Imperial Overstretch
Imperial overstretch, also known as Imperial overreach, describes the situation in which an empire extends itself beyond its military-economic capabilities and often collapses as a result of this policy. The idea was popularised by Yale University historian Paul Kennedy in his 1987 book ''The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers''. Arguably, this was true of the Roman Empire, which was strong and effective in the first and early second centuries CE, despite a few setbacks (Germany in 9CE; Scotland in the 80s CE) but lost territories after that (e.g. Dacia and Mesopotamia) and could not keep the Saxons, Huns and other 'barbarians' out in the 4th and 5th centuries. Clearly, this was also true of the Napoleonic Empire, which made rapid gains by conquest in the first decade after Napoleon became Emperor of France, but became over-extended militarily when it attempted to conquer Russia in 1812. Likewise the Axis powers all overstretched during WW2: Nazi Germany, waging war since 1939 in ...
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The Papal Belvedere
''The'' () is a grammatical article in English, denoting persons or things already mentioned, under discussion, implied or otherwise presumed familiar to listeners, readers, or speakers. It is the definite article in English. ''The'' is the most frequently used word in the English language; studies and analyses of texts have found it to account for seven percent of all printed English-language words. It is derived from gendered articles in Old English which combined in Middle English and now has a single form used with pronouns of any gender. The word can be used with both singular and plural nouns, and with a noun that starts with any letter. This is different from many other languages, which have different forms of the definite article for different genders or numbers. Pronunciation In most dialects, "the" is pronounced as (with the voiced dental fricative followed by a schwa) when followed by a consonant sound, and as (homophone of pronoun ''thee'') when followed by a ...
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