How did Europe get so advanced

[Princeps]

No, not fully. Yes, Baghdad was the capital of the caliphate and perhaps the greatest cultural centre, yet it has already been declining in every way.

Yes it had, however, the mesopotamian area was still rich compared to many other places around the world. It was only Baghdad that Mongols raided, it was the entire area of twin rivers and more.

Much of Baghdad was already burned at the turn of X/XI century anyway.

I doubt that. You might provide a good source.

Think about it. Let's take United States, if the eastern half, and parts of the west would fall into the hands of ruthless and cold Canadian barbarians, who would raid and destroy every city all the way to Denver, Dallas and Miami. Major US grainbaskets would be burned, reducing agricultural production to 10%. Now, then you'd ask, why did US fall? After all, California thrived???

 

[Shaihulud]

You can't possibly discount the fact that europeans actually had far better weapons and tactics than the chinese, rebellion or no rebellion.

I did not discount them, it has already been mentioned. I merely pointed out what i considered to be major points in the discussion. China does have inferior weaponry, but it maintained an arsenal of gunpowder weapons such as flintlocks and cannons importantly it outnumbers the Western powers that were in the orient by a very significant margin.

but the numbers of that rebellion are exaggerated and is considered the second deadliest war in history besides WW2...

the number is still unbelievably high because this is before the use of pre
WW1 machine gun weapons and that it was a civil war

By all mean, find a reputable source to disprove it. The estimates are up to about 30 million. A mistaken belief is that China does not use gunpowder weapons, they do and the period of the rebellion is about 10yrs. The various army that China maintained were the largest in the World at that time, up to a million strong, so i don't see why there are doubts about the casualties. Another reason that might account for the decline is the liberal use of opium by the upper classes. In a monarchy, it is very bad when most of your nobles are drug fiends.

 

[Cheezy the Wiz]

Think about it. Let's take United States, if the eastern half, and parts of the west would fall into the hands of ruthless and cold Canadian barbarians, who would raid and destroy every city all the way to Denver, Dallas and Miami. Major US grainbaskets would be burned, reducing agricultural production to 10%. Now, then you'd ask, why did US fall? After all, California thrived???

An excellent comparison.

 

[Squonk]

I doubt that. You might provide a good source.

Don't make me translate another long part of Yahya al-Antaki's chronicle just for the benefit of one post...
I'll sumarise it: Byzantines captured Nisibis. Citizins of Al-Mawsil got scared and wanted to move to Baghdad, and so, terror and disturbances reached that city as well. Buwayhids decided to create a giant army against Byzantines, and armed the mob, but in result shias started fighting the the sunnis and vice versa. Chaos broke out. Not being able to stop the fighting otherwise, the caliph decided to burn the eastern (or was it western, I forgot) part of the city - the other half was peaceful. The fire broke out of control, especially that no-one dared to try to extinguish it...
etc.

Think about it. Let's take United States, if the eastern half, and parts of the west would fall into the hands of ruthless and cold Canadian barbarians, who would raid and destroy every city all the way to Denver, Dallas and Miami. Major US grainbaskets would be burned, reducing agricultural production to 10%. Now, then you'd ask, why did US fall? After all, California thrived???

California seems to me the only decent state west to Illinois, so I think You are exagerrating. Lets put it this way: even though ww2 destroyed Europe completely, it didn't mean destruction of western civ. Even if Europe ceased to exist today, it wouldn't mean end of western world.

 

[Spartan117]

I did not discount them, it has already been mentioned. I merely pointed out what i considered to be major points in the discussion. China does have inferior weaponry, but it maintained an arsenal of gunpowder weapons such as flintlocks and cannons importantly it outnumbers the Western powers that were in the orient by a very significant margin.

By all mean, find a reputable source to disprove it. The estimates are up to about 30 million. A mistaken belief is that China does not use gunpowder weapons, they do and the period of the rebellion is about 10yrs. The various army that China maintained were the largest in the World at that time, up to a million strong, so i don't see why there are doubts about the casualties. Another reason that might account for the decline is the liberal use of opium by the upper classes. In a monarchy, it is very bad when most of your nobles are drug fiends.

