Message from Charles Aulds

The history of all world empires is the same – over-extended militaries and expensive wars, a civilian population that cares only about its own gratification and satisfying its prurient lusts ... greed, corruption, vice and decadence as far as the eye can see.

This one is no different ... not an iota different. Watch it crumble; watch it fall. Stay well back from the falling debris.

The lesson of history is clear: Societies that choose to live and organize themselves like the United States have a 100% failure rate. 

There are NO EXCEPTIONS.

And the American Empire is no different than its many predecessors: it is intended to encompass the globe, inexorably extending its power and control without limit, and it will, of course, last forever ... until the end of time; until there are no more worlds left to conquer (as Alexander famously complained). 

Or, like all of the world's great empires, in the view of historians in the not-so-distant future, this one will have collapsed (in historical terms) seemingly overnight ... and will have lasted a scant three centuries, at most.

And then it will be some other society's turn to try ... and, inevitably, to fail.

I read this book years ago because the author limited his list of the world's great empires to 25, and examined those in great detail. The 25 were not chosen for their extents, but by their hegemony … their aggressive push to dominate and control other people. As far as I know, this was not true of the great empires of the Maya, the Inca, and the Aztec in this hemisphere.

Rise and Fall of the Great Empires

Andrew Taylor

Publisher: Quercus, London England (August 21, 2008)

Wikipedia has this much longer list of the largest empires in world history.

Taylor's Top-25 World Empires (listed in approximate chronological order of their rises and falls from greatness):

1. Sumerian Empire

2. Chola Empire

3. Assyrian Empire

4. Songhai Empire

5. Achaemenid Empire

6. British Empire

7. Athenian Empire

8. Ottoman Empire

9. Alexander the Great

10. Inca Empire

11. Roman Empire

12. Aztec Empire

13. Imperial China

14. Trading Empire of the Spanish

15. Trading Empire of the Portuguese

16. Empire of Aksum

17. Mughal Empire

18. Mongol Empire

19. Napoleonic Empire

20. Byzantine Empire

21. Third Reich

22. Holy Roman Empire

23. Soviet Empire

24. Umayyad Caliphate

25. New World Empire (United States of America)

There is only one world empire on Taylor's list that still exists (#25 on the list).

Here's a scan of the last page of the book, and the summation of the author's opinion on the New World Empire (USA):

I made this scan (ain't it cute?) and, yes, the yellow highlighting is my own.

___

Charles