With a POD after Felipe II's death in 1598 (so no Armada Succeeds, and the Dutch are probably gone) create the largest possible Spanish Empire in 1900. It need be no more tightly unified than the British empire shortly before WWII, so the American Dominions or whatever can be pretty much self-governing, but it still should be considered as a unified entity, the way people thought of the British Empire in, say, 1938, and should still be considered a Great Power, although it certainly need not be Top Dog. The Capital can be moved from Spain, but should be located somewhere where Spanish (or maybe Portuguese) is the dominant language, so no Spanish Empire-as-the-subsidiary-of-a-German-or-French Empire, please.
Bonus points if you have it still a great power in 2015.
This is of course tricky: it's probably too late to get some sort of Habsburg-Dominated-in-the-Long-Run Europe at this point, and things like Nugax's clerical-fascist American-centered hyperpower, badass as they are, are probably well out on the trailing tail of the curve of probability.
It's tricky, I admit. Spain never really treated it's colonials as if they didn't have cooties, even if they were of "pure blood", and it's hard to see how they can carry out a successful transition to enough self government to satisfy local elites while at the same time modernizing enough to keep the lower classes from boiling over. Possibly one could go another way entirely and have Spain lose most of the Americas, but hold onto Portugal, consolidate Italy under its rule, and build a Britain-like "second empire" in Africa and Asia.
To keep a TL from wandering off into odd places, some may want to go with a "minimal changes" TL, to which I have no objections if you don't have Richard Nixon as the Ambassador from the United States of Columbia to the court of Spain. And if you want a later divergence, more power to you, although I think things are going to get increasingly tricky as you follow OTL's trajectory through the second half of the 17th and the 18th centuries.
Random brain-farts: some sort of great religious revival acting as a cement to help create a Catholic-Spanish American identity? Some sort of alt-war of the Spanish succession leaves the Habsburgs in Spain, but gives some of their American empire to the French, giving the Spanish a smaller but less cumbersome and more easily reorganized entity? Habsburgs move to New Spain, ala Look to the West? The much ballyhooed-in-AH-but-probably-never-had-a-chance plan to spin off parts of Latin America as subordinate monarchies actually gets the support it needs? The Jesuits aren't banned and really do end up secretly running the Spanish Empire?
thoughts?
Bruce
Bonus points if you have it still a great power in 2015.
This is of course tricky: it's probably too late to get some sort of Habsburg-Dominated-in-the-Long-Run Europe at this point, and things like Nugax's clerical-fascist American-centered hyperpower, badass as they are, are probably well out on the trailing tail of the curve of probability.
It's tricky, I admit. Spain never really treated it's colonials as if they didn't have cooties, even if they were of "pure blood", and it's hard to see how they can carry out a successful transition to enough self government to satisfy local elites while at the same time modernizing enough to keep the lower classes from boiling over. Possibly one could go another way entirely and have Spain lose most of the Americas, but hold onto Portugal, consolidate Italy under its rule, and build a Britain-like "second empire" in Africa and Asia.
To keep a TL from wandering off into odd places, some may want to go with a "minimal changes" TL, to which I have no objections if you don't have Richard Nixon as the Ambassador from the United States of Columbia to the court of Spain. And if you want a later divergence, more power to you, although I think things are going to get increasingly tricky as you follow OTL's trajectory through the second half of the 17th and the 18th centuries.
Random brain-farts: some sort of great religious revival acting as a cement to help create a Catholic-Spanish American identity? Some sort of alt-war of the Spanish succession leaves the Habsburgs in Spain, but gives some of their American empire to the French, giving the Spanish a smaller but less cumbersome and more easily reorganized entity? Habsburgs move to New Spain, ala Look to the West? The much ballyhooed-in-AH-but-probably-never-had-a-chance plan to spin off parts of Latin America as subordinate monarchies actually gets the support it needs? The Jesuits aren't banned and really do end up secretly running the Spanish Empire?
thoughts?
Bruce