30million is obviously less then the number that died in WW2, of course they used gunpowder but did not have machine gun weapons which easily ended life aka WW1, 1800's tactics do not bode well in WW1 warfare, so extremely high casualy rate would happen

some estimates go as high as like a hundred million or more...which is highly unlikely considereing weapons used, and it is a civil war


by the way i hinted at that number by referring it as the second deadliest war which would be around that number

more high tech weapons generally more casualties

a possible reason to OP is that european nations were in such competition with each other through the years which led to more imerialistic nations which leads to having better tactics in warfare from being in constant warfare

 

[blindside]

Also, there seems to be a constant desire to improve on things, to learn new things, and a tendeny towards and fostering of ingenuity in Europe, more so than in the the rest of the world ( I lump America into this group, too). China got on top, and then decided they were better than everybody else, so they rejected all outside thinking. They stopped searching the oceans for things ( they got as far as Zanzibar) because they decided that there was nothing worth seeing out there, because they were the best.
The Islamic Kingdoms believed that all outside thinking was evil, and the true path was shown to them through Allah, thus they did not take well the inventions of Europe or India, and fell behind.
In Africa and America, the natives never seemed to progress beyond the Iron Age, why this is I do not know, but they just went stagnant. Perhaps the pack animals mentioned above, or that lack of sanctioning or desire for ingenuity. inherent in their societies.

See now that is a truly poor understanding of history.

 

[Shaihulud]

some estimates go as high as like a hundred million or more...which is highly unlikely considereing weapons used, and it is a civil war

That number is surely overrated, but it was a bad bad time, there was also famines and myriad other disasters at the same time. Overall estimates for the casualties resulting from the rebellion may exceed 30 million.

a possible reason to OP is that european nations were in such competition with each other through the years which led to more imerialistic nations which leads to having better tactics in warfare from being in constant warfare

China has been in constant warfare as well, although it is one nation, there were always revolts, invasions and raids all the year round. I fault the lack of innovation on the central authority instead. Imo, I willl place the dominance of European power during the 19th century, arising from the Industrial revolution, steam powered warships, rifles, artilleries were able to be manufactured at a massive quantities. There are propably many reasons why the Industrial revolution takes place in the West, but i think main reason is what you mentioned, economic competition between nations.

 

[Plotinus]

In Africa and America, the natives never seemed to progress beyond the Iron Age, why this is I do not know, but they just went stagnant. Perhaps the pack animals mentioned above, or that lack of sanctioning or desire for ingenuity. inherent in their societies.

I've posted about this before. Some of the "natives" in Africa were pretty advanced, such as the empires of the Saheb or Ethiopia in the late Middle Ages. Don't forget that most of the gold in Europe in the late Middle Ages was actually mined in Mali! However, nation states and powerful empires were hard to build in Africa for a number of reasons. The first is the climate: not all that much of Africa is really good for supporting large populations. That means relatively scattered populations. Then you've got the (related) fact that most African cultures revolve around the concept of the tribe. Most Africans regard themselves as members of a tribe first and foremost. This means that even within a single country or empire, there's an inbuilt tendency to fragment. Historically, whenever the rules of African empires have become a bit weaker, the empires have almost immediately splintered along tribal lines. This is one reason why the arrival of Europeans was such a disaster for the African countries which existed at the time. For example, the sale of firearms to the peoples of Kongo destroyed the central government in one fell swoop, because it meant that all the local lords suddenly had serious military power of their own and saw no need to kowtow to the king any more.

For example, some of Augustine of Hippo's works are translated into English and were quite eyeopeners in how he described his world and the changes that were going on around him (I went ahead and read of the time period Stark spoke most about). And Augustine lived for seventy five years right at the transition of the final end of the Empire and the emergence of Christian Europe.

Of course, there was still a long way to go before western Europe was really Christian. Also, I should think that all of Augustine's voluminous works have been translated into English. You can read most of the important ones here (click on the "v2" after each title rather than the main "Volume I" etc link, as these are much easier to read). It's the stuffy nineteenth-century Ante-Nicene and Nicene Fathers series, unfortunately, but at least it's free. Strikingly, if you want gloomy views of the changes going on around them, you'll find much more in third-century writers than in fifth-century ones. For example, Cyprian of Carthage has some interesting comments on the fact, as he saw it, that the world had reached its old age. As Gibbon commented, the third century AD was one of the worst periods of time to live through - considerably worse than the fifth, I should think.

