How would the world developed if there was no North and South America

Let us say that outside of the Carabian Islands and Newfoundland the Americas were not there and the Far East was that much closer to Europe .
How would this of changed world history .

Would Africa been colonized more ?
And what about Asia ?

Who would be the world powers of today ?

One change would be that the warm gulfstream would probabbly not reach Europe. I don't know which effects this would have worldwide but it would definitely make Europe much colder and hence less densely populated.

Basically what you are proposing is the Ptolemaic world, on the basis of which Columbus thought that China laid about 3000 miles West of Europe, yes?

World powers today would be China and Spain. We would be technically about 150-200 years behind present levels because we would not have had the major shakeups that have succeeded one another as the New World was discovered, exploited and settled.

Move this to the ASB column. Ask Ian to do it for you.
Oh yeah, there would be no pack ice in the arctic. The warm water Japan current would be hugely more powerfull and the world would be much, much, warmer.

Ward said:

Let us say that outside of the Carabian Islands and Newfoundland the Americas were not there and the Far East was that much closer to Europe .
How would this of changed world history .

Would Africa been colonized more ?
And what about Asia ?

Who would be the world powers of today ?

Click to expand...

I see two very contradictory ideas here.

First without north & south america you would have a very different geological development. Either a good part of europe and south east asia would be under water, or many of the current island nations would be totally landlocked or at the very least be landbridged. There are too many variables to considder which of these would have happened and it might well have happened that europe was water logged and southeast asia was high and dry.

On the other hand If you want to assume the NA & SA are there but unused or unexplored in the 20th centruy we have something that is discussable. With topography as it currently stands it is safe to assume that both africa as well as most of asia are developed/colinized to the alternate state of modernism. It my oppinion without north & south american colinization the old world would have been hard pressed to develop much passed our 15th century standards.

His POD

Basically what you are proposing is the Ptolemaic world, on the basis of which Columbus thought that China laid about 3000 miles West of Europe, yes?

Click to expand...

Yes there would have been must more of a push into Africa. Probally a much earilier Suez canal. and earilier devolpoment of sailing vessals as trans ocean travel west to asia develops.

My guess is the five Great powers would be -Russia, China, Venice/Italy, One north/west europe [britian v france] and South [ern] Africa


And I agree this belongs in ASB

wkwillis said:

Move this to the ASB column. Ask Ian to do it for you.
Oh yeah, there would be no pack ice in the arctic. The warm water Japan current would be hugely more powerfull and the world would be much, much, warmer.

Click to expand...

This kind of thing gets no attention in the ASB forum though, the ASB forum is just for modern day stupidity and maybe the odd ISOT.

American colonisation is greatly overrated, the lack of that wouldn't have much effects. The main effect would be closer links between China and the west.

Leej said:

The main effect would be closer links between China and the west.

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I question whether or not that would be the case. I have a feeling that china would probably have become even more xenophobic than they already were. It also wouldn't have surprised me if china had developed a more militaristic stance towards other cultures on the southern shores of asia, which in turn would have made the west very uneasy.