为什么欧洲列强在将其帝国主义扩张到全世界方面如此成功，但在欧洲本身的征服和统一方面却远没有那么成功？

Skanda Veera
, A student of Indian knowledge
In the global human evolution, there would be phases when one civilization becomes dominant, and then it collapses. The rise and fall is a continuing phenomenon, and while there are evolutionary causes for the rise, the seeds of collapse often times would be present in the way the rise happened and is sustained.
The mode of European rise, which happened through organized expansion and subjugation of other civilizations, by itself means such a rise has to end some time and others would rise in protest and in resistance to subjugation. Europeans did have conflicts among themselves and competition for colonies and hegemony, but the space was vast for them to conquer and they could spend enough energies in expansion instead of fighting among themselves. There was never a case that Europe would unite to conquer the world. So there is no wonder such a thing did not “succeed” (it was not attempted).
In one sense, it is the American hegemony that is uniting Europe as a counter force, though it cannot be the second biggest pole.

在全球人类的进化过程中，总会有这样的阶段：一个文明成为主导，然后它就崩溃了。崛起和衰落是一个持续的现象，虽然崛起有进化发展的原因，但崩溃的种子往往存在于崛起的发生和持续的进程中。
欧洲人的崛起方式是通过有组织的扩张和征服其他文明来实现的，这本身就意味着这种崛起必须在某个时候结束，其他国家也会在抗议和抵抗征服的过程中崛起。欧洲人之间确实有冲突，也有对殖民地和霸权的竞争，但他们可以征服的空间很大，让他们可以把足够的精力用于对外扩张，而不是相互争斗上。从来没有出现过欧洲会联合起来征服世界的情况。因此，难怪这样的事情没有"成功"（因为没有尝试过）。
从某种意义上说，是美国的霸权主义在迫使欧洲联合起来，作为一种对抗的力量，尽管它已经无法成为第二大极。
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Stilicho
, Lawyer
You’ve answered the question without realising it.
Basically European powers developed their military and technological craft as a result of near constant, viscous war against each other - Europe was a crucible of war and technology. Then they turned their craft against the world and realised just how far they had come…

你已经在不知不觉中回答了这个问题。
基本上就是欧洲列强发展了他们的军事和技术工艺，因为他们彼此之间几乎不间断地进行着战争--欧洲是战争和技术的熔炉。然后他们把他们的技术转向世界，并意识到自己有多牛瓣......

Ernest W. Adams
, School taught me to hate history, but now I love it.
The simple answer is that people they colonized didn't have firearms. The other Europeans did. It was a lot easier for the British to defeat the Mri than the French.
However, there were definitely times when one European power conquered another. The Spanish held the Netherlands for a while. Napoleon conquered huge chunks of Europe, but he overreached himself and couldn't hold it. The UK occupied Ireland. Sweden, Norway, Denmark and Finland were united at different times.

，学校曾让我讨厌历史，但现在我爱它。
简单的答案是，被他们殖民的人没有枪支。而其他欧洲人有。英国人打败毛利人要比打败法国人容易得多。
然而，绝对有过一个欧洲国家想征服另一个国家的时候。西班牙人曾一度占领了荷兰。拿破仑征服了大部分的欧洲，但他高估了自己，没能守住它。英国占领了爱尔兰。瑞典、挪威、丹麦和芬兰在不同时期曾联合起来过。

Benjamin Kirk
, Interested in History and Geopolitics
Because it’s damn Easier Conquering Technologically Behind Societies in some distant Continent that conquering other, Equally Advanced European Nations

，对历史和地缘政治感兴趣的人
因为征服某个遥远大陆上技术落后的社会比征服其他同样先进的欧洲国家要容易得多。

Dan Vasii
Right you are, but it must be specified that technological advancement took place more or less simultaneously for the European powers, so none was advantaged by a significant development in technology (except for British empire, that due to its circumstances, was the place of Industrial Revolution).

