If you’ve ever seen the dataset the “250 year imperial life expectancy” thing came from you’d split your sides from laughter
https://twitter.com/pinko69420/status/1883312445458182341
The author was just trying desperately to make his thesis work and should be in jail for first degree murder of periodization. Back-alley stabbing of the historiography
Sir John Glubb, 1978. Here’s his data table. Not a trained historian. Let’s tear into it:
- Cherrypicked states
- Roman republic separated from empire? Dumb. There was no discontinuity between the two.
- Ottoman entry is just insultingly stupid. 1570? Really?
- Cherrypicked states
- Roman republic separated from empire? Dumb. There was no discontinuity between the two.
- Ottoman entry is just insultingly stupid. 1570? Really?
- also, ending the Roman Empire in 180 is so intellectually dishonest it makes my head spin
- Romanov Russia? Seriously? Why not include the hundreds of years of Rurikid rule of Russia and Muscovy?
- Romanov Russia? Seriously? Why not include the hundreds of years of Rurikid rule of Russia and Muscovy?
The British entry gives away the game a bit: the author is not an historian, but instead a storied military commander of an imperial state experiencing a pronounced decline in relative power. 1950 is probably the Suez crisis. A guess, but he was rationalizing the losses.
There’s much more to say about the date in substantive and nitpicking ways but that’s just belaboring the point imo. It’s bad history, insultingly so, and it’s very annoying seeing the “250 year lifespan” thing repeated so often and so uncritically
God that meme is atrocious
more than five people have seen this so I should clarify my point: You should be critical of every historical claim you read. Find the source of the claim and really evaluate it. Reflect on the author and the evidence. This “250 year” meme would be dead if people did any of that
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