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A list:
- Alexander the Great
- Shi Huang De
- Genghis Khan
- Chaka the Zulu
- Napoleon Bonaparte
- Adolf Hitler
Historical problems
What do these people have in common?
All of them organised sudden impromptu empires (as compared
with the long lasting empires like Rome and Britain which grew gradually over a long
period). None of them lasted long, though Alexander's had longlasting
effects and the Mongol Empire influenced subsequent culture.
Shi Huang De of course is an exception as he unified China which
has lasted most of the time since his conquests.
All of them seemed to have shared the contempt for other people
that is sometimes labelled "psychopathy" in the clinical
world. Certain criminals appear to have no moral sense at all.
Perhaps these "great" leaders also shared that quality.
Should Lenin
and Stalin also be in this list? And Pol Pot? And Shining Path? Perhaps, but although Pol
Pot and the leaders of Shining Path shared the lack of feeling
for ordinary people, they did not create empires. The same can
be said of Saddam Hussein
who, although he invaded his neighbors in Kuwait, showed no sign
of being able to create an empire. A man entirely immune to human
feeling he may have been but a worldwide threat he wasn't.
Napoleon came out of the French Revolution. Was he part of
that revolution? Or did the revolution merely give him the scope
for exercising his powers? Could Stalin have risen to power without
the collapse of the old monarchy in 1917?
Seward points out that Napoleon, Hitler and Stalin were all
from the fringes of their societies. Napoleon was from Corsica,
an Italian speaking island, only legally French from just before
his birth. He himself scarcely spoke French when he first arrived
in France. Stalin was Georgian,
speaking a non-Russian (non Indo-European) language. Hitler came
from Austria, outside the aristocratic Prussian group that had
ruled Germany.
What allowed Genghis Khan to conquer the main part of Eurasia?
Why did a previously fairly harmless tribe of horse nomads suddenly
become an all conquering scourge of all the civilised people
in the settled lands?
How did a civilised people like the Germans come under the
control of a gang of criminals like the Nazis?
Shaka the Zulu turned his clan into a Great Power and caused
the Mfecane.
In preparation
Until I write more,
these are just questions to think about.
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