 

[Steph]

The Europeans are more oriented toward see that Africa or China, because of the shape of Europe (number of Peninsula, islands, length of coasts). So they were more likely to find America first.
America was an "almost" empty continent, with civs that were quite backward and relatively easy to conquer by Europe.

So the Europeans civs were able to get a large amount of new wealth at relatively low cost, and it boosted them greatly. Especially as they had to fiercily compete with each others.

 

[Stolen Rutters]

Also, I should think that all of Augustine's voluminous works have been translated into English. You can read most of the important ones here (click on the "v2" after each title rather than the main "Volume I" etc link, as these are much easier to read).

Thanks for the link. I had to spend hours searching for hideous-to-read translations and many hours reading them. This should help. Stuffy or not, it looks easier.

Strikingly, if you want gloomy views of the changes going on around them, you'll find much more in third-century writers than in fifth-century ones. For example, Cyprian of Carthage has some interesting comments on the fact, as he saw it, that the world had reached its old age. As Gibbon commented, the third century AD was one of the worst periods of time to live through - considerably worse than the fifth, I should think.

Straight on! That's exactly the point I was trying to make. The period after the decline of Rome was actually a period of advancement and improvement, not the dark ages of barbrian Europe as stereotyped in so many places and inferred in the first post. Europe was way more complex than that.

I didn't have any better sources than the ones I pointed out since this time period is pretty new to me. I was just amazed by how positively the 5th and 6th century contemporaries I managed to pin down (translated on the web) saw their world.

Significant philosophical and scientific advancements that occured and developed through the middle ages were to take root and spread out from those small enclaves of Europe that accepted the changes and didn't crush them like most of the rest of the world would. It didn't have to be invented there, it just had to be accepted.

 

[Cheezy the Wiz]

See now that is a truly poor understanding of history.

So enlighten me smartass.

 

[Stolen Rutters]

How did Europe get so advanced?

I believe significant changes occured during and after the end of the Roman Empire, where a new worldview based on the idea that tomorrow can be better than today and that it's our responsiblity to help make it happen. Reading greek philosophers, they seem to be content with whatever the world throws at them. Reading Imperial Roman orators, they seem to push the idea that one world under empire is the pinnacle, the ultimate, and the Romans know best. Almost universally, tomorrow isn't expected to be tremendously different.

Some philosophers in the early middle ages seems to beat to a new drum, reading them you get the idea that "the best is yet to come". The world-to-come should be striven towards, not struck down or held back. Charge toward the future with your actions today. Invest in labor saving devices and concepts. Waterwheels can free up so much of your time for other things. Wear those spectacles. Educate your children... truly educate your children. And so on.

 

[Fox Mccloud]

The Europeans were always conquering weak tribal nations. By the time the Spanish and Portuguese empires fell, The other Europeans were already colonizing Africa. The Europeans were always conquering weak nations, adding their power to their empires, and gaining more and more power. They only got to the Mid East, India and China after conquering small nations.

 

[Serutan]

If memory serves (corrections gladly accepted), the
Black Death also factored in to European advancement,
since it wiped out a lot of scribes and skilled artisans.
This provided an incentive to invent things to replace/
assist the survivors.

 

[Verbose]

If memory serves (corrections gladly accepted), the
Black Death also factored in to European advancement,
since it wiped out a lot of scribes and skilled artisans.
This provided an incentive to invent things to replace/
assist the survivors.

Or it was rather a factor making labour a scarce commodity, hence expensive and valuable, hence a factor for improving efficiency in how Europeans went about things.

That's one factor brought up at times.

Then there could be the long-term effects of the medieval invention of "the legal person", very useful for the church.
Unlike in just about every other legal system in the world, in canonical law an owner did no longer have to be a physical person (mortal) but a legal person in the form of an organisation, a company etc., thus technically immortal, with no risk of the estate being broken up in inheritence settlemets.
Which did early capitalism a good turn, allowing rapid accumulation without the otherwise common cyclical breaking up of the means assembled.

