Poll: At what point did European world domination become (near) inevitable?

I'm interested to see what people on the board think. At what era did it become almost inevitable that Europeans would become the superpowers whose influence, culture, religion and language would spread across the globe?

Edit: For the record, I put Mongols. I feel the end of Song pre-industrialisation and the mass killings in Khorasan and Transoxiana as well as the ending of the Islamic Golden Age gave Europe enough of a step-ahead that they would always be able to outdo the rest of the world from that point on, unless something equally devastating happened to them.

Read 1491 and 1493 by Charles Mann, and you'll see how the resources of the New World allowed Europe to basically rev up the engines of global capital and catapult itself into global dominance (the crop shifts in China, elucidated in 1493, really hurt the Chinese, as did the reliance on Spanish silver).

Sometime around the Conquest of the Aztecs. Before that point, it was likely, but not inevitable.

It had the massive wealth, high education and technological advancement that could not be matched.

The Europeans had gunpowder while the other continents were still fighting with primitive weapons.

The Europeans had formed long lasting, strong hierarchy kingdoms while the other continents were still in nomadic tribal stages.

Tsar Gringo said:

Read 1491 and 1493 by Charles Mann, and you'll see how the resources of the New World allowed Europe to basically rev up the engines of global capital and catapult itself into global dominance (the crop shifts in China, elucidated in 1493, really hurt the Chinese, as did the reliance on Spanish silver).

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You beat me to it.

And bloody hell, but those books are amazing and depressing by degrees. The American Indians get completely obliterated by disease - to such an extent it beggars belief.

Imagine the US trying to resist an invasion by Mexico. Easy, right? Now imagine ninety-seven percent of the population has died to a series of incurable diseases.

Jonathan said:

It had the massive wealth, high education and technological advancement that could not be matched.

The Europeans had gunpowder while the other continents were still fighting with primitive weapons.

The Europeans had formed long lasting, strong hierarchy kingdoms while the other continents were still in nomadic tribal stages.

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NOPE!

1491 explodes that myth. The Americas had kingdoms which were arguably more stable than their European counterparts - indeed, they were the second to have cities and may have been first - and the only reason they LOOK nomadic is because everyone else died to a titanically nasty succession of diseases.

The pre-contact population of America may have been as high as a hundred million.

The discovery of the New World. The massive influx of resources allowed Europe to outclass the Middle East and Asia technologically and financially, to the point where neither of them could compete.

According to Paul Kennedy in The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers, around 1500 all four major Old World civilizations (European, Islamic, South Asian and East Asian) were roughly equivalent in terms of power potential, with each being ahead in some aspects but behind in others.

There were several factors that appear to have catapulted Europe into the top position, but the big one in my opinion was the scientific and industrial revolutions, starting with the printing press with movable type about 1450 and ending with the first practical steam engine in 1712.

I think it's a 2-part question.

As far as gaining preeminance, it's probably the discovery of the Americas, with its attendant wealth and the competition for more colonies that it drives.

However, that preeminance could have been overturned, or weakened, at a few points along the way:
- The Muslim advance -- had the rapid advance of the Muslims not been stopped and pushed back in France, Spain, and the Balkans.
- The Huns -- had they chosen a different path, and had more success, they could have destroyed/impacted much of Europe.
- The Mongol Horde -- ditto

Saphroneth said:

You beat me to it.

And bloody hell, but those books are amazing and depressing by degrees. The American Indians get completely obliterated by disease - to such an extent it beggars belief.

Imagine the US trying to resist an invasion by Mexico. Easy, right? Now imagine ninety-seven percent of the population has died to a series of incurable diseases.

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We basically invaded after the equivalent of an apocalypse for them, or for the Mesoamericans in the middle of constant wars (Valley of Mexico) or a Hobbesian civil war nightmare (Inca).

Europe was the ass-end of Eurasia until it discovered the New World. In every technological and state-level achievement it lagged behind China, and it only had parity with the Muslim world because of the Mongol conquests and the Reconquista. 1453 gave us the Renaissance, but 1492 gave the West the world.

I cannot recommend 1491 and 1493 highly enough.

I picked 'Mongol Conquests', though not for the reason you suggested.

I believe that the Mongol failure to thoroughly trash Europe was the last reasonable POD for preventing European hegemony.

There's a plausible argument that the Black Death gave a boost up to Europe, but to the extent we have data, the European advantage in capital/population ratio extends back to the 1200s and even earlier. Certainly by the late 1200s agricultural yields were increasing, naval architecture and trade were advancing, you had proto-banking emerging, gunpowder was being introduced, you had several technological and technical innovations coming together, there was a renewed interest in philosophy and natural history that would provide the ideological foundations for the scientific revolution--basically, several key indicators were moving in tandem in the right direction and conditions were right for a slow burn to ignition.

