I thought it would be fun to pair a country with a century you believe that nation was the premier power at the time. I know this will be subjective and people will have different ideas over why whatever country is picked for whatever century, but I thought it would be interesting. Note: saying one country is the dominant country of the time.
15th century: Republic of Florence. Reasons: place as the birth of the Renaissance and death of the Dark Ages, its status as an economic powerhouse, and the general advancements in finance that occurred.
16th century: Spain. Reasons: This one’s easy: Spain was the first to the New World and the area with the most readily available gold and the Hapsburg hegemony made their Empire so huge that Charles V decided to break it up.
17th century: Netherlands (Dutch). Reasons: They were the leading naval power during most of the period and the huge economic hold they had on sea trade.
18th century: France. Reasons: France winning the War of the Spanish Succession kind of embodies everything about this century. Yes, the century ended in the disintegration of the former government, but France was dominant throughout the century (funding and providing men for the Jacobite uprisings and American Revolution). The birthplace of the Enlightenment. Evidence of their dominance lies in the writings of later generations. As Tolstoy showed in War and Peace; even during the Napoleonic Wars, Russian aristocrats spoke French.
19th century: Britain. Reasons: They overtook the Netherlands in being the predominant naval power; they strengthened their grip on their territories in Africa and South Asia, while also adding to them. The long-term benefits of the first Industrial Revolution came to fruition.
20th century: United States of America. Reasons: The Treaty of Versailles and the First World War decimated Europe and a relatively unscathed United States took up the slack. This position was cemented by the end of World War II.
**Centuries and a country’s dominance doesn’t have to be exact. This is just a rough approximation. Hope that was obvious, but wanted to make it clear.
Economic and military dominance are one thing, but what about intellectual influence/dominance? Germany, for instance, can make claims on some impressive scientific and technological advances in the 19th and 20th centuries
Venice vs. Florence: I think an excellent argument could be made for that. I originally put Italy but decided that didn’t reflect 15th-century notions. Unfortunately, I don’t know much about the Ottomans, during this time. I know Mehmed conquered Byzantine in 1453, which obviously speaks to their growing prowess. And then, of course, there’s Suleiman the Magnificent (I believe) in the 1500s. Does anyone know a good book about the history of the Ottoman Empire?
Well, I definitely think the technological developments shouldn’t be ignored, but I don’t think they are sufficient by themselves.
You’d have to consider China as a candidate for Top Nation in the fifteenth century - a huge country, with huge cities, and a vast trading and exploration network, and much more outward-looking that it was later to become.
China is surrounded by enemies and faces massive internal issues. Were they governed like Taiwan…yeah. If they can get Korea reunited and economically viable…really good chance.
Or the 21st century can turn out like the 5th century.
15th century Ming China was no match for the ever expanding Ottomans. Sure, they had their treasure fleets and tributaries, but they were riddled by eunuch corruption and dynastic instability. China has always been a woulda/shoulda empire.
The Ming got to East Africa*. From China, not just down the coast, like the Muslims. That’s not “woulda/shoulda”. Yes, they then became insular, but for that one century, it would not even wrong to say “the Chinese were never outward looking”. They certainly had a tremendous regional influence in the 15th C
Just about every country surrounding China has a symbiotic relationship, economically and culturally, with China, which over the past half century has done nothing at all inimical toward its neighbors. Generally, the nations of Asia look to China as a stabilizer of the region, which they are doing without the strong-arm Monroe Doctrine threats the USA used in this hemisphere.
China may prove to be less potent in the future, but not for the reason you have offered.
I agree but unlike the Euros who were exploring and beginning to settle the world, the Chinese never tried. They did invade what is today Vietnam but were driven out 25 years later. China certainly had the potential to be the great power but her internal issues hamstrung her. Ironically, the Ming were sandwiched between two foreign dynasties who had conquered her.
I’ll put in a vote for the Inca empire in the fifteenth century. We lack the breadth of historical resources on South American civilisations that we have for Europe, but they were the largest civilisation in South America - which is a big place - and they were definitely expansionist, so while they didn’t control quite the territory that China did, they must have been highly influential beyond their borders. At their peak they controlled large parts of modern day Peru, Ecuador, Chile, Bolivia plus some of Argentina and Colombia, and would probably have kept going if Pizarro and smallpox hadn’t happened to them.
China has better relations with those countries the USA has with Venezuela, Cuba, Mexico. Not to mention the western hemisphere nations with which the USA has been in a shooting war, none of whom has ever fired a shot at the USA.
" Those countries" referencedwere:
Tibet - no longer a country and occupied by China.
Vietnam - actual one month-long shooting war in 1979
India- actual one month- long shooting war in 1962, shooting war in 1967, and currently a whole lot closer to a shooting war than the US is with either Cuba, Venezuela, Mexico
USSR - no longer extant, but let’s consider the USSR/Russia continuum: shooting in 1969, dispute not entirely resolved until 2003.
As opposed to the Bay of pigs ( while bad, not actually 2 nation states going to war), embargo, sanctions, and a wall that may or may not ever be built. Because of this I must disagree with your assertion.
