How did the Western countries become so powerful?

[redtom]

Originally posted by Vrylakas
A whole series of reasons, in no particular order:

1. Separation of church and state (from the conflict between the Holy Roman Empire and the Church over who had pre-eminent power in the physical world). Kicking the clergy out of government was the best thing Western Civilization ever did for itself.

2. Competition: Europe is a peninsula with lots of peoples packed into it, which has always fostered competition (sometimes violent). European history in the last 3 centuries has been dominated by attempts to control or moderate the violent competition between countries and peoples, channeling their competition into economic avenues. Exhibit A: The EU.

3. Exploration and Colonialism: Not in the way many think though. When the Turks conquered Constantinople, unlike the earlier Moslem empire they cut all the ancient East-West trade routes. This kicked off the European Age of Exploration, as Europeans (the Portuguese first) went looking for an alternate route by sea to the East. Contrary to popular opinion, the colonies more often cost more than they paid back, in terms of supporting vast military forces over seas. However, this exploration and exposure to foreign cultures deeply enriched the Europeans' cultural awareness and more importantly forced them to develop sophisticated and standardized systems and technologies to deal with ocean navigation, fortification, supplying armies spread all over the world, communications, raising $$$ to support all this, etc. etc. etc. These all taught Europeans powerful lessons about social and political organization on a mass-scale.

4. Science: Philosophical gifts from the Classical world and the old Islamic scholars were consulted and mined for solutions to the problems of exploration and colonies I mention above. For as much as the church railed against Science, it stuck around because it consistently provided answers for pressing technical problems. The resulting growth of science would give the Western world its greatest asset:

5. Intellectual curiosity: A unique feature of Western Civilization is an interest in the rest of the universe. The Islamic scholars of ancient Baghdad made great innovations to technical science but never once showed any interest in the world outside of Dar al-Islam; Chinese scholars refused to study any aspect of any civilization aside from their own until the 20th century; etc. To this day, science in the developing world is usually seen as a technical tool for making cars, medicines and bombs. In any Western university you'll find study programs or departments for things that have nothing to do with Western Civilization: Japanese studies, Islamic studies, Eastern Philosophies, Mayan studies, Eastern African studies, ancient Chinese art studies, etc. Western scholars have re-discovered the histories of many non-Western societies - Egypt, Mesopotamia, the Moche, ancient Dilmun, etc. This is an intangible aspect of the West, but I think the most important - a basic objective interest in the world around us.

6. Middle Class Pre-Eminence: The much-maligned bourgeoisie have given the West a powerful work ethic and productivity threshold that is unmatched. It isn't so much that we work harder as that we expect adequate compensation for our labor. Exactly what constitutes adequate compensation has been a long contentious issue in the West, but that compensation is not doubted. This is tied to:

7. Property Rights: When the western half of the Roman Empire collapsed, all notions of value and exchange for barter collapsed with it. ("Exactly how many pieces of your gold equals one of my cows again?") The only thing of solid, durable value left was land (because it produced food). Feudalism developed over centuries when islands of land owners were able to support small populations here and there. However, over time these landowners became too powerful and a powerful political drive of the early modern era was land reform - how to wrestle some of that land away from the magnates. The bourgeoisie played a critical role in redefining property rights (for land owners and non-land owners alike) which secured all legal notions of ownership. This includes investments, etc. This was a revolution in economic and political relations, tied to:

8. Citizenship: In European feudal society people were represented to all political and clerical authorities through groups. Everyone belonged to a group, and only groups had rights and responsibilities within the feudal system, and each group often had their own laws. The medieval church was fully integrated into this world and organized along similar lines; you can't talk to God. You must go through a priest, who can intercede up the chain of communication (deacons, bishops, archbishops, Pope) straight up to God, who was the Lord - the top of the feudal social pyramid. The Protestant Reformation in the 16th century challenged that notion and said that each individual human has a direct relationship with God, and was responsible for all communications with God him/herself. This powerful notion eventually crept into the political sphere, where each individual would have a direct relationship with their government - as citizens (instead of subjects).

9. Christianity: It's not so much that Christianity itself had any particular quality that made it an asset (although as a moral force it was extremely helpful), but it did a few important things: A. When all civilization collapsed in the 6th century in western Europe, the only organization that survived and persisted everywhere, carrying on the Roman concepts of law and social organization, was the church. It was the thin thread by which civilization in western Europe hung for several centuries. B. It provided the basis for a common European culture and civilization. For all the differences and all the conflicts, the reality that the basic Christian precepts are known and respected from Moscow to Lisbon, from Rome to Oslo, has provided a commoninity of experience that has held Europe together culturally.