你说得对，但必须说明的是，欧洲列强的技术进步或多或少是同时发生的，所以没有一个国家因技术的重大发展而获得优势（除了大英帝国，由于其环境，它是工业革命的地方）。

Bill Bogg
More precisely it was the Atlantic-facing European powers whose ships became adapted to rough seas and could undertake the vast sea voyages. The Mediteranean powers still used galleys which relied primarily on oarsmen and could not cope with the Atlantic. The Grimaldi pirates (still rulers of Monaco) did manage to sack Southampton in the early thirteenth century using galleys but I don't know of any succesful use after that time. Spain still used a few in the Spanish Armada (1588). In the Mediterrranean they could still be effective to quite a late date as shown by Don John's victory at Lepanto in 1471 .

更准确地说，是面向大西洋的欧洲大国的船只适应了波涛汹涌的海面，可以进行大量的海上航行。地中海大国仍然使用主要依靠桨手的大帆船，无法应对大西洋的情况。格里马尔迪的海盗（兼摩纳哥的统治者）确实在13世纪初使用大帆船洗劫了南安普顿，但我不知道在那之后还有没有成功的案例。西班牙在西班牙无敌舰队（1588年）中仍然使用了一些。在地中海地区，它们在相当晚期的时候仍然可以发挥作用，1471年唐-约翰在莱庞托的胜利就说明了这一点。

Colin Riegels
, History geek
Actually European powers are pretty good at uniting themselves.
Germany, France, Italy, Britain, Spain, Russia, Greece - all were fragmented groups which slowly coalesced into the current nation states over the passage of time. Some managed that sooner than others. But Germany and Italy only really united into broadly their form in the late 1800s from much smaller territories and city states.
Conversely, despite the commonly held perception, they actually weren’t terribly good at extending imperialism overseas. Only the British managed to do it on any kind of scale, and then they all pretty much gave it all back again (except for Russia - even then that was in Asia). If you contrast that with, say the United States, China or Russia (Asian bit) - when they engaged in Imperialist expansion they kept what they took, and they still retain it to this day.

事实上，欧洲大国很善于统一自己。
德国、法国、意大利、英国、西班牙、俄罗斯、希腊--所有这些原本都是零散的团体，随着时间的推移慢慢凝聚成现在的民族国家。有些国家比其他国家更早实现了这一点。但是，德国和意大利只是在19世纪末才从更小的领土和城市国家中真正统一起来，形成了如今大致的形式的。
相反，尽管人们普遍认为如此，但他们实际上并不擅长将帝国主义扩展到海外。只有英国人成功地做到了，然后他们又都几乎把它们全部吐出来了（除了俄罗斯--不过也只保留了亚洲的部分）。如果你与美国、中国或俄罗斯（亚洲部分）进行对比，你会发现，当他们进行帝国主义扩张时，他们保留了他们所夺取的东西，并且他们至今仍保留着这些。

Paul Irving
Spain had an empire stretching from California to Patagonia, plus the Philippines, before there was a British empire. Portugal had coastal Brazil & a string of coastal territories from Morocco to Taiwan before there was a British empire.
These weren't insignificant. They were unprecedented in their spread.

在大英帝国出现之前，西班牙有一个从加利福尼亚到巴塔哥尼亚的帝国，加上菲律宾。在大英帝国出现之前，葡萄牙拥有巴西沿海和从摩洛哥到台湾的一系列沿海领土。
这些并不是微不足道的。它们的扩张是前所未有的。

Emil Perhinschi
, trained historian, writing software since 1999
Q: “Why were European powers so successful at expanding their imperialism all over the world, but far less successful in conquering and uniting themselves?”
The success of the European powers in conquering the world is grossly overrated.
There are maps showing how Spain controlled that much territory and England that much territory, but those were for the use of their European rivals, telling them not to interfere in those parts of the world. Actual boots on the ground and real control was something totally different.
Spain “owned” a large part of North America but their presence there was very thin, and the same was true about the larger parts of their South American territories.
France had “Louisiana” but they actually controlled only a few bits of land on the coast.
British Canada was a few towns in the East and a few trading posts in the Hudson bay and treaties with other European powers about who owned the rest. Those treaties determined what areas were colored as “British” on the map, not actual presence on the ground.
1800 - G. de L'ISLE - Carte d'Amérique
The maps of the time had very large blank parts even on claimed territories. The coasts were better known but not terribly well, and the large navigable rivers were explored, but most of the rest were conjecture and guesswork. Exploration expeditions were still sent out even close to 1900. The Russians were still exploring their North even right before the Great War and still discovering large islands :-).

