Why did Western civilization become more advanced?

I haven't finished Landes yet but I do have to agree on it being a light-weight work when compared to other historical works. The World And The West has been a more enjoyable and informing read than Landes so far. Curtin does a better job at sticking to a neutral point compared to Landes.

Anyways, this only makes my point more valid. Read, read and read. Read works of all kinds of authors.

(My words here mainly come Marius Jansen's "Making of modern Japan".)

I believe Japan was able to prosper for a number of reasons:
-Japan was intensely nationalistic. Nationalism was one of the greatest of the modernising forces. It ensured that the Japanese would come together to resist a foreign threat, unlike in India for example where political divisions were a hole in the armour through which European troops were able to pour. When foreigners arrived in Japan and the unequal treaty system began, the samurai were absolutely livid and this led to an intense desire to strengthen their country and push out the west. Traditional divides and even the government system which had been unopposed for centuries were thrown away with stunning speed and ease.
This is a simplification, of course- the actual politics of the Restoration were driven by the powerful tozama daimyo, but they needed this national sentiment to change the government.

-Japan learned from the past. In China, nationalism and xenophobia were crushed by western military force. The samurai could not save Japan by force of arms and this was known and understood by the both governments in Japan. The Japanese were able to restrain the militants and tolerate humiliation in the short term for long term gain. Their military and government had a degree of discipline that was not found elsewhere in the world, except in the west, and this gave Japan to means to bide it's time where others before it gave in to temptation and handed the west an excuse to attack.
This is another simplification, since the men behind the Meiji restoration were theoretically the ones who aimed to discard toleration and embrace war with the west. However, these men were quickly brought under control after the shogunate fell.

-Japan had developed a highly sophisticated economy with an excellent (by contemporary western standards) education system. They had no railroads or steam ships, obviously, but their road system was excellent and they had plenty of ships and sailors. All Japan really lacked to be a full modern economy was the technology and the raw materials. By accepting the unequal treaties and keeping firm discipline they were able to import western expertise and this expertise was put in practice by competent and fanatically motivated Japanese under the co-ordination of the central government in stark contrast to the Chinese modernisation which was essentially a useless mass of chaos.

-Japan had it's back to the wall. The Japanese took the western threat far more seriously than the Chinese did. The Chinese believed they could handle the west right up to the Opium wars, by which time it was too late. Japan had no such illusions about the threat the west posed and they regarded modernisation as a crusade- a struggle for survival. The Iwakura voyage was a sign of just how motivated the Japanese were.

WICKLC1 said:

This would explain the lack of civiliztion in Africa, but I don't know why Europe went ahead of Asia and the middleast, because there was some competition in those areas.

Click to expand...

This is off-topic, but: lack of civilization????? Who was arguably the most widely-known king in the early 1300s? Mansa Musa, the king of Mali. What was one of the only states that could not be conquered by expansionist Islam in the 8th-10th centuries? Makuria, one of the successor states to the Kuhorsehockye Kingdom, who reportedly even sacked Cairo to convince the Muslims to treat their Christian subjects well. What country benefited the most from the Atlantic Slave Trade in it's early-mid years? The Ashante kingdom, an African state that was barely influenced by Europe.

qoou said:

This is off-topic, but: lack of civilization????? Who was arguably the most widely-known king in the early 1300s? Mansa Musa, the king of Mali. What was one of the only states that could not be conquered by expansionist Islam in the 8th-10th centuries? Makuria, one of the successor states to the Kuhorsehockye Kingdom, who reportedly even sacked Cairo to convince the Muslims to treat their Christian subjects well. What country benefited the most from the Atlantic Slave Trade in it's early-mid years? The Ashante kingdom, an African state that was barely influenced by Europe.

Click to expand...

They were important and civilized, and had notable cultural flowerings, but prisoners of their geography and environment with desert to the north, disease filled jungles to the south and frequent droughts and raids by tribal peoples. They never acquired a population density or organizational acumen to compare with Eurasia.

