The Mongols didn't really have an empire so much as they ran across the Eurasian continent destroying everything in their path.
FYP. 1 in 200 men on Earth is a descendant of Ghengis Khan. Which means 1 in 10 are probably a descendant of one Mongol warrior or another. So you gotta give them props for that.
Claiming that Genghis Khan eliminated torture is pretty odd........considering what he and his followers did to cities like Baghdad (which has still not recovered). Truth is, you can claim almost anyone originated the "modern state" or "modern period" or whatnot. However, what is clear is that the Mongols were highly transitory - how much of their culture do we retain today? Can anyone think of a mongol word they use other than "khan"? The Mongols' greatest advance of modernity was smashing the pre-existing order which would otherwise have endured longer, but that's just a byproduct of military domination.
Well, it would be plain stupid for Mongols to force their nomadic culture on their conquered countries where the majority of people lived on farming/in big cities. Mongol also had a very small population so when they conquered big countries such as China/Persia , it chose to adopt those cultures instead. When you are being outnumbered 1:100/1000, forcing the mass population to adopt your culture will just create unnecessary unrest. Moreover, of course there is not many mongol words that English speakers use today. After all, they didn't conquered England/Europe did they? On the other hand, there are plenty of Mongolian words in Chinese/Turkish....etc.
The English and the Romans managed to do it. Given how little cultural impact the Mongols had, it's pretty easy to dismiss them as a transitory horde - no different than the Magyars, the Huns, the Avars, etc. etc. They were just more militarily successful. Are there? That's certainly not my understanding. As for Turkish - um, OK.........
The Mongols used psychological warfare to almost perfection. They would completely decimate a city and have the nearby city to choose to be pummeled to the ground or surrender. Also generals loved to fight for Genghis Khan because Khan always rewards his guys for a good job.
The Mongols had a very destructive influence, particularly as it relates to the irreparable harm they visited on much of the infrastructure of Irano-Islamic civilization. Except for that tremendously destructive influence, however, they left no enduring imprint on human civilization and would certainly not figure anywhere near the greatest empires in my book. A Persian historian of the Mongol period, Juvaini, touches on the fear the Mongols caused amongst the populations in the areas which they conquered in recounting the story of how a single Mongol soldier, riding on a pony, comes across several villagers, each presumably physically bigger and stronger than this Mongol soldier. Yet, according to Javaini's account, when the Mongol solider orders the villagers to stop, they all dutifully comply; and then when he gets off his pony and proceeds to cut their throats, none dare to make a move against him or run away. They simply freeze, knelt in front of him, while he cuts their throats one by one. The truth is that part of the military success of the Mongols was due to their sheer brutality and the fear it caused among people who would hear the Mongols were approaching their town or city. And an empire build on those kinds of military tactics would certainly not qualify as great much less the greatest as far as I am concerned.
The Soviets? Really? They were a force to reckon with, but are going to be nothing more then a footnote in history considering they lost the Cold War. What the Soviets acheived pales in comparison to Rome, the British Empire, the Ottoman Empire, etc...Not that the Soviets weren't a superpower, they were, they competed at every level with the US during the Cold War years, but I can't see how you put them above any of the empires listed so far.
There's more to an empire than killing people, you have to actually build a great civilisation. Otherwise the Third Reich would count as a great empire.
Egypt. I'd stack up the nearly 3,000 years between the unification of upper & lower Egypt and the conquest of Egypt by Rome against any of the larger empires that lasted short periods of time. Only China & Rome can compare & China went through substantial periods of disunity.
The Egyptian Empire ended long before Rome took them over from the Greeks. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Late_Period_of_ancient_Egypt 525 BCE they were conquered by the Persians (Achaemenid). They regained their independence from 404 until 343 when again the Achaemenid took them over. Egypt great empire actually ended around 1069 BCE.
Since the Ptolomies dynasty in Egypt started around 320 BCE, the period that Egypt was under a foreign rule was not much more than 100 years.
Even before that, Persian Rule ended in 332 when Alexander took them over. 121 + 11 = 132 Under Persian Rule. Then 332 to 30 = 302 years under the Greeks Romans took them over in 30 BC. So From 525 BC (Persian Conquest) to 30 BC (Roman Conquest) Egypt was independent for 61 years and under foreign occupation for 434 years. Ptolomies dynasty = Greeks as far as I know.
The founder of the dynasty was Greek but his successors ruled from Egypt. I don't think that just because the ancestry of a ruling dynasty is foreign that that makes the nation foreign ruled. If so many empires including China would have to be considered foreign occupied for centuries.
Good point, shit even the Americas, Australia, New Zealand would be under foreign Occupation . Shit every country in the world is under Tanzania (origin of humans) occupation.
I read some article on BBC about how the original humans banged some neanderthals when they moved out of Africa. Apparently the highest concentration of neanderthal genes are in Papua New Guinea, then Asia and finally in Europe. While people in Africa apparently don't have any. So technically, YOU ARE WRONG.
Except that the new dynasty insisted on speaking Greek, marrying only Greeks, ruling from a new capital ruled by Greek and instituting a new Greek aristocracy which ruled the country from a new capital founded by Alexander. For instance, it's quite likely that Cleopatra was the first Ptolemy queen (most were not even crowned Pharaoh) to actually speak Egyptian. So this is pretty fuzzy territory. Besides which, shortly after the Ptolemy takeover of Egypt, its force became generally ossified and would be very relevant again until the Fatimid caliphate 1000 years later.
This all comes down to the point of what does nationality mean? Did the Ptolomies consider themselves Greek or Egyptian? Did the Egyptians consider the Ptolomies Greek or Egyptian? While nicephoras brings up some good points, considering his user name, there is no possibility of his being unbiased in this matter.