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The European balance of power is a tenet in international relations that no single power should be allowed to achieve hegemony over a substantial part of Europe. During much of the Modern Age, the balance was achieved by having a small number of ever-changing alliances contending for power, [1] which culminated in the World Wars of the early 20th century.
In the 1500s, France was still the most populous country in Europe, [10] and would remain so until the mid-19th to late 19th century. [11] During the reign of Louis XIV, the Sun King, from 1643 to 1715, France was the leading European power as Europe's richest and most powerful country. The dominance of France over world affairs extended to ...
Use of the term in the historiography of the Middle Ages is therefore idiosyncratic to each author. In historiography of the pre-modern period, it is more typical to talk of empires . Gerry Simpson distinguishes "Great Powers", an elite group of states that manages the international legal order, from "great powers", empires or states whose ...
Although it was assaulted and militarily overcome on several occasions, it did exist as a stalwart presence from the later 3rd millennium BC to the middle of the 6th century BC. After the fall of the Assyrian Empire in 612 BC, [11] the Babylonian Empire was the most powerful state in the ancient world. Its capital, Babylon, was beautifully ...
The home and colonial areas of the world's empires in 1908, as given by The Harmsworth Atlas and Gazetteer. Empire size in this list is defined as the dry land area it controlled at the time, which may differ considerably from the area it claimed.
A great power is a sovereign state that is recognized as having the ability and expertise to exert its influence on a global scale. Great powers characteristically possess military and economic strength, as well as diplomatic and soft power influence, which may cause middle or small powers to consider the great powers' opinions before taking actions of their own.
The ascent of republicanism to the political mainstream started only at the beginning of the 20th century, facilitated by the toppling of various European monarchies after the end of World War I; as at the beginning of the 21st century, most of the states in Europe are republics with either a directly or indirectly elected head of state.
The first well-known literate civilization in Europe was the Minoan civilization that arose on the island of Crete and flourished from approximately the 27th century BC to the 15th century BC. [ 6 ] The Minoans were replaced by the Mycenaean civilization which flourished during the period roughly between 1600 BC, when Helladic culture in ...