10. Rule of Law: A saving grace for Western Civilization has been the inability of any political group to completely dominate society. The resulting necessity of a reliance on the rule of law (rather than the whims of a leader) has created a bsis for social, political and economic equality unparalleled.

The West's great assets of capitalism, Democracy and superior technology all flow from these developments. As with every great civilization, the West did not "invent" or develop these things all by itself in a vaccuum; it learned and borrowed from the successes and failures of other civilizations.

11. Agriculture Whilst many cultures used rice or corn, Europe used Wheat, allowing great warring civilisations to build up. Wheat is superior because-

a. Rice needs lots attention and water to grow but is nutritionally superior allowing for HUGE population but no war, because they were tied to there crops more than any other farmers. A wise man once said "War is neccessary for civilisation, civilisation makes war neccessary". Although great civilisation in the East e.g. China built up they were too tied to there crops to grow further than it was possible to grow rice (this produced a very introverted society, therefore, unlikely to dominate.

b. Maize(corn) nutritionally inferior to rice and wheat, thus causing high child deaths and "weak" civilisations.

Also Europe had the best land and climate for crops to grow and very reliable climate compared with Asia and Africa.

The reason why the west dominates is based on the above and the debt forcing any poor country to not escape poverty.

 

[Knight-Dragon]

Originally posted by redtom
Agriculture Whilst many cultures used rice or corn, Europe used Wheat, allowing great warring civilisations to build up. Wheat is superior because-

a. Rice needs lots attention and water to grow but is nutritionally superior allowing for HUGE population but no war, because they were tied to there crops more than any other farmers. A wise man once said "War is neccessary for civilisation, civilisation makes war neccessary". Although great civilisation in the East e.g. China built up they were too tied to there crops to grow further than it was possible to grow rice (this produced a very introverted society, therefore, unlikely to dominate.

b. Maize(corn) nutritionally inferior to rice and wheat, thus causing high child deaths and "weak" civilisations.

Also Europe had the best land and climate for crops to grow and very reliable climate compared with Asia and Africa.

The reason why the west dominates is based on the above and the debt forcing any poor country to not escape poverty.

I bet you'll be surprised to know that the Chinese originally growed wheat (which they still do in N China and Manchuria). Rice only became the major food crop during the Chinese Middle Ages (the Song IMO) when the Chinese economic heartland shifted to the south. And Europe wasn't the only ones to grow wheat - many other Old World nations did too like the Scythians, Persians, Turks etc.

I venture to add in one more point. Europe was resource-poor and poorly located (at the western edge of the known world) hence Europeans had to work harder (travel further) than most ppl to get their resources. Like spices; the Chinese could just sail south to trade for them, the Europeans could only trade with Arab middlemen who chged a high price for transshipment.

Hence with centuries of effort working towards this, the Europeans developed the framework which would enable them to dominate the world.

 

[Vrylakas]

redtom wrote:

11. Agriculture Whilst many cultures used rice or corn, Europe used Wheat, allowing great warring civilisations to build up. Wheat is superior because- [...]

Knight-Dragon hit this one on the head, that Europe actually has a remarkably short growing season and poor soil. (Central Europe is all sand. You have to go east to Ukraine to strart getting some black old volcanic soil.) The choice of wheat as a staple crop was probably based on its ability to survive colder climates, last longer, store easily, and gives the most nutritional bang-for-your-buck.

You touched on a point though that I implied in my original post but didn't spell out; that Europe's exploration and colonization brought very tangible benefits in the form of different food crops from around the world. Corn, potato, tomato, rice, etc. etc. etc. were all imported, and helped improve the average European's diet immensely (variety) as well as led to an economic diversification within Europe that helped produce $$$. Europe in this sense is like Japan; a place that is agriculturally below-average in resources but has mastered ways of accumulating them from abroad. Europeans and Japanese were forced to master the accumulation of resources from abroad, initially through conquest and later through economics.

The reason why the west dominates is based on the above and the debt forcing any poor country to not escape poverty.

Nah. I work in finance; it's a little more complicated than that...

 

[redtom]

I was told this by someone who has a deep interest in archeology though he works in Health and Safety.