That's another factor brought up at times as part of the explanation for "Why Europe?"

Lots of incremental little steps, working away in ununanticipated ways for a long time.

 

[Serutan]

Lots of incremental little steps, working away in ununanticipated ways for a long time.

That probably sums it up best of all.

 

[Marla_Singer]

The Europeans are more oriented toward see that Africa or China, because of the shape of Europe (number of Peninsula, islands, length of coasts). So they were more likely to find America first.
America was an "almost" empty continent, with civs that were quite backward and relatively easy to conquer by Europe.

So the Europeans civs were able to get a large amount of new wealth at relatively low cost, and it boosted them greatly. Especially as they had to fiercily compete with each others.

You're on the right track but I think there's even more to say about this.

At the beginning of the 15th century, the Chinese Emperor Yongle launched several expeditions accross the oceans lead by the explorer Zheng He. During his multiple trips, the Chinese admiral went as far as Mozambique in Austral Africa and it is very likely that he actually even landed in Australia.

Finally, those expeditions lead to nothing, the successive Emperors being interested about the knowledge being brought back but considering there were no interests to settle in those empty lands which were too far away. Those expeditions were more about prestige than anything else, the purpose being to affirm the political leadership of the Imperial family.

In Europe, we all know things turned out differently, but the real question is why. Granted, great expeditions weren't meant strictly as prestige but had a commercial motive since the purpose was to find another way to bring in Europe Indian spices. But those spices were interesting only because of the political influence it could bring to the power controlling the route. If there were no competition between European powers to master those routes, there wouldn't have been such a rush.

The big difference between Europe and the other great civilizations is that Europe has never unified as did China, India, the Incas, the Aztecs or Arabia. Once all the reachable lands are controlled by a unique power, the political conflicts consist quickly in actually getting into power for the sake of power. On the other side, when there's no unification and a region is divided in multiple powers, the main political conflicts are about getting more influences than the other powers.

The reason why Europe hasn't unified is a matter of mere geography. The Roman Empire could reach such a unification because it was mastering the Mediterranean Sea. Considering that the Arabs were on the other side of the shore at the times of medieval Europe, such a unification was impossible because that sea couldn't be controlled. As a result, the only unification which may prevail would have been about continental Europe in itself., however, continental Europe is naturally divided by many barriers : Europe is divided in multiple peninsulas and the parts which are not peninsulas are split by mountain ranges.

That specific geography of Europe was not only making conquest harder, but it was also enhancing cultural differences, as physical geography was naturally putting Europeans apart of one another, those cultural differences making assimilation of conqueered lands even harder.

If Europe conqueered the world, it's simply because that civilization was divided in smaller entities being in competition against one another. The conquest of the Americas wouldn't have been so fast if there wasn't a competition between Portugal and Spain, with England, France and the Netherlands joining the game later.

As for the reason why Europe gets advanced faster than any other civilizations in military warfare, well, that comes from the same reason. As conquest didn't work because of the natural barriers dividing Europe, European rulers have constantly tried harder.

 

[Lotus49]

How come when the Arabs, Chineese, Aztecs, Africans, and Indians were way stronger and more advanced, all ended up being colonised by backwards, and weak Europe?

Audacious greed.

 

[Rossiya]

yes, the ottoman empire could have been seen to be the world power throughout the middle ages.

 

[ParkCungHee]

I'm surprised that no one has mentioned this, but I think the concept of a Nation-State was fundemental to the conquest of Africa and America, though I can't say the same about Asia, which also developed the concept.
As has been mentioned the idea of a nation really didn't exist in most of Africa and America as Europeans understand it. In fact its probably one of the reasons why Africa continues to do so poorly today.
Africa and America were largely made up of numerous small, impermenant groups. Once finished mucking about in the dark ages, the ideas of citizenship and loyalty to a nation struck home in Europe.
The underlying feature of every great civilization has been the concept of loyalty to a permanent national entity. Though the mongols possessed the military might to conquer asia and the middle east, they lacked this concept, and soon broke apart, while Rome, Egypt and China lasted for centuries.