zraver

WW1, while we still hear the echoes of Rome in a lot of areas the modern world is shaped by WW1/interlude/WW2. Imagien if you will that the UK had not given away the richest province of Iraq and stunted Arab nationalism in the 20's? quite a different world today.

Feanor

Your argument is void. If not for the Roman empire modern Europe would be unrecognizable, as opposed to minor political shifts that resulted from WWI, the Roman Empire shaped practically all of western civilization.

EDIT: Here let me murder it a little more thoroughly. No Roman Empire=No WWI. That means that all the influences of WWI are also influences of the Roman Empire. All your base are belong to us.

Feanor

*Gasp* . . . . . . . .wait wait I need to change my opinion NOW.

Shamus

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zraver

Europe is shaped far more by the German migrations at the end of the Western Roman Empire and Turkomen migrations than by Rome. Rome echoes in art, law, history, and many of the locations of towns and cities but so to do the influences of the Germanic tribes. Four of the major combatants and several of the minor players traced thier animosity to items that had very little to do with Rome. No Roman Empire does not mean no WW1 or equivalent war because the combatants had very little to do with Rome.

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astralis

bluesman,

dammit, it's 9:34 and NOW you want me to go buy lottery tickets and check for a blue moon?

i'll stick with a butter cookie, thanks.

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Feanor

Highly disputable. You're entering the realm of guesswork. In any event the migrations are not even listed as one of the conflicts. Out of what was listed the effects of the Roman Empire were far more profound then those of WWI.

Parihaka

I disagree with Feanor on this. The further away you get from any specific event, the less it's impact becomes. Unless it's an idea: ideas spread like viruses.

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zraver

What events of Rome exactly shaped the world today? And how do those events outshine the repercussions of WW1?

Shamus

But in this case Pari,chronologically the Romans are the earliest option so without their contributions the whole equation or timeline breaks down.Am I being too simplistic in my reasoning here?Or possibly I'm still seeing my life flash before my eyes after driving with my "almost 15 yr old" daughter behind the wheel,anybody have a Valium they can spare?

Parihaka

The ripples in the pond analogy is a good one. As time goes by, the ripples die down and the pond returns to its previous equilibrium. Any specific event has an impact, but over time that impact lessens with the natural progression of human development.
Without Rome for instance, most of the impact of Rome (i.e. its ideas) would have occurred in another form anyway because they were the result of the interactivity of humans with their environment.
I differentiate ideas because they don't behave in the same way, instead their impact often grows over time, as they influence our ongoing behaviour.
Mohamed (PBUH) and Jesus as two examples as the propagators of viral ideas, along with Liebnitz, Newton, Hooke, Socrates, Pythagoras et al.

So if Feanor had postulated the concept of which societies ideas had the most influence, rather than which societies battles over time, I'd agree they had influence.

Shamus

Fair enough,point taken....uhhh....about that spare Valium.....

Kansas Bear

I'm going through the same thing with my 15 yr old son, except I'm using a 12 yr old bottle of Glenfiddich instead of Valium!

xerxes

I could be wrong but, I think the muslim invasions had already lost momentum and steam by the time it reached Spain.

IMO, Europe was saved from Islamic conquest mainly due to the valor of the Byzantines - along with Bulgarian - that held off against the Arabs during the siege of Constantinople thus diverting the momentum of the Islamic expansion away from Anatolia and channelling it through North Africa.

Again i could be wrong, but i think even if the Charles Martel had lost the battle against the muslims, Europe would not have been further penetrated large scale. I find the French victory in Spain to be quite similiar to the victory of the Mamlukes against the host of the formidable Hologou Khan. Which though it was quite significant when it happened, it did not contributed to the Mogole expansion or the Islamic expansion (in the case stated). In the long run the momentum of the invading forces was lost due to inter-in-house-struggles and rivallery within factions and not due to any one single battle.

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Kansas Bear

A number of historians hold that opinion. Had Constantinople fell either in 674 or 717, most believe Europe would have been finished.

The battle did have an importance. Yet the Muslims were quite stretched logistically. Most raids/invasions, after the Battle of Tours, took cities for a "limited" time, usually enough to ransack the churches and enslave the populace. As the Reconquista gained in strength, Muslim raids/invasions into France/Gaul had all but ended.