Re: Japan, cultural unity, dense and interwoven populations and economies, and a leadership that was more 'not stupid' rather than super genius but competent all the same, being on a island to protect them from raiders and interlopers all contributed to their success. There are probably as many reasons for the Restoration as there are for the Enlightenment.

THERE IS ONLY ONE SOLID ANSWER...

East is where the sun rises up, right? Then west is where its going to set.

THAT'S WHY CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS MADE THE JOURNEY WESTWARD... TO FOLLOW THE SUN!!!

just joking, don't be mad, ok?

WHO TOLD YOU that scy12?

Do you saw the Islamic world invent their own jet fighter?

Did you even saw the Islamic world made their own passenger jets?

NO!

But still, if you're talking about medieval times, Avicenna was an Arab? Right?

Zhuge_Liang said:

THERE IS ONLY ONE SOLID ANSWER...

East is where the sun rises up, right? Then west is where its going to set.

THAT'S WHY CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS MADE THE JOURNEY WESTWARD... TO FOLLOW THE SUN!!!

just joking, don't be mad, ok?

WHO TOLD YOU that scy12?

Do you saw the Islamic world invent their own jet fighter?

Did you even saw the Islamic world made their own passenger jets?

NO!

But still, if you're talking about medieval times, Avicenna was an Arab? Right?

Click to expand...

I am sorry, but are you drank ?

Zhuge_Liang said:

Do you saw the Islamic world invent their own jet fighter?

Click to expand...

Well, there's the Azarakhsh and the Saeqeh. The Pakistan Aeronautical Complex is the world's fifth largest aircraft producer.

Dachspmg said:

Well, they did go for territorial expansion in Europe. The thing was that even with the vast silver and gold resources of the colonies - even with the superproductive San Luis Potosi mines - even with Castile, and the profitable Netherlands - even with the large, well-trained professional army from the Reconquista, led by some of the most brilliant military leaders in history, like de Cordoba - the Spanish still couldn't kill Francois I and his little rump kingdom that stood between all their holdings. Their wealth increased, but so did their strategic commitments, which required more wealth to hold than they produced, save the Americas. Without the precious metals and spices from the West, Spain wouldn't be able to fuel wars in Italy, the Low Countries, Hungary, and the Pyrenees simultaneously. Had they reorganized the Castilian finances and improved the taxation mode, turning that territory into something profitable again, it might have worked, but IMHO it was too entrenched and the nobility were too unwilling to give up their powers, and you'd probably have a brief civil war to deal with, with all of the attendant disadvantages that brings.

Italy seems to have done well enough by that.

Eastern Romans don't count?

Click to expand...

It's funny, I'm not so sure you can talk about either "Spain" nor "territorial expansion in Europe" in that era, a lot of the fighting was defending inherited lands in the name of one dude who happened to be king. It was an accidental empire and it wasn't really "Spanish." Most of its soldiers were Italians, and the only unifying factors on the peninsula were the Inquistion and the church... it was a loose dynastic union of several crowns with totally distinct laws, and all really quite subordinated to broader Hapsburg family interests. This was especially in absolutist and easily exploitable Castilla, as compared to the greater counterforces existing in the territories of the Crown of Aragon and the limited monarchy that existed there.

Not denying that the empire wasn't a disaster for Spain, though. Overstretch and exploitation of Castilla was a direct result of being ruled by the same people who also had interests in those hereditary lands and the place did a lot better after the War of Succession ended its central role in European affairs and the Bourbon absolute monarchs could focus on domestic reforms and territorial integration.

Arwon said:

It's funny, I'm not so sure you can talk about either "Spain" nor "territorial expansion in Europe" in that era, a lot of the fighting was defending inherited lands in the name of one dude who happened to be king.

Click to expand...

And that dude was king because of a series of planned marriage alliances. Not all territorial expansion is conducted with fire and sword.

