What civilization or nation deserves to have its own TL?
- Thread starter Acamapichtli
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Nah, the most interesting TLs for Poland are those when it avoids the rise of "Commonwealth" idea.
Those can be interesting, but I find republics to be cooler than monarchies, and the PLC was interesting for me in how different it's form of government was from everyone else's at the time.
I'd like to see a TL with a successful revolution of 1848 that leads to a federal republic in germany or at least a liberal constitutional monarchy, as long as it ain't too british that is. 
Bonus points if Robert Blum becomes President / Chancellor.
A TL with a surviving Khmer Empire would also be mightily intersting.
Bonus points if Robert Blum becomes President / Chancellor.A TL with a surviving Khmer Empire would also be mightily intersting.
Well, to each his own, but a) PLC didn't drop it's pretenses of being a monarchy, which made the system absolutely disastrous with capital D and founded on schizophrenia, it wasn't even a true republic b) I find monarchies cooler than republics and I consider gutting the monarchy by Commonwealth system one of the worst things which ever happened to Poland.
People really seem to avoid TLs focused around Africa (especially the less well-known regions outside the Maghreb). I'd love to see more of those.
Conjoined with an Italian Republic led by Giuseppe Mazzini with Mazzini and Blum promoting the rebirth of Young Europe.I'd like to see a TL with a successful revolution of 1848 that leads to a federal republic in germany or at least a liberal constitutional monarchy, as long as it ain't too british that is.
A TL with a surviving Khmer Empire would also be mightily intersting.
The Scythians, they are a bit underrated, like, more underrated than the Mittani for what I see, the Scythians can be expanded to the Bosporan Kingdom, these Iranians-hellenistic horse lords are one of the most unique peoples of the classical age, from their clashes with the achaemenids until their wars with the Huns and goths, deserves a TL 100%
I fully agree with you, in fact it is a real shame that the Franks and I would also like to add the first HRE emperors ( Ottonians, Salians and also Conrad III of Swabia ) are so underestimated, there are so many scenarios that we can delve into with them ( as for example a Lothair winning civil wars against his brothers, Henry the Fowler who actually comes to Italy as he had planned in Otl to take the imperial crown or a Henry V / Louis II the Younger with descendants or a marriage between the son of Conrad and a Komnene princess (1), as I would also be really interested in a TL on Poland or the Swedish empire ( that does not become an absurd wank in the manner of Gustav II Adolf's idea of a Protestant empire in Otl (2)
1) to be precise between Henry Berengar and a niece of Manuel I
2) which would not have been possible to achieve even if he had survived, simply because his policy with the German princes was bad, at most we would have seen Meklenburg become one more possession of the Vasa compared to Otl
I've talked about this on the "more often ideas" threads. I'd like to see a timeline with a completely different North America up to our days, either being linked indefinitely ro their metropolises or becoming independent countries.
How would they interact to other North American polities? Would they race to the Mississippi or Pacific? Would their population mirror OTL regions? What about their cities? So much potential.
PLC was the lost case since the beginning (maybe if by some miracle John Casimir managed to actually win and implement his reforms it could help it, but it's not very likely) it was literally disaster in form of the country.
How far back do you guys think we have to go with Poland-Lithuania to get a viable PLC going forward and does that mean scaling back on some of its border territory say in Ukraine to concentrate on economically developing the heartlands, maintaining administrative cohesion and military reforms?
Elected monarchies are messy, there are reasons why we mostly got rid of them, so unless there is some kind of system that rotates between a small cliche of great houses, say something like the Malaysian system, who are I think the only people that have managed to pull this off that aren't the Vatican or have a system which is only nominally elected but is like the Habsburg approach when the eldest son is nominated and a small cohort of very senior members of the Sejm say "yes" to them as is customary, say about 100 years before the end, I don't know what you do.
Maybe Sigismund II Augustus picks a different wife at some point and manages to have a son who inherits the throne and competently carries through a reform program which probably works something like how the UK worked out? By that I mean a dominant culture of landowners and professionals overseeing peasants from a different culture or linguistic tradition with the added benefit of logical geographic barriers somewhere - say stopping at the Dnieper outside Smolensk in the east, somewhere around Riga in the north, Kyiv and Bracław in the south, whilst not over-extending near Tartar or Cossack territory in what becomes Ukraine and making sure you keep a very careful eye on Royal Prussia.
Leaving aside whether you can get the Commonwealth to work internally, you would also have to make sure that the German states of Prussia and Saxony don't become too dominant to their east and Russia to your east and carefully guard your frontiers keeping in-mind the lessons of Rome, never over-extend your borders. Presumably tag-teaming with Sweden makes diplomatic sense to contain Russia and prevent any regional German or Danish interests interfering as well. But first you really have to get a Constitution and political culture that will support continued long-term survival, not confound it.
Elected monarchies are messy, there are reasons why we mostly got rid of them, so unless there is some kind of system that rotates between a small cliche of great houses, say something like the Malaysian system, who are I think the only people that have managed to pull this off that aren't the Vatican or have a system which is only nominally elected but is like the Habsburg approach when the eldest son is nominated and a small cohort of very senior members of the Sejm say "yes" to them as is customary, say about 100 years before the end, I don't know what you do.
