[jimmyed]

> Venice was a Great Power, with colonies and occupations all over the Mediterranean, vying with states like France and England for supremacy.

The nostalgia of lost glory in Europe is touching. In today's world even France and England aren't major powers, much less Venice. The truth thing is, these cities will never become major powers again. In a world where education is disseminated fairly, the economy of any country will be directly proportional to its population (barring outlier natural resources like in Gulf countries). I would bet my money on a Tier 2 city in India like Surat over has-beens like Venice.

[atoav]

How to tell someone you have never been in Venice without telling them you never have been to Venice.

Just kidding, but I don't think venetians as I know them would even want to become a world power again, yet the capital of that former world power is truly amazing place. I may be spoiled because I grew up nearby, so I have been there often, but it is one of my favourite cities in the world, just because it forces you to think completely different about what a city is or could be.

[gaiagraphia]

Lots to unpack here. I agree that it's difficult for 'old powers' to rise again. Cities - and the ideologies bred in them - seem destined to have their heyday, use that wealth to build their culture, then sit back and bask in former glory. The drive and spark seems to give way to tradition and enjoyment.

It makes great cities of the 'old world' like Istanbul, London, Venice, and Cairo absolutely fascinating; living, breathing museums of the glories and failures of different approaches to life and power.

We'd be unwise to brush them aside lest we don't learn their lessons and tales. Venice is a tale of entrepreneurs who looked at a decaying Byzantine Empire, and who saw the value of the ancient texts wasting away within their walls. Venetians spread 'old ideas' far and wide and started to embrace reason, trade and order, over ideological dogma. While they too faded away, their ideas and impact gave birth to the European powers, who created America, who'll create ???

Regarding your comments on education. While the internet is an insanely powerful equaliser in education. It too, seems to be going the way of the Byzantines. Walls and moats, ideological purity, and a lack of drive for curiosity and greatness seem the flavour of the day. Maybe the 'Venice of the future' will need to also be a lean power who values curiosity, spark, drive, grit and greatness, as opposed to a huge population centre which can only realistically be controlled by mass-produced, packaged information?

[airstrike]

Great comment. Welcome to HN!

[chewz]

Venice was thalassocracy and never focused on real colonies - only military/trading bases. And it dominated Europe by the strength of ducat being both Venetian and global currency. Venice was skilled at setting gold to silver exchange rates - and maintained its monetary policy consistent for decades.

Venetian navy dominated Mediterranean due to high military budget but also first modern assembly line in Arsenal (Venetian shipyard) able of mass production of ships.

In other words Venice is very interesting and worth studying. Some of Venice's achievements still echo in XXI century.

> A thalassocracy or thalattocracy,[1] sometimes also maritime empire, is a state with primarily maritime realms, an empire at sea, or a seaborne empire.[2] Traditional thalassocracies seldom dominate interiors, even in their home territories. Examples of this were the Phoenician states of Tyre, Sidon and Carthage; the Italian maritime republics of Venice and Genoa of the Mediterranean; the Chola dynasty of Tamil Nadu in India; the Omani Empire of Arabia; and the Austronesian empires of Srivijaya and Majapahit in Maritime Southeast Asia.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thalassocracy

> The Venetian Arsenal's ability to mass-produce galleys on an almost assembly-line process was unique for its time and resulted in possibly the single largest industrial complex in Europe prior to the Industrial Revolution.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Venetian_Arsenal

The Venetian Money Market: Banks, Panics, and the Public Debt, 1200-1500 - https://www.amazon.com/Venetian-Money-Market-1200-1500-Renai...

[jacquesm]

Education, wealth and access to resources will never be divided fairly or be equally accessible to all. So there will always be a massive discrepancy between various countries and the way to look at those former powers is to see them has having a head start over the rest of the world. If they turn themselves into tourist attractions (Amsterdam, Venice, Paris and many others) that's a better outcome than that they become entrenched military powers or maintain their colonial ambitions. For Surat to rival any of those you'd have to transport it in time back to the 15th century and to make India a colonial power. That will never happen, because you don't get to be a player at that level by being nice: it takes having an unfair advantage and the willingness to exploit that advantage (military, trade, something else?).

Amsterdam wouldn't be what it is without the 'golden age' (which for the countries that were plundered probably wasn't a golden age at all, but one of oppression and massive looting), Venice wouldn't be where it is today without a sizeable fraction of the monetary movement of the age flowing through its banks, not unlike Switzerland, NYC or London in more recent times. I don't think there will be any cities becoming 'major powers' ever again except maybe for SV and some in China if they manage to avoid financial collapse.

[jacobr1]

> I don't think there will be any cities becoming 'major powers' ever again except maybe for SV and some in China if they manage to avoid financial collapse.

There are more opportunities than that. Technical change that doesn't accrue existing regions can shift the balance - for example maybe souther Texas during a potential "gold rush" phase of private space exploitation. Or maybe, finally a big earthquake hits the west coast and the resulting resettlement in other cities breaks the current positive feedback loop of tech in bay area resulting in new powerhouse regions. Or some of the developing countriesin Africa finally get their act together and become an economic and later technical and military powerhouse. Or some currently minor country has a research lab discover a major technology, or makes a smart investment (like Taiwan and semiconductors) that makes it a new power, if harnessed locally and not just distributed back to existing tech centers. Plenty of opportunities - though it is indeed true is more likely for existing power centers to continue to centralize their benefits of existing human capital including access to resources like funding or transport hubs of physical goods, proximity to customers or whatever.

[selimthegrim]

Hinduism did spread via the maritime route to Cambodia and Indonesia but there’s this little thing called kala pani that was probably prohibitive to direct colonization

[captn3m0]

I don’t see any nostalgia. Venice was indeed a Great Power [0] centuries ago. It doesn’t even call France and England great powers , just that Venice was in their league long time ago.

[0]: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_power

[pjc50]

Venice hasn't been an empire since Napoleon; https://historywalksvenice.com/article/the-fall-of-venice/

> In a world where education is disseminated fairly,

That's a huge assumption.

[looping8]

> The truth thing is, these cities will never become major powers again

Nobody claimed the opposite? Who exactly are you arguing with on this?

But I will argue that France and England are still major powers. France is core to the EU and pretty much controls it together with Germany. England is a power politically, but perhaps not economically. Its cultural exports are huge too. Power changed, but the power holders remain the same.