Among the empires you just cited, let’s consider the wars, atrocities, assassinations, crises, and plagues they perpetuated and endured
The US has been the most powerful country in the world
For roughly 75 years.
France was strongly dominant under Napoleon for 15 years and didn’t suffer too badly for 15 more years after that.
The period of the British Empire’s global dominance, often referred to as the Pax Britannica, ran roughly 300 years.
The Roman Empire was dominant for roughly 500 years…
The primary difference of the period of US dominance is that it has been almost entirely sustained by MAD - mutually assured destruction vs every other entity on the globe.
protist@mander.xyz 2 weeks ago
MangoCats@feddit.it 2 weeks ago
let’s consider the wars, atrocities, assassinations, crises, and plagues they perpetuated and endured
Absolutely. And, while there’s always atrocities and tragedies around the world, back in “those days” the height of civilization was still brutal and cruel. We, globally, seem to have improved the “bright spots” somewhat as time goes by - even if we still leave the bulk of global human population in poverty and oppression.
My point about the 75 years? There have been shorter flashes in the pan, and much longer ones, we’re nothing particularly special - what is special about this era is the power that fossil fuels have endowed modern society with. We’ve done some good things with those, and a lot of bad too.
possiblylinux127@lemmy.zip 2 weeks ago
I think a big factor was world war I. Europe got decimated so the US had a major upper hand.