I found something of interest now in "Europe: A History" by Norman Davies, a disciple of AJP Taylor. Anyway here is what it says:

King Wheat
"Europe's climate favoured the requirements of primitive agriculture. Most of the Peninsula lies within the natural zone of cultivable grasses. There were abundant woodlands to provide fuel and shelter. Upland pastures often occurs in close proximity to fertile valleys. In the west and south, livestock can winter in the open. Local conditions frequently encourage adaptions. The extensive coastline, combined with the broad Continental Shelf, gave fishermen rich rewards. "

Or in other words the varied but non-extreme climate encouraged agriculture thus civilisation.

"The world knows three major staple cereals: rice, maize and wheat. Of the three, 'Europe chose wheat.' Wheat came to Europe from Mesopotamia, and wherever Europeans settled in force, they have chosen to take wheat with them....Its grain is extremely nutritious. It consists on average of 70% carbohydrate, 12% protein, 2% fat, 1.8 % minerals. The protein content is markedly higher than that of rice....Wheat-based nutrition is one of the factors which has given most Europeans a clear advantage in bodily stature over most rice-eaters and corn eaters. [Presumbably, dairy farming has played a part in our statue, as most other people cannot hold down milk in their adulthood.] Wheat is a seasonal crop, which only requires intensive labour at the spring sowing and the autumn harvest. Unlike the rice growers, who had to tend the paddy-fields in disclipined brigades throughout the year, the wheat farmer was granted time and freedom to branch out, to grow secondary crops, to reclaim land. To build, to fight, to politicize. This conjunction may well contain the preconditions for many features of Europe's social and political history, from feudalism and individualism to warmongering and imperialism...."

So **** you guys, I'm going of to gloat.....

Redtom the Wise

 

[Knight-Dragon]

As I have stated in my original post, Europeans weren't the only ones to grow wheat .... I think as far as agriculture is concerned, China, India, Mesopotamia, Egypt (those with great river valleys) were far superior to historic Europe. And the reason rice was being farmed all yr round in China and elsewhere was cos they were planting and harvesting it twice or even three times a yr.

And let me ask this; if Europeans were so happy with their wheat and dairy, why shld they then venture all the way all over the world for centuries to scour for resources? And took uncountable casualties in the process?

 

[Vrylakas]

redtom wrote:

I was told this by someone who has a deep interest in archeology though he works in Health and Safety.

I found something of interest now in "Europe: A History" by Norman Davies, a disciple of AJP Taylor.

Norman Davies needs no introduction here. He's spent most of his career as a well-respected scholar of Polish history, publishing several books on the subject that are considered bibles among historians in Poland and abroad on the subject. In 1988 when the communist government fell, his books were available almost instantly (translated into Polish) throughout bookstores in Poland and became required reading in university courses very quickly. I have his *A History of Europe* as well as other more recent works (*The Isles, a History*) which have strayed a bit from his traditional academic area.

AJP Taylor however is less popular. Many modern historians consider him a bit of a relativist and an English nationalist; the British military historian John Keegan thrashes him (politely) in the first chapter of his 1992 book *The Battle For History, Re-Fighting World War II*. I admire Norman Davies much but find he has inherited some of Taylor's "localism"; he does a brilliant job in *Europe, a History* of integrating a total history of all the peoples on the European continent but barely mentions the European colonies at all. Like Taylor, the moment someone left Europe, they stopped being a European for Davies. The West Indies, Canada, America, South America, Australia, India, Africa; they only come into play in Davies' book when they interfered directly somehow in Continental affairs. That Haitian, Mozambique or Hong Kong history is intertwined with and in many ways an extension of European history (as we've been discussing) does not cross Davies' radar.

Anyway here is what it says:

BTW, I very much like the way he created the side-panels of interesting and relevant information in his book. A very informative and readable format.

King Wheat
"Europe's climate favoured the requirements of primitive agriculture. Most of the Peninsula lies within the natural zone of cultivable grasses. There were abundant woodlands to provide fuel and shelter. Upland pastures often occurs in close proximity to fertile valleys. In the west and south, livestock can winter in the open. Local conditions frequently encourage adaptions. The extensive coastline, combined with the broad Continental Shelf, gave fishermen rich rewards. "

Or in other words the varied but non-extreme climate encouraged agriculture thus civilisation.