Well, if I'd have to make a guess I'd say 1765 when the East India Company got the Diwani.

For the first time, Europeans were ruling over a huge swath of people with advanced civilisation.

Not saying that there wasn't any kingdoms in other parts already colonised but as mentioned, the Americas were destroyed by diseases and most of sub-Saharan Africa, whose colonisation was only on the coasts at this point anyway, was not as organised as the ancient Indian civilisation

For more precise info, I recommend this book which exists precisely to answer your particular question:
http://www.amazon.com/Why-West-Rules-Now-Patterns/dp/0312611692

The eighteenth century. Asia still lead global trade and if you could get some competant foreward looking leaders who put aside their differences and unite against a common threat and who try improving education, increase urbanization, and put govt tariffs on foreign imports initially to get their industries growin than euro domination doesnt seem possible. BY 1800 though it was inevitable.

Fredrick II Barbarossa said:

The eighteenth century. Asia still lead global trade and if you could get some competant foreward looking leaders who put aside their differences and unite against a common threat and who try improving education, increase urbanization, and put govt tariffs on foreign imports initially to get their industries growin than euro domination doesnt seem possible.

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This is why the West was ordained to win far before then; real-life leaders don't do that because real life isn't Europa Universalis. They weren't going to magically unite as some Greater East Asian Co-Prosperity Sphere against the redheaded barbarians, not when Japan hated Korea and China had its own problems and Burma and Thailand were constantly fighting each other.

Those sort of initiatives- which wouldn't have come to their minds that early, considering such modernization plans were a reaction to 19th century Western dominance and relied in part on copying the 19th century West- would not have been undertaken.

There was this old Flocc post talking about how a magic ruler in India or Indonesia that would be badass enough to centralize power and conquer places wasn't realistic because of pre-existing geopolitical and state administrative models in the region. That same principle- that real-life rulers can be badass but their achievements wane, or that real-life rulers are rarely as badass as AH would like them to be- applies here IMO.

And Asia led global trade- global trade increasingly dominated by Western interlopers and especially Spanish silver. Global trade reliant on Western end markets and Western-controlled markets in the New World. Global trade emphatically not controlled by Asians.

Europe came to Asia in search of trade. Eventually, Asia came to European entrepots in Asia in search of the same (Fujianese in the Philippines, etc).

Tsar Gringo said:

Europe was the ass-end of Eurasia until it discovered the New World. In every technological and state-level achievement it lagged behind China,

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El falso. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medieval_technology

China was definitely a center of high civilization and more organized politically, but there were quite a few European innovations in technology or in the application of technology that the Chinese didn't have.

It's a very interesting question, but IMHO the best evidence says that the European takeoff started before 1492:

http://scholars-stage.blogspot.com/2013/07/the-rise-of-west-asking-right-questions.html

The Renaissance and the beginning of the scientific method. At that point Europe began opening up a technological lead and had the cultural factors to expand that lead.

mrmandias said:

El falso. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medieval_technology

China was definitely a center of high civilization and more organized politically, but there were quite a few European innovations in technology or in the application of technology that the Chinese didn't have.

It's a very interesting question, but IMHO the best evidence says that the European takeoff started before 1492:

http://scholars-stage.blogspot.com/2013/07/the-rise-of-west-asking-right-questions.html

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I'll have to look into that, thanks! The hypothesis seems reasonable enough, and I've always maintained that Europe's early de-centralization helped spread capital and urban institutions around much of the continent, which kind of lends itself to the wider hypothesis... perhaps 1492 was rather than the spark, the fuel that led to pre-existing advantages becoming an overwhelming advantage...

Tsar Gringo said:

I'll have to look into that, thanks! The hypothesis seems reasonable enough, and I've always maintained that Europe's early de-centralization helped spread capital and urban institutions around much of the continent, which kind of lends itself to the wider hypothesis... perhaps 1492 was rather than the spark, the fuel that led to pre-existing advantages becoming an overwhelming advantage...

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I think that's probably right. Absent 1492, Europe might just have reached a new plateau, like China had.

mrmandias said:

I think that's probably right. Absent 1492, Europe might just have reached a new plateau, like China had.

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Seems reasonable- although considering the interest in trade, nautical technology and pure positioning I can't imagine Europe not discovering the New World at some point in time.

mrmandias said:

El falso. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medieval_technology

China was definitely a center of high civilization and more organized politically, but there were quite a few European innovations in technology or in the application of technology that the Chinese didn't have.

It's a very interesting question, but IMHO the best evidence says that the European takeoff started before 1492:

http://scholars-stage.blogspot.com/2013/07/the-rise-of-west-asking-right-questions.html

Click to expand...

If you put any stock into Rodney Stark's work, he argues that Europe was definitively ahead in terms of pace of technological development, economic growth, and military technology by roughly 1150.