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Comment by wz1000 | Hacker News Reader

European colonialism was certainly novel in its sheer scale, and its effects are felt to this day in pretty much every non European country barring a small handful.

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Nope, because only the brits surpassed the previous biggest empire, the mongols. And mongols did come with some advancements in tech as well, but also plenty of destruction.

The Mongolian Empire was very different in operation from the British or other colonial empires. It was not set up with the aim of wealth extraction and economic dominance of subjugated territories back to the parent country. You could not call it "colonial" by any widely accepted definition of the word.

Because it collapse still in the part of expanse. Other empires like roman was just like the british. In fact the definition of empire is the dominion of "second class" territories in virtue of the "first class".

I thought Mongolians were more on wealth extraction and less on economic dominance - essentially demanding tribute and after setting up an administrative class after a wholesale purge of the previous military elite the only demand being to keep the tribute flowing.

Less economic dominance because they were nomadic raiders not traders or industrialists.

Their complete cultural apathy is largely what makes them "not colonalism" technically. In the same way that samuari aren't technically feudalism because they aren't landowners but servants of a lord. Although they work by analogy pretty well.

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