Person Asks Online "What Country Has The Craziest Rebranding Ever And Why?", Gets 27 Responses

More than thirty years ago, the famous American futurist Francis Fukuyama released his catchphrase book The End of History and the Last Man. It was 1992, the Soviet Union had just collapsed, China was confidently moving towards capitalism - and Fukuyama suggested that the spread of liberal democracy in the world was the pinnacle of the sociocultural evolution of humanity.

In other words, the 'end of history' in its traditional sense - with wars, spheres of influence, palace coups and ideological confrontations. It would be appropriate to insert some sarcastic meme here, but Fukuyama, to his credit, later emphasized once again that he was wrong. And recently he even said that he was too hasty in drawing conclusions.

Yes, the history of any country and state is a continuous chain of changes, for better or for worse. There are examples when, literally out of the blue, world hegemons rose up in a couple of decades, and prosperous, comfortable countries turned into something like Robert Rodriguez' 'Sin City'...

“In many ways, the development of countries is determined by economic factors - and their skillful use,” says Olga Kopylova, Ph.D., associate professor of economics at Odessa National Maritime University, with whom Bored Panda got in touch for a comment here. “When demand appears, rapid development begins, and here it depends only on those in power how wisely the use of the wealth that has fallen on them will be.”

“For example, at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries, the city of Manaus, deep in the Amazon forests, was one of the richest in the world - all because of the so-called 'rubber fever' mostly associated with the sharp increase in the number of cars in the world. However, the higher-ups there turned out to be not very far-sighted - and instead of investing in the infrastructure and the city's well-being, they chose to build luxurious villas, palaces and a even lavish opera house."

“It all ended as quickly as it began - new, more logistically convenient places for rubber production were found, and a significant part of the business in Manaus went bankrupt, and the era of prosperity lasted only a couple of decades,” Olga summarizes.

It is quite possible that the leaders of the countries of the Middle East, fabulously rich thanks to their oil and gas deposits, know the lessons of history and understand that this situation will not continue forever. And now they are trying to change the structure of their income by investing money around the world. Well, not all efforts end successfully - for example, the widely publicized Saudi Pro League in soccer, although it attracts superstars like Cristiano Ronaldo, does not look like a full-fledged business and sport project. But the approach as a whole is quite understandable and pretty much reasonable.

As for longer historical periods, yes, the Vikings, who once brought fear to all of Europe, after a thousand years have turned into sedate and respectable Norwegians (by the way, the so-called “Oil Fund” of Norway is another one, much more justified from a business point of view, approach to investing money earned from oil trading), and the Swiss mercenaries, once the desired goal of any medieval commander, are a thing of the past, giving way to one of the most peaceful and well-off states of the modern world...

Perhaps, in any country one can find examples of similar, effective or not-so-effective “state rebranding”, which has changed not only its perception in the world, but also, to a significant extent, the mentality of its citizens. And if you also have your own ideas about similar cases from world history - please feel free to share your opinion in the comments below.