问："为什么欧洲列强在将其帝国主义扩张到全世界方面如此成功，而在欧洲自身的征服和统一方面却远没有那么成功？"
欧洲列强在征服世界方面的成功被严重地高估了。
有很多显示西班牙控制了那么多的领土，英国控制了那么多的领土的地图，但这些地图都是给他们的欧洲对手看的，告诉他们不要干涉世界上的那些地方。但是这跟真的有士兵驻扎在上面和真正的控制是完全不同的东西。
西班牙"拥有"北美洲的一大部分，但他们在那里的存在非常单薄，他们在南美洲的领土大部分也是如此。
法国拥有"路易斯安那"，但他们实际上只控制了海岸边的几块土地。
英属加拿大只是在东部有几个城镇，在哈德逊湾有几个贸易站，并与其他欧洲国家签订了关于谁拥有其余地区的条约。这些条约决定了哪些地区在地图上被标为"英国"，而不是在地面上真的有英国军队的实际存在。

1800年--纪尧姆·德利画的《美洲地图》。
即使在有宣称的领土上，当时的地图也有很大的空白部分。人们对海岸线比较了解，但也并不是十分清楚，对可通航的大河也进行了探索，但其余大部分都是猜想和臆测。即使在接近1900年的时候，还是得派探险队去勘察。俄国人甚至在世界大战前仍在探索他们的北方，并仍在新发现一些大的岛屿 :-)。

Brad Miller
, Classical self-education. History & Creative Writing in English, Many Over 23 Years (1907)
False premise. It wasn’t “all over the world”. There were three factors that came into play. and at least two of them had to be met for the Europeans to succeed.
(1) A lower population density.
(2) A lower technology
(3) A lower level of organization.

这个问题的前提就错了。并没有在"全世界"都成功。有三个因素在起作用。而且至少要满足其中两个因素，欧洲人才能成功：
(1) 较低的人口密度。
(2)较低的技术。
(3) 较低的组织水平。

Arden Tom McClure
, Coordinator of Career and Skills Education (2017-present)
Because Europe was broken up geographically by mountains and seas, which made each area easier to defend, making all those areas competitive. Also they early on developed trade to get things that they couldn’t get or make easily. Notice that the areas conquered were much farther behind technologically and were initially empires themselves which means the locals had already largely eliminated the competition.
The Americas were all Stone Age, Paleolithic to Neolithic, and lacking beasts of burden. That meant the Europeans had a substantial technological advantage.
In Africa, the Africans were in a decline due to losing their major export, and were economically more splintered, while Europeans were in the ascent. But notice the Africans began to catch up much faster than the Europeans did after the fall of the Roman Empire. But the only successful colonization was carried on against stone-age peoples, never those who already had metal technology.

因为欧洲在地理上被山脉和海洋分割开来，这使得每个地区更容易防御，使所有这些地区都具有竞争力。同时他们很早就发展了贸易，以获得他们不容易得到或制造的东西。请注意，被征服的地区在技术上要落后得多，而且最初本身也是帝国，这意味着当地人已经在很大程度上消除了竞争。
美洲都还处于石器时代，从旧石器时代到新石器时代，而且缺乏野兽。这意味着欧洲人有很大的技术优势。
在非洲，非洲人因失去主要出口而走下坡路，经济上更加分裂，而欧洲人正处于上升期。但请注意，在罗马帝国灭亡后，非洲人的追赶速度比欧洲人要快得多。但唯一成功的殖民化是针对石器时代的人进行的，而不是那些已经拥有金属技术的人。
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Glen Roper
I wouldn’t call the Americans Stone Age or Neolithic just because they didn’t have beasts of burden except the Llama in Peru. They were more advanced in some parts of civilization than the Europeans. Huge cities existed in most parts of America. The biggest weapon the Europeans had were diseases. 80% to 90% of the original Americans died by disease and not any Europeans weapons