Virtually all climates encourage some sort of agriculture. To quote Davies above, "Local conditions frequently encourage adaptations." The very first human civilizations were born along river systems that wandered through deserts. Why didn't those peoples who lived in more temperate climates (Europe, North America) spawn civilizations first? Why Mesopotamia and Egypt centuries before Rome and China? Why did Greece (a rocky and mountainous land) rise to such great cultural heights before Germany or France, both of which had far better agricultural conditions? The answers to these questions are obvious and found in their individual histories, but your statement above doesn't explain why Europe, with such supposedly ideal growing conditions, didn't rise to cultural/economic/military dominance until only about 500 years ago, some 9500 years after Mesopotamia and after so many other great civilizations? What took so long?

"The world knows three major staple cereals: rice, maize and wheat. Of the three, 'Europe chose wheat.' Wheat came to Europe from Mesopotamia, and wherever Europeans settled in force, they have chosen to take wheat with them....Its grain is extremely nutritious. It consists on average of 70% carbohydrate, 12% protein, 2% fat, 1.8 % minerals. The protein content is markedly higher than that of rice....Wheat-based nutrition is one of the factors which has given most Europeans a clear advantage in bodily stature over most rice-eaters and corn eaters. [Presumbably, dairy farming has played a part in our statue, as most other people cannot hold down milk in their adulthood.] Wheat is a seasonal crop, which only requires intensive labour at the spring sowing and the autumn harvest. Unlike the rice growers, who had to tend the paddy-fields in disclipined brigades throughout the year, the wheat farmer was granted time and freedom to branch out, to grow secondary crops, to reclaim land. To build, to fight, to politicize. This conjunction may well contain the preconditions for many features of Europe's social and political history, from feudalism and individualism to warmongering and imperialism...."

This ignores the reality of farming conditions; the reason Britain never quite caught on to rice farming is that rice can't really grow there very well. The reason behind Europe's agricultural history lies in its inability for anything to grow there very well. Davies above supports my statement in my last post that wheat provided the most "bang for your buck" nutritionally. The reason Europeans grew wheat was that it was about the only crop they could find that consistently withstood the terrible local soils and colder climates. The staple crops that Europeans would import later - again, maize, potato, tomato, etc. - are all plants that can stand light frosts and weak soils. Paul Hohenberg's (since we're dropping names now) *A Primer on the Economic History of Europe* stresses that poor growing conditions forced Europeans early on to develop sophisticated agricultural techniques (crop rotation) and technologies (steel-tipped plows for tough soil) to stretch the growing potential of their crops. Wheat fit nicely into this environment for the reasons mentioned, but as Knight-Dragon points out, Europeans were eager to supplement their diet when they found new types of crops in their world travels. Rice, aside from needing far more water and warmer climates than most of Europe has, is also too delicate to thrive in Europe as it does in Southeast Asia. My question would rather be, since not all wheat-growing communities became the powerhouses that Europe eventually would (as Knight-Dragon again points out), is it not perhaps the other way around, that "King Wheat" prospered in Europe because it fit the Europeans' tough needs and was adaptable because of their advanced agricultural development (brought on by the unfavorable conditions they lived in)? It's a "Which came first, the chicken or the egg?" question; did Europe's agricultural development give birth to the primacy of wheat or the other way around? Your friend with an interest in archaeology (presumably European) probably is also aware that while our climate has been amazingly stable for the past few centuries, it has changed radically over the millennia; Europe was a colder place in the time of Christ, then lapsed into a fit of warming trends, collapsing into a cold period in the 15th-18th centuries (called by some climatologists the "Little Ice Age") before settling into our current era of relatively moderate weather (though this may be ending now). Tougher crops like wheat are better able to adapt to seasonal changes than rice.

So **** you guys, I'm going of to gloat.....

Ummm, exactly what age are you?

 

[Thuloid]

I also strongly recommend the Diamond book Guns, Germs and Steel. A fun read, and addresses probably the trickiest metahistorical question possible.

Short answer: People are fundamentally similar, and under similar conditions do similar things. Therefore, conditions must have been different for different peoples (well, duh). In the beginning was geography. That, plus a little luck and generall random activity, equals the modern world.

Any historical explanation simply begins too late to really answer the question.

 

[Sayounara]

Mostly Science and Religion, they had a lot of culture build-up.

 

[Tamsy]

The West was actually very poor and behind in power, knowledge and not advanced at all until recently.