But on another level, I do agree with you: the Habsburgs were on the whole (mostly in the earlier part of the 16th century) mostly attempting to defend what was theirs. That doesn't change the fact that if they had achieved most or all of their "defensive" aims, they would have effective control of Western Europe. The heresies in Germany would be crushed, England would be marginalized, France would be puppeted, and Spain, Portugal, the HRE, and the Italian states would swear fealty to the Habsburg kings and emperors. You can see this pop up in all sorts of contemporary sources; Bacon, for instance, made a demagogic letter out of listing all of the places where the king of Spain and the Holy Roman Emperor were crushing revolts.

Arwon said:

It was an accidental empire

Click to expand...

Two families planning to merge their holdings in a marriage isn't what I consider "accidental". Same thing with four families. And getting oneself elected Holy Roman Emperor isn't usually an accident.

Arwon said:

and it wasn't really "Spanish."

Click to expand...

True; it was Habsburg. It still had one ruler in the form of Charles V, until it had two rulers, who coordinated their operations to an alarmingly close extent until the end of the Thirty Years' War. That's a hundred and fifty years of one unbreakable alliance covering most of Western Europe. Pretty scary stuff.

Arwon said:

This was especially in absolutist and easily exploitable Castilla,

Click to expand...

Calling Castile, with its Mesta and other such privileged groups blocking any effective taxation "easily exploitable" is a joke. France and England had far better resource management and mobilization.

Arwon said:

Not denying that the empire wasn't a disaster for Spain, though. Overstretch and exploitation of Castilla was a direct result of being ruled by the same people who also had interests in those hereditary lands and the place did a lot better after the War of Succession ended its central role in European affairs and the Bourbon absolute monarchs could focus on domestic reforms and territorial integration.

Click to expand...

Eh. Spain would have done just fine and dandy if they'd have let the Netherlands go; many councilors at the time were telling Philip II to just "allow the Dutch to rot in their heresy", but he brilliantly decided to spend a helluva lot of money to get absolutely nowhere. The United Provinces were a bloody loss, and the army up there was a bigger resource drain than was the army in Hungary or the fleets in Italy. If Phil had cut his losses in the late '80s, before the disaster of the Armada, Spain might have been able to get back on its feet.

Zhuge_Liang said:

Do you saw the Islamic world invent their own jet fighter?

Did you even saw the Islamic world made their own passenger jets?

Click to expand...

Did you ever see Europe invent the alphabet? No, you didn't, and that's way earlier in the tech tree than Advanced Flight.

I mean accidental in the sense of the number of deaths that lead to the Hapsburgs taking the two Crowns in one person and the fact that it came from entirely beyond the Spanish monarchs' control. Not so much the formation of a Hapsburg dynasty in itself was accidental - I didn't mean to imply that there was no intent on their part. I simply mean that the confluences of coincidences that led to Spain's two crowns being fused to it at that moment--the same moment as the Americas were being colonised--were quite accidental, and I don't think the Hapsburgs could have prayed for a better outcome than what occurred.

The entire house of Trastámara had to die first, which was at least three deaths to put Juana on the throne in the first place, and Filipe el Hermoso had to die, she had to go mad.... a lot of Castillian interests didn't really want foreign monarchs, for what turned out to be fairly sensible reasons. Even the grand nobility hesitated before backing Charles in the War of the Comunidades.

And "easily exploitable" means that after about 1520 the king could do whatever he wanted, which in concrete terms means that the laws of Castilla allowed greater tax extraction than the laws of Aragón, Valencia or Catalonia. This was a result of both the close alliance between monarchy and high nobility and the associated lack of resistance or protest mechanisms or power-bases that the cities possessed.

I certainly don't mean resource mobilisation in any productive sense of the word, I mean the simple ability to extract a higher proportion of what was produced already, even though it helped kill that very golden cow through its targetting. Things like the alcabala tax on all commercial transactions, as well as high taxes generally, absolutely crushed commerce in Castilla, the merchant class of Castilla had essentially disappeared by 1650. Whoever held the Crown of Castille was able to suck whatever they wanted out of the cities and merchants, as well as the peasantry, while leaving the nobility more or less alone, and the structure of land ownership tended to give less rights and more exploitation to the peasants than the usual shared/split property formula in the other territories.

