On Sat, 18 Apr 2009, Doug Henwood wrote:
> <http://doughenwood.wordpress.com/2009/04/18/empires-fall-slowly/>
>
> A friend pointed out the other day: people sometimes compare the U.S.
> empire to Rome's decline -- but forget that it took 800 years to fall.
Longer, at least on Gibbon's timeline. The empire (as opposed to the Republic) officially begins in 27 BCE (when Octavian becomes Augustus). Gibbons considered the decline to begin with the end of the Antonines in 180 CE. And Constantanople -- capital of the richer, eastern half of the empire -- falls in 1453. After which, it simply becomes the Ottoman Empire, which lasted until 1918! At which point the Ottoman, Hapsburg and Romanov empires fall while the British and US expand, while the French, Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch, Belgian...
Once you start taking the long view, you realize a world without empires would be something unprecendented.
Michael