Global Empire
From Freepedia
A global empire is the extension of a nation's sovereignty over territories all around the world. The essential criterion demands that, when navigating around the world, the longest trip between the empire's possessions be half of the circumference of the planet. "Global" is therefore a function of longitude, not of latitude. For example, because of the Spanish Empire's territories around the globe, it was often said in the 17th century that "the sun never sets on the Spanish Empire." This phrase was later used to mention the British Empire.
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History
Early empires
Earlier empires were largely confined to American or African and Eurasian continents. Nations such as ancient Egypt, the Aztec Empire, the Incan Empire, and China could in one sense be considered early superpowers, but not Global Empires.
Some of these early superpowers spread across different continents include:
- The Persian Empire once controlled all of Asia Minor, Egypt and parts of India.
- The short-lived Macedonian Empire under Alexander the Great became one after replacing Persian power.
- The Roman Empire covered most of Europe, North Africa, and Asia Minor.
- The Mongol Empire stretched across Asia; the Umayyad Caliphate from Persia to Morocco.
- North America was discovered by the viking Bjarni Herjólfsson in about the year 986 A.D., but only after the Circumnavigation of the globe by Ferdinand Magellan's expedition (1519-1522) could nations begin to achieve a global presence.
European contenders
The first global empires were a product of the European Age of Exploration that began with the global maritime empires of Portugal and Spain in the late 1400s.
Portugal began establishing the first global trade network and empire under the reign of Henry the Navigator.
During its Siglo de Oro, the Spanish Empire had possession of Italy, parts of Germany, Portugal, the Netherlands, and many colonies in the Americas, Africa, and Asia. With the conquest of inland Mexico, Peru, and the Philippines in the 16th century, Spain established overseas dominions on a scale never approached by its predecessors. Possessions in Europe, Africa, the Atlantic, the Americas, the Pacific, and the Far East qualified the Spanish Empire as attaining a global presence in this sense.
Subsequent global empires included the French, Dutch, and British empires. The latter, consolidated during the period of British maritime hegemony in the 19th century, became the largest global empire in history by virtue of the improved transportation technologies of the time (nominal claims to huge tracts of uninhabited and uninhabitable land in the Arctic and in Australia, for instance, went uncontested). At its height, the British Empire covered a quarter of the Earth's land area and comprised a third of its population.
Some have claimed that the United States is currently a global empire, although this is hotly contested. The proponents of the phrase seem to often use it in a derogatory sense.