The mesta is actually a symptom of this, it demonstrates the weakness of all interests other than the grand aristocracy and high church and the monarchy's continuing willingness to allow them to trample all others.

Carlos I and his successors were virtually never obligated to call a Cortes with any power after 1520 and the crushing of the Comunidades revolt and the interests (city, petty aristocracy, merchants, etc) that supported said revolt. The initially extraordinary "servicios" tax, which had to be asked from the cortes and approved in the old medieval setup, became institutionalised, regular, and a major source of income. This was all in contrast to the situation in other territories in Spain, still with limited medieval-style pact-based monarchies with system of laws or fueros in place restricting his ability to demand tribute and taxation as existed in Aragón, Catalonia and Valencia. This is all essentially why Castilla supported the bulk of imperial expenditures, it was simply easy for the holder of all those Crowns to do so there than in their other territories.

I'd argue that rather than being able to extract too little wealth, the monarchy was able to extract too much and this had a detrimental effect on the sources of later French, Dutch and English dominance (all the progressive modernising bourgeois type forces).

Incidentally, it's really difficult to force myself to write a lot of these terms in English, I keep wanting to say "alta nobleza" and "dominio útil" because I've been studying it all in Spanish...

LightSpectra said:

Why is it that the West is the one that first came upon advanced weaponry, human rights, liberal democracy, etc.? The Islamic world was far more advanced during the Middle Ages, and the East was far richer. Why is it that the West became eventually became more advanced?

Click to expand...

The 6 Killer Apps

https://www.ted.com/talks/niall_ferguson_the_6_killer_apps_of_prosperity
Over the past few centuries, Western cultures have been very good at creating general prosperity for themselves. Historian Niall Ferguson asks: Why the West, and less so the rest? He suggests half a dozen big ideas from Western culture — call them the 6 killer apps — that promote wealth, stability and innovation. And in this new century, he says, these apps are all shareable.

Click to expand...

Have just started a re-read of his 'Civilization' to find how far back he has to go to find each App's beginning.

Rodney Stark takes it back to the Greeks.

Ian Morris takes it back to pre-history.

Braudel takes each Civilization and analyzes it's strengths and weakness. He has a bit about Aristotle and an Indian philosopher that's revealing.

All this is IIRC, read each, but some time ago.

We awoken this thread from its eternal rest only to hear about the One Who Should Be Not Named? What a waste of a necro....

Even more when the answer is obvious: China had a dry coal mines, Britain had a wet coal mines that required steam engine to pump the water out.

After Zheng He China became obsessed with going back to the moon and wasted all their resources building junk-space-shuttles instead of making tanks and trains and stuff. Just like when good ole' Ronnie Reagan tricked the Russkies into wasting their money on ICBMs.

Algeroth said:

We awoken this thread from its eternal rest only to hear about the One Who Should Be Not Named? What a waste of a necro....

Even more when the answer is obvious: China had a dry coal mines, Britain had a wet coal mines that required steam engine to pump the water out.

Click to expand...

Who is that?

abradley said:

Who is that?

Click to expand...

probably Niall Ferguson , but am not historian enough to discuss why CFC does not seem to like him . And thanks for bringing up a good thread or something ... And also China had a million coolies or something to put to work , while them Britischers were like a drop in the ocean . Decided who would work more on perfidy or something ; despite all the classics of backstabbing from China .

r16 said:

probably Niall Ferguson , but am not historian enough to discuss why CFC does not seem to like him . And thanks for bringing up a good thread or something ... And also China had a million coolies or something to put to work , while them Britischers were like a drop in the ocean . Decided who would work more on perfidy or something ; despite all the classics of backstabbing from China .

Click to expand...

Thanks, am also at a loss for the dislike. Maybe because he's conservative or married to Ayaan Hirsi Ali an anti Islam advocate.

or maybe he , too , is an simplistic advocate of how Europeans rocked because they were white and the rest of the world were not . As said , haven't read him .

Ferguson is not well liked here because he's not a particularly good historian.

Owen Glyndwr said:

Ferguson is not well liked here because he's not a particularly good historian.

Click to expand...

In what way?