Is there some agreed upon notion what is considered a continuation of a culture/country/civilization, and what is the emergence of another one?I can think of two extremes:>French revolution was a continuation of France although Napoleon had no right of succession strictly speaking, and ultimately ended the "ancient regime" >The Ottoman empire ultimately ended the Byzantines although technically they considered themselves successorsSo is there some reliable way to tell without succumbing to personal bias?
>>17434850historians hate each other, so agreed notions rarely, if ever, occur.
>>17434850>So is there some reliable way to tell without succumbing to personal bias?none that I can think of. it's all Theseus' ship over and over again. I guess an argument can be made for steepness of change - so the ottomans destroyed byzantium, they did not continue it, while byzantium might be claimed to have continued rome since the changes, even though cumulatively huge, were relatively minor from one year to the other (although the east is only in continuity with itself, having started out already very different from the west). but this is just another way to look at it, not an objective claim. most things that can change - empires, species, forests, continents - are like ring species stretched across time, there's no clear cut but the ends are incompatible.