Maybe Sigismund II Augustus picks a different wife at some point and manages to have a son who inherits the throne and competently carries through a reform program which probably works something like how the UK worked out? By that I mean a dominant culture of landowners and professionals overseeing peasants from a different culture or linguistic tradition with the added benefit of logical geographic barriers somewhere - say stopping at the Dnieper outside Smolensk in the east, somewhere around Riga in the north, Kyiv and Bracław in the south, whilst not over-extending near Tartar or Cossack territory in what becomes Ukraine and making sure you keep a very careful eye on Royal Prussia.
Leaving aside whether you can get the Commonwealth to work internally, you would also have to make sure that the German states of Prussia and Saxony don't become too dominant to their east and Russia to your east and carefully guard your frontiers keeping in-mind the lessons of Rome, never over-extend your borders. Presumably tag-teaming with Sweden makes diplomatic sense to contain Russia and prevent any regional German or Danish interests interfering as well. But first you really have to get a Constitution and political culture that will support continued long-term survival, not confound it.
Yes, people are often very deterministic about the development of population centers, but often ignore how much hinterland and borders means for a population density. As example a border will mean the establishment of border infrastructure, like roads/railroads, border towns and garrison, so s border in a thinly populated area in OTL can lead to a denser population. But we also see the opposite thing a new border can result in smaller growth for a city or town as its limits its hinterland.
I Suspect in case of New Amsterdam, it would very much rival New York in size, while not being the financial center of USA would weaken it, it would make up for it by being the main port and capital of New Netherlands. Its moderndemography would be significant different. You’re unlikely to see the same influx of Italians and Irish, you won’t see African Americans either. But you’re likely to see the same or greater influx of people from the Baltic, so a lot of Jews and Poles, beside that Germans and Scandinavians would also be common. You likely see modern Puerto Ricans replaced by Surinamese and likely also see some influx from the East Indies especially in the 20th century. Cuisine-wise you likely see the hamburger and fries arise from the influx of Germans and Lowlanders. OTOH without New York as hub of Italian cooking, we don’t see it spread, Italian stay a mostly regional cuisine [1]. Instead we see a mixing of North European, Indian, East Asian and West Indies cuisine. Rice dishes and stews will likely be far more common, but likely using less hot spices than India and the East Indies usually use, likely focusing more heavily on ginger, garlic and paprika. Noodles likely also dominates over Italian style pasta.
[1] Similar to Spanish cuisine which have only really spread outside the Spanish speaking world in the late 20th century.
Sigismund II Augustus wasn't hereditary monarch of Poland (he was elected during his father's lifetime) and anyways Jagiellons didn't have hereditary rights over Poland anyway - the reason is that all wives of Vladislaus II Jagiello (Władysław II Jagiełło in Polish) which had any relation to previous Polish kings didn't give him male heir - the first one, with strongest claim, backed by privilege of Koszyce Hedwig d'Anjou (Jadwiga Andegaweńska) gave him one short-lived daughter and Anna of Cilli (Anna Cylejska) gave him one daughter which barely survived to adulthood but than her own father sought to replace her with his son from his fourth marriage to Sophia of Halshany (Zofia/Sonka Holszańska), so option of somewhat working Jagiellon Poland - not PLC as the eldest acts of union stipulated that Grand Duchy of Lithuania would be incorporated to Poland, and anyways, "Commonwealth" was very anti-monarchist idea tied directly to the idea that king should be elected and by removing elective throne you remove very foundation of "Commonwealth" it'd be simply "Kingdom" not "Commonwealth". I am not going to elaborate on Polish-Hungarian relations (Hedwig was Hungarian princess so any son of her would have claim to Hungary as well and son of Anna of Cilli while not having any claim to Hungary per se would be probably called by Hungarians to help against Turks like Vladislaus of Varna was IOTL so we end up with same old shit), but I am bound to inform that in the events of Jogaila/Jagiełło related POD would affect the state greatly due to Hungary's abundance of mineral resources which could lead to Hungary being center of the state (it's a dead horse beaten on this side by me and @Jan Olbracht to death so I am not going to initiate upteenth pointless discussion about that, tho it'd be interesting to see his POV about how to make Polish-Lithuanian union actually workable state). Polish royal power was already weaker than royal power of any English king, so I am not sure if UK comparison is correct and what could be possible during Sigismundus Augustus (technically not as he wasn't only reigning king already but he was already elected as his father's co-ruler) would be stopping executionist movement from completing their reforms (tho more accurate term would be anti-reforms) - it was the middle nobility movement responsible for introduction of liberum veto, viritim election (idea that every noblemen should have a say in electing king and that dynastic relations to previous king should not provide any benefit in election, nor election should be limited to only dynasty) or equality of House of Envoys (lowest house of Sejm, actually elected by nobility members, counterpart to House of Commons) in making decisions to king (who was one of houses of Sejm himself) and Senate (not that much threatening to King's power considering that he appointed all of it's members and had a final say in