The most powerful, advanced civilisation and empire was the ancient Indian Hindu empire. Research the Maurayan Empire and Ashoka Empire to name a couple of many. They spanned and covered all of Asia and the middle east. The Romans came much later and if you look at their religion, it was similar to Hinduism. The islamic race is a very much new one, the newest one in fact, just 1400 years old. It was influenced by the Hindu Indian knowledge, science which was spread to the middle east by with Christianity and Jewish being older that it. Hinduism being the oldest religion and civilisation more than 10,000+ years old and much older in fact.

Science, mathematics, astrology, medicine, etc was invented by Hindu India and spread to the middle east, Europe and the world. Much of Ancient India is not researched by the West due to the fact it would show the cradle of religion and civilisation is Hinduism and India. They do not want the facts out as they want to falsely take credit and spread distory to keep the facts hidden. But the truth always comes out. Hindus and Indians are very well aware of the truth and real history. Now the truth is coming out.

 

[Sarin]

Aw. I was hoping that while I wasn't looking, an interesting thread has developed. Instead, it's just necro with nationalistic spam. Is it even worth adding my opinion here or will this get locked now?

 

[Kaitzilla]

A whole series of reasons, in no particular order:

1. Separation of church and state (from the conflict between the Holy Roman Empire and the Church over who had pre-eminent power in the physical world). Kicking the clergy out of government was the best thing Western Civilization ever did for itself.

2. Competition: Europe is a peninsula with lots of peoples packed into it, which has always fostered competition (sometimes violent). European history in the last 3 centuries has been dominated by attempts to control or moderate the violent competition between countries and peoples, channeling their competition into economic avenues. Exhibit A: The EU.

3. Exploration and Colonialism: Not in the way many think though. When the Turks conquered Constantinople, unlike the earlier Moslem empire they cut all the ancient East-West trade routes. This kicked off the European Age of Exploration, as Europeans (the Portuguese first) went looking for an alternate route by sea to the East. Contrary to popular opinion, the colonies more often cost more than they paid back, in terms of supporting vast military forces over seas. However, this exploration and exposure to foreign cultures deeply enriched the Europeans' cultural awareness and more importantly forced them to develop sophisticated and standardized systems and technologies to deal with ocean navigation, fortification, supplying armies spread all over the world, communications, raising $$$ to support all this, etc. etc. etc. These all taught Europeans powerful lessons about social and political organization on a mass-scale.

4. Science: Philosophical gifts from the Classical world and the old Islamic scholars were consulted and mined for solutions to the problems of exploration and colonies I mention above. For as much as the church railed against Science, it stuck around because it consistently provided answers for pressing technical problems. The resulting growth of science would give the Western world its greatest asset:

5. Intellectual curiosity: A unique feature of Western Civilization is an interest in the rest of the universe. The Islamic scholars of ancient Baghdad made great innovations to technical science but never once showed any interest in the world outside of Dar al-Islam; Chinese scholars refused to study any aspect of any civilization aside from their own until the 20th century; etc. To this day, science in the developing world is usually seen as a technical tool for making cars, medicines and bombs. In any Western university you'll find study programs or departments for things that have nothing to do with Western Civilization: Japanese studies, Islamic studies, Eastern Philosophies, Mayan studies, Eastern African studies, ancient Chinese art studies, etc. Western scholars have re-discovered the histories of many non-Western societies - Egypt, Mesopotamia, the Moche, ancient Dilmun, etc. This is an intangible aspect of the West, but I think the most important - a basic objective interest in the world around us.

6. Middle Class Pre-Eminence: The much-maligned bourgeoisie have given the West a powerful work ethic and productivity threshold that is unmatched. It isn't so much that we work harder as that we expect adequate compensation for our labor. Exactly what constitutes adequate compensation has been a long contentious issue in the West, but that compensation is not doubted. This is tied to:

7. Property Rights: When the western half of the Roman Empire collapsed, all notions of value and exchange for barter collapsed with it. ("Exactly how many pieces of your gold equals one of my cows again?") The only thing of solid, durable value left was land (because it produced food). Feudalism developed over centuries when islands of land owners were able to support small populations here and there. However, over time these landowners became too powerful and a powerful political drive of the early modern era was land reform - how to wrestle some of that land away from the magnates. The bourgeoisie played a critical role in redefining property rights (for land owners and non-land owners alike) which secured all legal notions of ownership. This includes investments, etc. This was a revolution in economic and political relations, tied to:

8. Citizenship: In European feudal society people were represented to all political and clerical authorities through groups. Everyone belonged to a group, and only groups had rights and responsibilities within the feudal system, and each group often had their own laws. The medieval church was fully integrated into this world and organized along similar lines; you can't talk to God. You must go through a priest, who can intercede up the chain of communication (deacons, bishops, archbishops, Pope) straight up to God, who was the Lord - the top of the feudal social pyramid. The Protestant Reformation in the 16th century challenged that notion and said that each individual human has a direct relationship with God, and was responsible for all communications with God him/herself. This powerful notion eventually crept into the political sphere, where each individual would have a direct relationship with their government - as citizens (instead of subjects).

