Europe. The amount of freedom europeans have today to travel and wo

- Italian city-states had a level of antagonism towards each other that is not found in 2020 Europe. The amount of freedom europeans have today to travel and work and do business in the EU is incomparable - Armies in those times in Italy were mainly composed of mercenaries. Again, incomparable to the state of european ones. There was no such thing back then like the joint exercise and shared equipment and tactics between NATO countries. - Comparing the role of the podesta` or signorie with central banks or, I suppose, the bureaucracy of the EU does not make much sense. I believe this article to be very poorly thought out and the author just wants to force a parallel because he might have read an interesting book about the subject.

icegreentea2 4y ago
Yeah, I'm really trying to figure out what the parallels are - especially since the biggest take away stated (the dynamism created by having competing smaller states has a downside of being relative vulnerable to external pressure from large unified blocs) clearly doesn't quite hold. Modern Europe has two-ish major (EU and NATO-ish) supra-national systems that are notionally designed specifically to bind European states together to help resist and compete against these external pressures (though obviously NATO comes at the cost of binding together along with one of the large external forces to buffer against others). I guess the message might be that the EU is important for Europe? I dunno. Like it's not exactly wrong, but I don't think it's a particularly interesting point... I guess it's probably interesting to consider that the title (and article ending) is referencing a Tuchman book from 1978.
dash2 4y ago
You're right about the antagonism - though the long run history of Europe shows plenty of that. I don't believe you're correct that because of it, citizens could not travel between Italian states. Plenty of famous artists did so. I do point out that NATO and the EU are two key differences between then and now. I also compare the signorie with "elected autocrats", in that they take real power while preserving the façade of democratic or republican institutions. Does that make more sense?

icegreentea2 4y ago

Yeah, I'm really trying to figure out what the parallels are - especially since the biggest take away stated (the dynamism created by having competing smaller states has a downside of being relative vulnerable to external pressure from large unified blocs) clearly doesn't quite hold. Modern Europe has two-ish major (EU and NATO-ish) supra-national systems that are notionally designed specifically to bind European states together to help resist and compete against these external pressures (though obviously NATO comes at the cost of binding together along with one of the large external forces to buffer against others). I guess the message might be that the EU is important for Europe? I dunno. Like it's not exactly wrong, but I don't think it's a particularly interesting point... I guess it's probably interesting to consider that the title (and article ending) is referencing a Tuchman book from 1978.

dash2 4y ago

You're right about the antagonism - though the long run history of Europe shows plenty of that. I don't believe you're correct that because of it, citizens could not travel between Italian states. Plenty of famous artists did so. I do point out that NATO and the EU are two key differences between then and now. I also compare the signorie with "elected autocrats", in that they take real power while preserving the façade of democratic or republican institutions. Does that make more sense?