我不会仅仅因为他们除了秘鲁的美洲驼之外没有驮兽，就称他们为石器时代或新石器时代的美洲人。他们在某些方面的文明比欧洲人更先进。在美洲的大部分地区都有巨大的城市。欧洲人的最大武器是疾病。80%到90%的原始美洲人死于疾病，而不是任何欧洲人的武器。

Arden Tom McClure
But huge cities also existed in Europe. The Americas were Neolithic because they still had not developed smelting metals. Their tools were stone and wood. And most of Americas were just entering in to static or settled agriculture as opposed to slash and burn agriculture where every few years the village was moved to a new location so the soil would not be depleted.
Yes the Native American built some impressive cities but we also know other Neolithic and even Daly metal age peoples built cities and impressive stone monuments elsewhere in the world. The Native Americans also engaged in GENO.... and slavery and devastating wars of conquest it was not some golden age or advanced civilization. They were just human without being humane.

但欧洲也有大城市。美洲是新石器时代，是因为他们还没有发展出冶炼金属的能力。他们的工具是石头和木头。大多数美洲人刚刚进入静态或定居农业，之前每隔几年就把村庄搬到一个新的地方，这样土壤肥力就不会被耗尽。
是的，美洲原住民建造了一些令人印象深刻的城市，但我们也知道其他新石器时代甚至戴利金属时代（注：查不到是什么时代，怀疑是拼错了）的人在世界其他地方也建造了城市和令人印象深刻的石头纪念碑。美洲原住民也参与了种族灭绝和奴隶制以及毁灭性的征服战争，这不是什么黄金时代或先进的文明。他们也只是没有什么人性的人类。

Pablo Djankowicz Ruizinowitz
, History major, interested in tid-bits about WWII
Precisely because these European nations had the power to project themselves to other regions of the world after 1492, and to establish extensive overseas colonial empires. They were just too militarily powerful to vanquish and keep them from rebelling once conquered. That’s the reason no single European power could unify them all.
When there were stabs at bringing Europe under one ruler—like when the Spanish Habsburgs tried to unite with the Austrian Habsburgs to create a giant Habsburg empire that spanned Europe in the 1500s, or when France tried to conquer all of Europe in the early 1800s—the other nations rebelled like nothing else. Enormous, bloody wars thus resulted.
This need to rebel had little to do with the fact that European nations were different from each other, culturally and linguistically. The cultural and linguistic differences between someone living in Guangdong Province in southern China when compared to a northern Chinese person living in Heilongjiang Province are just as deep and wide as between a southern Italian and a Swede or a Dane.
It’s just that historically China has for the past 2,000 years reunited after brief periods of political disunity. As a result that Guangdong person is used to the idea of being united under one political entity with that Heilongjiang person. These culturally and linguistically distinct people don’t put up a fight when there’s a political power that seeks to centralize and unite China, in other words. And that historical experience of unity has not occurred in Europe (though the E.U. has for the past 40 years tried to cultivate it in the younger generations of Europeans, especially with the Erasmus program in E.U. colleges and universities).

正是因为这些欧洲国家在1492年后有能力将自己的力量投射到世界其他地区，并建立广泛的海外殖民帝国，才没有对内进行征服统一。他们在军事上太强大了，就算一时被征服，也无法阻止他们叛乱。这就是没有一个欧洲大国能够统一他们的原因。
当有人试图将欧洲置于一个统治者之下时，比如西班牙哈布斯堡家族在15世纪试图与奥地利哈布斯堡家族联合，建立一个横跨欧洲的巨大的哈布斯堡帝国，或者法国在19世纪初试图征服整个欧洲时，其他国家就会不顾一切地反抗。巨大的、血腥的战争由此产生。
这种反叛的产生与欧洲国家在文化和语言上彼此不同的事实没有什么关系。生活在中国南方广东省的人与生活在黑龙江省的中国北方人之间的文化和语言差异，就像南方的意大利人与瑞典人或丹麦人之间的差异一样深刻和广泛。
只是在历史上，中国在过去的2000年里，在经历了短暂的政治不统一之后又总是重新统一起来。因此，广东人已经习惯了与黑龙江人统一在一个政治实体之下的想法。换句话说，当有一个政治力量试图集中和统一中国时，这些在文化和语言上不同的民族并不反抗。而这种统一的历史经验并没有在欧洲出现过（尽管在过去的40年里，欧盟一直试图在欧洲人的年轻一代中培养这种经验，特别是在欧盟高校推行的伊拉斯谟项目）。
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Bruce Jurin
, Lot of reading, play wargames
During the major period of imperialism, the Europeans had developed military technology, and to some degree an efficient organization to deliver supplies, reinforcements etc., to defeat less technologically advanced countries.
However if facing each other, this advantage didn’t exist so wars were difficult.

