Q: What trends can be established between advances in science/technology and large, powerful empires (ie superpowers) throughout human history? Try to be specific and if possible give some historical examples.
A: Any dominant empire throughout history must possess three general “types of power” classified as: economic, militaristic and political. All three definitions of power are in-part defined by the never-ending quest for an explanation of everything that occurs in the universe through rigorous and systematic methods (science) and it being a driving force for the advancement of technology. A classic example is the rivalry between the USSR and the US during the latter half of the twentieth century often referred to as the “cold war,” where the advancement of technology in warfare determined who could exert greater powers in a region of interest.
I think power is something one can easily associate with large and dominant empires, though science is a little tricky. Scientific advancement is a strange thing to associate with an empire, simply because while most science/technology has arisen from imperial research, too much advancement has many a time led to its very downfall.
ReplyDeleteTake the British empire, for instance. As the overseas subjects of the British became more enlightened and advanced, they realized they were being shortchanged by the British, and unrest in the colonies grew. Though it is probably more correct to say that the economic realities facing Britain after WWII forced her to abandon her possessions, the scientific advancement of her erstwhile subjects no doubt played a part in expediting the process.
This is slightly paradoxical because it was the British who brought education, communication, scientific advancement, railways, etc to the people in her colonies (I sound like an imperial colonizer myself now), but all this ultimately led to collapse of the empire.
Essentially what I'm saying is: Empires bring about science, science brings about its downfall.
Although advanced science can help a country to take advantage over other countries, it is not necessary for a powerful empire to have more advanced technology than the others. Take the example of the Mongolian Empire in the 13th century. Although the Mongolians conqured most of Asia and Eastern Europe, I have never seen any evidence that demostrates the advence technology the Mongolians had back then. A country with more technology may also be defeated by country which is less technological advanced. Therefore, I don't think we can establish a causation between science and powerful empire.
ReplyDeleteFirst off, I would just like to point out that in no way, shape, or form, in my opinion, do science and empire raise proportionally. The first reason for this is that the only way that such an empire can rise to power is through the use of technology or through some struggle. Therefore, there would need to be technology beforehand that was improved in order for that civilization to come to power. Also, in general this is more a chicken and the egg concept because on the other side of this argument, the only way that technology can be improved is through a strong and well funded empire. This being said it is more likely that the technology came first, however I don't believe there is any specific correlation that the two, science and empires, are proportional to one another.
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