https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/empires/id1537788786?i=1000510095777
- Outside of western Europe after the fall of the western Roman empire, much of human civilization seems to be based around empires rather than nation-states
- Here I use nation-state and empire loosely because many nation-states began as empires and the general ambition of many empires is to eventually become nation-states
- On this note: Byzantine fights in the Roman name about 1000 years after Rome fell despite that region being brutally conquered by the Romans + what we now know as Russia used to be considered an empire
- Western Europe paradoxically spread imperialism and anti-imperialism at the same time
- The idea that a nation-state is the norm can be seen in the way that Western European empires split up their territories as they were de-colonizing
- Here I use nation-state and empire loosely because many nation-states began as empires and the general ambition of many empires is to eventually become nation-states
- Americans don’t like believing that America is an empire because our founding myth is Star Wars-esque