在帝国主义的主要时期，欧洲人已经发展了军事技术，并在一定程度上建立了有效的组织来运送物资、增援等，以击败技术上不太先进的国家。
然而，如果面对同样的欧洲国家，这种优势并不存在，所以战争很困难。

Richard Stephens
, BA History & History (2003)
The map of Europe has changed massively over time.
Celtic Briton, England’s septarchy, Norman conquest, united England, occupation of Wales, then Ireland, eventually the submission of Scotland and then to the Irish independence creating the current UK in 1922
That’s just one island group. There was the unification of Spain, France’s borders change with Germany and Belgium independence. The Netherland’s secede from Spain. Scandinavia constantly changes who control what. Germany unifies in 1870 and so does Italy. Poland gains land from Germany in 1918, Russian Empire breaks up, the separate kingdoms of Turk-Ottoman Empire become separate states, unify as Yugoslavia and separate again. Turkey is created, Austro Hungary amalgamate and separate. Stalin reoccupies former Russian empire, then separate again.
It could be argued that the current Imperialism in Europe is the EU that mainly benefits Germany and France and that the expansion of the EU has created greater wealth in these two countries.

欧洲的地图随着时间的推移发生了巨大的变化。
凯尔特不列颠，英格兰的王权，诺曼的征服，统一英格兰，占领威尔士，然后是爱尔兰，最后是苏格兰的臣服，然后是爱尔兰的独立，在1922年建立了现在的英国。
这还只是一个岛国上面的演义。类似的还有西班牙的统一，法国与德国边界的改变，比利时的独立。尼德兰从西班牙的独立。斯堪的纳维亚半岛不断改变的主控国。德国在1870年统一，意大利也是如此。波兰在1918年从德国获得土地，俄罗斯帝国解体，从土耳其-奥斯曼帝国的独立出来的王国成为独立的国家，统一为南斯拉夫，然后再次分离。土耳其成立，奥匈帝国的合并和分离。斯大林治下重新占领前俄罗斯帝国领土，然后再次分离。
可以说，目前欧洲的帝国主义是欧盟，它主要有利于德国和法国，欧盟的扩张为这两个国家创造了更大的财富。

James Quantrill
, former History Teacher
Although European nations have a common heritage of Western civilization their ethnic and national divisions ran and run deep.
For example France and England, perhaps, should have been united, given that the Normans came from France before taking over England. Instead there was a long period of warfare over the French possessions of the English (although now of Norman descent) kings. Gradually the conflict became a nationalistic one as well as a dynastic one. The English kings even eventually came to speak English rather than French.
There were, over the centuries various balances of power. Sometimes someone would try to overthrow that balance; Napoleon is a good example, and later, Hitler. Britain played a role in ensuring such a thing did not happen as it was felt not to be in its interest.
Despite the separate nations a number of European powers were strong enough to expand outwardly. Sometimes this led to more wars with European rivals and sometimes it was a safety valve.