decision-making in Senate, as theoretically Senate was medieval royal council, advisory body, and King was bound to be informed about their advice, but not actually listen to it every single time) so them losing to King and "możnowładcy" (different group from later magnates) would not result in something similar to UK (I'd say that closest analogy to Poland government-wise with executionist movement defeated during Sigismund I/II times would be hmmm...Denmark?). And as far as "different culture etc." is involved - the UK analogy isn't going to work, all main languages in PLC were closely related as Slavic (ethnic Lithuanians were not that numerous, and Germans were spread mostly in urban areas and were getting polonized themselves) so there were many groups (unlike England, when you were immediately able to tell whether person speaks English or say Gaelic Irish) which were sort of "intermediate" between Poles and Ruthenians, for example "po prostu" speakers (peasant slang, quite popular in northern Belarus and OTL easternmost part of Poland) speakers where linguists had difficulty to tell whether they speak Polish or Belarussian, and I'd say that such groups would be even more prominent if Poland was workable state and maintained it's regional power status. As far as territorial expansion is involved - Ukrainian lands kept in check would be a great asset due to their usage towards farming and iron resources in Krzywy Róg and weakening Russia in alliance with Sweden (reasonable policy) would mean that the cost of keeping them in check would be greatly reduced, as Tatars will decline anyways (Ottoman Empire may avoid it's decline, but Crimean Tatars as nomadic and not that numerous society was doomed anyway in XVIIIth and XIXth century) and probably Poland would be able to take their lands for themselves, achieving access to Black Sea.
I love urbanism, urban geography, urban demographics as much as I love history. In fact, on the other thread I said AH urban history should be explored more here.
I agree with you that's a Dutch New York is not very hard to accomplish. I guess it depends on the author's approach. If they want something very realistic, this new America would turn the world into something unrecognizable by our time. However, a person might want to have only a Dutch version of US/Northern US and might be inclined to leave things as similar as possible to OTL, including cities location and even population.
For instance, by having a New Netherland or a New Sweden, I'd like to have a full Dutch New York or a Swedish Philadelphia with the same weight of OTL counterparts, specially as I'm interested on cities or demographics. And obviously, that's not realistic. A New Sweden formed by Delaware, south bits of New Jersey and the southeast quarter of Pennsylvania would hardly harbour a 6 million inh. metropolis on its core comprising 80% of the country/region total population. Urban geography doesn't work that way.
And it's also challenging to make this New Sweden to grow west to give this Swedish Philadelphia a bigger heartland, specially if want to keep New Netherland and the southern English colonies around. With friendly neighbours, maybe we could have it taking the dense populated southern half of Pennsylvania, leaving the northern half to the Dutch. Then both could expand into the Great Lakes region, with an interesting ATL version of Midwest "Lake vs River cities divide": Dutch with their Cleveland, Detroit, Chicago, Milwaukee while Swedish gets Pittsburgh, Cincinnati and maybe St. Louis.
The answer is, all of them.
But Nri deserves a special mention as an Atlantic African state that was not only fairly old (formed 900s and from an earlier state) and managed to exist until Britain conquered it. And in all that time (well, most that time, starting from the 5th ruler) slavery was illegal in that state and they even fought against slaving states/confraternities to fairly successfully resist it in their heartland even as they declined. They also expanded (exclusively to my knowledge) without warfar, incorperating communities by religion and ritual. Quite a unique state that people could cheer on in a TTL where they're more successful.
But Nri deserves a special mention as an Atlantic African state that was not only fairly old (formed 900s and from an earlier state) and managed to exist until Britain conquered it. And in all that time (well, most that time, starting from the 5th ruler) slavery was illegal in that state and they even fought against slaving states/confraternities to fairly successfully resist it in their heartland even as they declined. They also expanded (exclusively to my knowledge) without warfar, incorperating communities by religion and ritual. Quite a unique state that people could cheer on in a TTL where they're more successful.
I think the Peru-Bolivian Confederation deserves its own timeline if only because Bolivia has never seemed to get a break since its independence. The leader of the Confederation was Andres de Santa Cruz, who although authoritarian was an effective administrator who overhauled education, tax-collection, and the military in Bolivia. Perhaps if the rebellious northern part of the Confederation, centered in Lima, had been allowed independence then Santa Cruz could have continued his reform efforts and created a great power in the Latin American sphere.
You’re right that New Sweden would almost certainly lack a Philadelphia size city. I think it’s important to look at USA and think about whixh cities are bigger than they should be and which are smaller. I would say that Los Angeles, Boston, Philadelphia and Washington are all bigger than they should be, while St. Louis and Detroit are smaller. In general inland urban centers of USA are too small, while coastal are too big.
I think Swedish expansion are the most likely to be limited, while Dutch expansion depend on whether New France cut off their access to the Great Lakes.
Why are people so deterministic about the collapse of the Polish Lithuanian Commonwealth?