9. Christianity: It's not so much that Christianity itself had any particular quality that made it an asset (although as a moral force it was extremely helpful), but it did a few important things: A. When all civilization collapsed in the 6th century in western Europe, the only organization that survived and persisted everywhere, carrying on the Roman concepts of law and social organization, was the church. It was the thin thread by which civilization in western Europe hung for several centuries. B. It provided the basis for a common European culture and civilization. For all the differences and all the conflicts, the reality that the basic Christian precepts are known and respected from Moscow to Lisbon, from Rome to Oslo, has provided a commoninity of experience that has held Europe together culturally.

10. Rule of Law: A saving grace for Western Civilization has been the inability of any political group to completely dominate society. The resulting necessity of a reliance on the rule of law (rather than the whims of a leader) has created a bsis for social, political and economic equality unparalleled.

The West's great assets of capitalism, Democracy and superior technology all flow from these developments. As with every great civilization, the West did not "invent" or develop these things all by itself in a vaccuum; it learned and borrowed from the successes and failures of other civilizations.

Whoa, good call.

Turks got Constantinople in 1453.
Columbus discovered America in 1492.

I had no idea it was caused by severed trade routes.

 

[r16]

before the thread dies , ı must say the Western interest in others is merely a tradition that arose from the need to know their enemies to prevent them coming back or something , not because of an uniquely Western trait .

 

[Angst]

Well, this is all necro, but the materialist teenager in me still jumps up a little; the idea that Western culture is somehow more scientifically curious (not intelligent, but more curious as a cultural trait) is ridiculous with just a cursory knowledge of non-"Western" history. Instead I'm going to ramble a bit about elements that have to do with consumption, material and geography.

Most of conditions that lead Europe forward are easier explained through economics - and chance - more than lofty philosophy and cultural affinity or whatever. As an example, China and England had the same conditions for an industrial revolution when it started in England, but workers were comparatively more expensive, which drove incentive towards mechanization. Ottomans taking control of the spice trade was such an economic incentive that Spain and Portugal gambled sailing around the world and across Africa to get hold of spices. China had similar if not superior navies but had no such incentive due to being self-sufficient and incredibly powerful. European geography was slightly more prone to fortification, which meant that of all things Europe was behind in, engineering was actually pretty good, and eventually military engineering lead to better cannons for handling the eastern theatre, and wiping out 90% of the Native Americans with your germs during massive internal instability of their largest empires makes it easy to swoop in with superior technology. Especially because Europe was part of a larger equitorial connection, where technology historically tended to travel easier, as well as having a higher population base in Eurasia for innovation. All that stuff is important. Rosseau less so. Although stealing the natural sciences from the Islamic world was a good call. And do remember that even after the rise of European hegemony and the start of colonization, it took ages until they could even dent the Ottomans, who were on a constant offensive.

 

[Kouvb593kdnuewnd]

From what I have read, workers in late medieval england after black death into the 1500s higher wages than they had before and would only reach again in the 1800s during the industrial revolution, the fact the per capita value increased did not help the majority and the main reason the value increased may be due to worse and worse work conditions such as less and less holidays. Maddison database 2020 Maddison Project Database 2020 | Releases | Groningen Growth and Development Centre | University of Groningen (rug.nl) give gdp per capita values for medieval european countries that is higher than those of China during much of 20th century. Even medieval/renaissance Italy are given a value twice as high than it had during the Roman Empire under Augustus. I have also read that women also had higher status during late medieval england with higher wages and married later than during early modern period.

So if true, late medieval europe was significantly richer per person than the rest of the world or even early modern europe which may have something to do with the overseas expansions that would take place later. The economic growth under roman and medieval times would probably not be achieved again before industrial revolution, which is quite interesting.

So maybe the europeans could achieve the stuff they did by reducing the rights and status of their population in favor increasing the resources their governments had access to and thus be able to field larger armies and navies compared to what they could do in the past.

