Balkanize Me: Difference between revisions

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In [[Alternate History]] and [[Speculative Fiction]] (especially the kind that takes place [[Twenty Minutes Into the Future]]), authors like to have fun by turning big countries into lots of smaller ones. May be justified by a war, a large-scale catastrophe, or simply a successful secessionist movement. Often happens with the United States of America, resulting in the [[Divided States of America]], but other large countries such as China or Russia are also considered fair game.

Contrast [[Space Filling Empire]], which is about filling the map with large countries so as not to bother with pesky borders. Also see [[United Europe]], [[Expanded States of America]], and [[Middle-Eastern Coalition]] as other examples of counterparts, where different countries link up or expand into huge regional or continental polities.

Contrast [[Space-Filling Empire]], which is about filling the map with large countries so as not to bother with pesky borders. Also see [[United Europe]], [[Expanded States of America]], and [[Middle-Eastern Coalition]] as other examples of counterparts, where different countries link up or expand into huge regional or continental polities.

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* ''[[Decades of Darkness]]'' starts with the USA falling apart, and later France, Italy and Britain will meet the same fate {{spoiler|after being defeated by Germany in the Great War}}.

* Parodied and taken to the illogical extreme in the [[Alternatehistory.com]] timeline [http://alternatehistory.com/discussion/showthread.php?t=154637 Leaves in the Wind], which records the Balkanization of ''Liechtenstein''!

* The [[Alternate History]] project [http://www.bethisad.com/ Ill Bethisad] has only Russia as the only real [[Space Filling Empire]]. Both Brazil and China are broken up into smaller states and the USA are a looser union than in OTL. [http://ib.frath.net/w/images/0/08/WorldMap2001.png Here's a map.]

* The [[Alternate History]] project [http://www.bethisad.com/ Ill Bethisad] has only Russia as the only real [[Space-Filling Empire]]. Both Brazil and China are broken up into smaller states and the USA are a looser union than in OTL. [http://ib.frath.net/w/images/0/08/WorldMap2001.png Here's a map.]

* The [[Chaos Timeline]] does this to North <s>America</s> Atlantis, and sometimes China, France and Russia. And even New Albion (New Zealand.)

* [[Union and Liberty]] includes the balkanization of Mexico into a dozen states.

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** [[The Daily Show]] publication "America: The Book" suggests that "today, each resident [of former Yugoslavia] lives in the Independent Republic of Himself".

* Since [[Alexander the Great]] left no heir and no instructions for a regency (and his only son Alexander IV born after his death), his Macedonian Empire fractured after his death in 323 BCE. Once the dust cleared (after ''forty years''), it was divided among his generals: Macedon (Cassander / Alexander's native Greece), the Ptolemaic Kingdom (Ptolemy I Soter / modern-day Egypt), the Seleucid Empire (Seleucis I Nicator / modern-day Iraq, Syria, Lebanon and Israel), and the Kingdom of Pergamon (Lysimachus / modern-day Bulgaria, eastern Greece and European Turkey).

* It's a major historical pattern that the fall of a [[Space Filling Empire]] often results in its balkanization, with states declaring independence and people taking advantage of the fall for themselves. The Persian Empire, [[The Roman Empire]], the [[Holy Roman Empire]], the Byzantine Empire, the Spanish Empire, the French Empire, [[The British Empire]], the Austro-Hungarian Empire -- the list can go on.

* It's a major historical pattern that the fall of a [[Space-Filling Empire]] often results in its balkanization, with states declaring independence and people taking advantage of the fall for themselves. The Persian Empire, [[The Roman Empire]], the [[Holy Roman Empire]], the Byzantine Empire, the Spanish Empire, the French Empire, [[The British Empire]], the Austro-Hungarian Empire -- the list can go on.

* China deserves special mention. This has happened so often between Chinese dynasties that it was considered the "Will of Heaven" for a kingdom with a corrupt dynasty to break down into warring states, only to be reunited some time later under the banner of one of them.

** Summed up in the opening line to [[Romance of the Three Kingdoms]]: "The empire, long divided, must unite; long united, must divide."