Comments by "Sam Aronow" (@SamAronow) on "The Collapse of the Carolingian Empire - Echoes of History - Extra History" video.

  1. The Wilsonian boundaries around Turkey aren't so bad, genuinely intending to reflect the ethnic makeup of the region, but with the Arabs, the attempt to impose a European-style national order was always kind of iffy: the Levant and Iraq were basically a collection of city-states, and Arabia proper was defined by nomadic tribes (let's leave aside North Africa which actually does have strong national identities owing to base cultures that predate the Arab influence); the linguistic ties used to form European nations was not anymore applicable than if the US, Canada, and all the English-speaking nations of the Caribbean were made one country. It was politically necessary to fight the Ottomans, but hopelessly naive as a functional postwar order.
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