 

[innonimatu]

Most of conditions that lead Europe forward are easier explained through economics - and chance - more than lofty philosophy and cultural affinity or whatever. As an example, China and England had the same conditions for an industrial revolution when it started in England, but workers were comparatively more expensive, which drove incentive towards mechanization.

Two things you are overlooking.

On the ideas front, a large number of universities as independent institutions appeared and multiplied in Europe. Nowhere else before, or contemporaneously for centuries. Imo this was caused by one crucial advantage Europe had: political fragmentation while still avoiding the worst damage of war (30 years war was the exception...). Political fragmentation meant that ideas persecuted in one place could thrive somewhere nearby across a border. While there was plenty of obscurantists and tyrants among those many polities, ideas were not murdered successfully. Some people were but not enough to stamp out useful albeit political dangerous (destabilizing) ideas. This explained the quick advance of technology and science there after the low middle ages.
This has been one of my pet issues, and I'm happy to see that finally it is getting more attention in academic circles.

On the material front, and this is relevant only for the industrial revolution, your assessment of China vs. England being at the same level is wrong. China had coal but it wasn't where it would be most useful, it wasn't easy to transport. It's still a logistic problem today, though of course surmountable with modern transportation. But to give you an idea the chinese find it easier to import coal from Australia to supply their south than bring it over from the north of the country. This would be impossible at scale with early industrial revolution technology.
And India had it far worse on this front.

As for the cost of laborers, industry thrived on cheap labour. Where workers are expensive they earn well enough that they don't need to lose their independence to submit to the factory discipline. Big industry cannot take over quickly there for lack of manpower. England made its cheap laborers by deliberately impoverishing landless people in the countryside, and then importing cheap food.
And even up to the 21st century that remained true. China got going with its most real industrial revolution in recent decades by climbing the value ladder, starting with cheap labour. It turned out that with free trade even now the industry with cheap labour displaces the industry with expensive labour as both can make use of mechanization - remember, "intellectual property" is a farse only enforced by rentiers who control political power in a given polity.

 

[Kupe Navigator]

what do you think about this video?

 

[caketastydelish]

Some would argue the Ottomans were more or less Europeans themselves. I'm not sure what to think myself, but just throwing that out there.

 

[Kouvb593kdnuewnd]

Some would argue the Ottomans were more or less Europeans themselves. I'm not sure what to think myself, but just throwing that out there.

Yes they was an integeral part of european diplomacy, even during their supposed twilight as they was one of the major centeral powers during ww1 and still able to defeat armies from european countries and turkey managed to stay a united country instead of being split up by the victors after the war. The idea that empires can be viewed as simply a period of rise and then a period of decline seems to be considered wrong today, Ottoman Empire was not a story of just successes early to one of just failure.

Prussia peformed well during seven years war, but its army was outdated by Napoleonic time and the country was reduced to client status. However in the Franco-Prussian war ended with a severe defeat for France against a group of German states including a stronger version of Prussia. However WW1 went the other way with a major defeat for Germany. So rises and declines are not so clear cut.

Also worth to mention that much of european success was due to the diplomacy rather than military prowess or technology, but that hold true both inside europe and outside. Wellington did claim something like the Indian armies was about as good as the british ones and that would be in late 1700s or early 1800s. In fact the british would create copies of the rocket weapon systems they faced in India.

This explained the quick advance of technology and science there after the low middle ages.

Actually the idea of middle ages as european kingdoms being primitive is a myth, I have read arguments that say that knowledge actually advanced more between ca 1000 to ca 1350 (to black death) than it did during 1400s and 1500s. Medieval was also not really any more tyrannical than early modern, like early modern england seems to have seen a decline in woman status compared to late medieval. French revolution saw the execution of many prominent philosophers, so it was perhaps in the end as oppressive to ideas as the old ancient regime.

Europe had: political fragmentation while still avoiding the worst damage of war (30 years war was the exception...).

Also not so clear cut, the event known as the Deluge in Poland in 1655 to 1660 was supposedly even more destructive than WW2 for Poland with the country being completely looted and large part of the population died and may forshadow the participation of Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth. It seems to still be a controversial subject today, since the Swedish government who was supposed to give back the looted stuff in the 1600s have not yet done so 350+ years later. Most european countries eventually ended up being annexed by more successful european countries, there was not many countries left at the eve of WW1.

 

[Arakhor]

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