Re: [OT] Restoring Empires was: Frog Bashing

Edward Lipsett schrieb:
> I can't speak for most of these, but I think you could 
> make a very good case for China NOT fulfilling the conditions. 
> From the Western point of view, they were all Chinese and spoke
> Chinese, but basically the nation was destroyed and a new nation 
> emerged in the same place, a large number of times. Often with a
different 
> cultural heritage (which, admittedly, tended to shift into the
"average" 
> Chinese cultural mix over the years). 

This answer illustrates precisely why I said that a worthwhile
discussion of this would require a precise definition of 'people' and
'empire'.

Can you say they were all Chinese and spoke Chinese ? Depends on your
definition. Speakers of the various dialects of Chinese are, AFAIK, not
able to understand each other, but we tend to think they all speak
Chinese.
Compare, say, Dutch, English and German. Or French, Spanish and
Rumanian. You could claim, they all speak "Germanic" or "Romance".
The Chinese DO have a common written language, though (which also
covers, to some extent, Korean and Japanese). 

On the other hand, you say the nation was destroyed and a different one
was built, which is an equally valid point of view. But why don't we
say, for example, that Ancient Egypt and Modern Egypt are the same
nation (another possible candidate, BTW). Or Rome and Italy ?

Greetings
Karl Heinz

> KH.Ranitzsch@t-online.de scribbleth: 
> >> Actually, I cannot think of any 'people' who have
> >> created an 'empire' and lost it, that have been
> >> able to reach 'empire' status again.
> > 
> > A worthwhile discussion of this would require a precise 
> definition of 
> > 'people' and 'empire'
> > 
> > As a list of examples, I would suggest at least the 
> > following candidates: 
> > Persia, India, China, Russia, Mexico, Germany,