That is pretty funny, how the words civilization already been apply in different usage like the modern nation state. While the two are at least for me different. Civilization doesn't have the things that nation state have which is a clear and strict border, from that point how the civilization work or early civilization is pretty much different with the modern nation state.
I would take it a step further and argue that "civilization" is a largely meaningless concept which is generally molded to fit the preconceptions of whosoever chooses to use the word.
Either you define civilization too narrowly and unintentionally (or intentionally, in many cases) exclude a number of societies for arbitrary (usually Eurocentric or Eurasiocentric biases) reasons creating an incomplete and unsatisfactory image of human existence
Or you paint your canvas too broadly and create an enormously reductionist, mostly pointless, rather self-evident picture.
Just picking a civilization at (not quite) random opens a myriad questions.
What the hell characterizes the "German" civilization? Does that refer to "Germany" just from the formation of the Deutsches Kaisserreich in 1871? In which case I would assume we would also include the Nazi Reich and current Bundesrepublik. But if we're doing that, what do we do with Alsace-Lorraine, Prussia, Sorbia, etc. Are they included? This definition falls apart immediately as one of the leaders for Germany (in CIV, anyway) was Frederick, who died just under a century before the formation of the Kaisserreich. Are we defining it by some nebulous concept of "Germany" as some geographical region occupying Central Europe? When do we define this? Do we include the Germanī? What about in more recent times? Do we include the Holy Roman Empire as some kind of cultural/spiritual ancestor to the modern concept of Germany? In which case, which parts do we include? Is Austria part of the "German" civilization? What about the various non-German ethnicities which fell under the German Habsburg Empire? Czechia, Hungary, Wallachia, Serbia, Slovenia, Veneto? What about the Poles? They held a not inconsiderable sway on the HRE for some time in the Medieval period, should they be included as well? Considering that the Kaisserreich held swaths of modern-day Poland, what parts should be considered part of the "Polish" civilization, and which the "German" civilization? What about the Franks, would they be part of Germany? At which point would they cease to be considered part of the "German" civilization and instead emerge as the wholly new "French" civilization? Of course all of this quibbling falls apart when you consider that the Holy Roman Empire was a civilization in CIV.
Ok so literal geopolitical borders are out, and cultural geopolitical borders aren't exactly easily definable too. We could try linguistic borders, but, again, you're going to run into all sorts of trouble. You could start by saying "The German Civilization encompasses all German speaking peoples". Well that's nice, except German as anything even remotely approach a unified language didn't really emerge until the 18th century at the very earliest, and even that's a stretch. A lot of German linguistic historians tend to place the emergence of Modern German as we know it as beginning some time in the early 16th century, generally centering around the emergence of Martin Luther. Except if you place that as your standard all you have for your "German Civilization" is Saxony and its surrounding regions with more of Germany being encompassed as you go along. But you still run into problems. What do you do with Bayrisch and Österdeutsch and Sweizedeutsch. How do you deal with the fact that George I, King of Great Britain spoke German, and Frederick II, King of Prussia spoke French? What do you do with Alemannic and Saxon and Hochdeutsch and Urdeutsch and Rhenish Germanic and Frankish. When do you include and exclude the Dutch civilization. My point is this stuff is messy, even if you assume that France, Germany, Poland, Rome(?), Spain, Dutch (again, whatever this means), and Sweden all constitute separate civilizations, let alone that such a concept exists or existed in reality, which I certainly do not.
And even all this is leaving aside measuring and ranking all these poorly defined and delineated "civilizations" on some kind of "historical influence-o-meter" as if influence is some kind of objective, quantifiable Thing.
anyway
tl;dr: lolcivilizations
).
