Recent content by Kyro92

I'd be interested to here speculation from people knowledgable about Mughal India about likely developments there. How much responsibility did the conflict with Portugal and later European meddling have for the destabilization of the Mughals over the following centuries?

Now as for Subsaharan Africa... Well, no colonialism means no maize and therefore no maize-driven population boom. OTOH it also means the depredations of the Atlantic slave trade would be avoided- although Africa would still be burdened by the ongoing Islamic slave trade. Which invites the...

Before I put forth the scenario, I have a request: please don't focus on your responses on the delay of European exploration and the plausibility of said delay. I'm asking this because that normally suck up all the oxygen in the discussion when this subject is discussed- I am hoping we can treat...

I've been pondering this over the past few days. It's trivially obvious to posit a world in which Muhammad has born, or to go earlier that and have the non-founding of Christianity as your POD. But how much could the layout of world religions be altered in a world in which still saw the...

Preventing the advent of European colonialism is a pretty common topic of discussion here- but how about, rather then prevent it, merely delaying it slightly, by 50-100 years? Given how the Portuguese exploration was supported by the Portuguese crown, the pace of their exploration was heavily...

It's easy enough to imagine earlier PODs impeding the primacy of the West on a global scale. But by the 18th century, there's a strong argument to be made that the ground was already laid for the West to overwhelm those parts of Asia and the Middle East that had previously managed to forestall...

If you've looked at population density maps, like this one(https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Computed-global-distribution-of-population-density-for-the-year-1800_fig3_228074769), the first thing that stands out is how population density is at it's highest in Europe, South Asia and East Asia...

Maybe they could? Let's say Napoleon avoids his catastrophic defeat in Russia, and so France remains hegemonic in continental Europe while Britain retains it's naval hegemony. Britain then has a very strong incentive to nip any French(or allied) colonial ventures in the bud, and given their...

POD: Neither Christianity nor a Christianity analogue emerges in the Roman empire. Of course there will be mystery cults and such, but none of them receive patronage as the official imperial religion, or if they do they lack the missionary zeal that led to Christianity's spread into Northern...

On this tangent, how long did the division between Indo-European and non Indo-European cultures remain significant(outside of language) IOTL? By which I mean, by 200 BC(to pick a random date) were there any meaningful ways in which distant Indo-European cultures had common cultural features that...

Bear in mind that for a considerable amount of that time period, most of Europe lacked organized states and literacy. The comparison probably shouldn't be between China and Europe, but between China and the Mediterranean. I also note how South Asia and Persia tend to get left out of these...

With a POD anytime after 1900, have Austria acquire the borders that Australia has on this map:

True, but we only know that particular package of innovations in warfare and organization was plausible because it happened. In a TL where those stars didn't fall into alignment, saying "it's plausible because in my TL the Mongols implement a package of innovations in warfare and organization at...

True, although that was a Caliphate with the resources and strategic depth of Persia and Mesopotamia at it's command.

Premise: After losing hold of Mesopotamia, the Sassanids manage to halt the Arab advance past the Zagros mountains. The Zagros mountains are a decently defensible position, although Persia was in disarray at the time and the loss of wealthy Mesopotamia would hardly make rebuilding easier. The...