尽管欧洲国家拥有西方文明的共同遗产，但他们的民族和国家分裂却一直在进行，而且根深蒂固。
例如，鉴于诺曼人在占领英格兰之前来自法国，法国和英格兰也许应该统一。然而相反，为了争夺英国（虽然现在是诺曼人的后裔）国王在法国的属地，双方发生了长期的战争。渐渐地，冲突变成了民族主义的冲突，也变成了王朝的冲突。英国国王甚至最终开始讲英语而不是法语。
几个世纪以来，出现了各种权力的平衡。有时有人会试图推翻这种平衡；拿破仑就是一个很好的例子，后来还有希特勒。英国在确保这种事情不会发生方面发挥了作用，因为统一的欧洲被认为不符合其利益。
尽管有着许多不同的国家。一些欧洲大国还是强大到足以向外扩张。有时这导致了与欧洲对手的更多战争，有时则是一个安全阀。

John Flynn
, lives in Belfast Born and International Traveler.
The Imperialism is now long gone so the statement depends on your definition of ‘successful’ as ultimately empires failed.
European powers after a long time of trying to conquer each other with varying degrees of success and such successes for variable periods of time (short occupation to very long periods) eventually decided on the European unx and have for the most part united their interests while preserving their respective cultures and sovereignties.

帝国主义现在早已不复存在，所以这种说法取决于你对"成功"的定义，因为最终帝国都会失落。
欧洲列强经过长时间的相互征服，取得了不同程度的成功，而且这种成功的时间不一（从短期占领到非常长的时间），最终决定成立欧盟，并在大多数情况下将其利益统一起来，同时保留了各自的文化和主权。

David Paul Evans
, A passion for British and military history
I'm not entirely sure the premise of the question is true. If you look at the current borders of Europe, there are only a handful of countries that weren't either smaller states that United into larger ones (e.g. Germany, Italy), or countries that were part of larger Empires, or both, and often for long periods. For example pretty much all of Eastern Europe was part of the Austro-Hungarian, Russian or Ottoman empires until WW1. Only in the west was the map of Europe in the late 19th century (height of imperialism) closer to today's borders, but overall there were less than half the number of European countries there are today. So intra-European imperialism peaked at roughly the same time as extra-European imperialism.

我不完全确定这个问题的前提是正确的。如果你看一下欧洲目前的边界，只有少数几个国家不是由较小的国家合并成的较大的国家（像德国、意大利那样），或者之前曾属于较大帝国的一部分，或者两者都是，而且往往是长期的。例如，几乎所有的东欧国家在一战前都是奥匈帝国、俄罗斯帝国或奥斯曼帝国的一部分。只有西部地区在19世纪末（帝国主义的鼎盛时期）的欧洲地图更接近于今天的边界，但总体而言，当时欧洲国家的数量还不到今天的一半。因此，欧洲对内的帝国主义与欧洲对外的帝国主义大致在同一时间达到顶峰。

Jeff Swann
, Manager (2013-present)
In Spain, the Spanish crown united several different kingdoms on the Iberian peninsula over the course of several centuries.
Several hundred fractious German principalities were united in the German empire during the 19th century.
The Italian principalities formed into a national state in the 19th century.
France even had a similar period of national integration in the early 19th century where they got rid of all traditional feudal divisions of the kingdom and created new units of national administration, encouraged everyone in France that spoke a dialect to learn French, etc.
In a sense, all four of these powers did unify themselves.

在西班牙，西班牙王室在几个世纪的时间里统一了伊比利亚半岛的几个不同的王国。
在19世纪，几百个分裂的德意志公国被统一为德意志帝国。
意大利各公国在19世纪形成了一个民族国家。
法国甚至在19世纪初也有过类似的民族融合时期，他们摆脱了所有传统的封建王国的划分，建立了新的国家行政单位，鼓励法国所有讲方言的人学习法语，等等。
从某种意义上说，这四个大国的确都统一了自己。
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David Meagher
, BS Political Science, The University of Tennessee (1981)
Usually when one power has a better military technology it can take over a lesser equipped military power. But the European powers shared mostly the same technology. For a brief time, the Mongols had better military technology and swept European powers before them. But when opposing powers share the same technology, its hard to cleanly win.

通常情况下，当一个大国拥有更好的军事技术时，它可以接管一个装备较差的军事大国。但欧洲列强大多共享相同的技术。在一个短暂的时期内，蒙古人拥有更好的军事技术，于是横扫了他们面前的欧洲列强。但当对立的大国共享相同的技术时，就很难干净利落地取得胜利。