DBWI: Industrial Revolution in Europe

This thread is dripping with Christianiaphobia, which I need not remind broad members is a form of racialism, and needs to be locked.

Seriously guys at least keep it in chat.
I agree with this. The Christian communities of the Middle East are capable of being just as capable citizens as their Muslim compatriots. You can't use Christianity as an excuse for Europe's backwardness. I think we should keep in mind that Europe does have a number of important natural resources necessary for industrialisation so provided that their society evolved beyond feudalism and proper cities developed, there could actually be a chance of them becoming industrialised.
 
I really think this thread should just be locked, I mean goddamn the anti-christianism in this thread is frankly ridiculous. I frankly hate how a bunch of Persians, Chinese, and Japanese people who have probably never actually known a christian are so critical of my godamn religion simply because of the lutherans and calvinist radicals.

Its telling that some of the only people here criticizing this idiocy are Andalusian, Egyptian and Turkish, you know people who interact with Christians on a daily basis and whos countries bother to treat christians with a lick of respect (and Egypt and Turkey have never been hit by a terrorist attack from any christian group). Your attacks are petty and idiotic and your attitude exactly why shit like the Cypriot (1) civil war happens.

1: Kind of like the Lebanese civil war
 
This isn't Christianophobia (or whatever the word is), it's people making an alternate history based on 'popular' stuff (in the same way that you see a huge Islamic empire spanning from Egypt to Iran or something).

I highly doubt anyone here hates Christianity - or any other religion, for that matter.
 
This isn't Christianophobia (or whatever the word is), it's people making an alternate history based on 'popular' stuff (in the same way that you see a huge Islamic empire spanning from Egypt to Iran or something).

I highly doubt anyone here hates Christianity - or any other religion, for that matter.

OOC: I was being in character, note how I refered to at different times a surviving al andalus, I just thought it made sense that since our AH.com has a few Muslim members who react that way alt!AH would have Christian members who did the same.
 
I agree with this. The Christian communities of the Middle East are capable of being just as capable citizens as their Muslim compatriots. You can't use Christianity as an excuse for Europe's backwardness. I think we should keep in mind that Europe does have a number of important natural resources necessary for industrialisation so provided that their society evolved beyond feudalism and proper cities developed, there could actually be a chance of them becoming industrialised.

But there's a resource curse in Europe. The parts of Europe which are rich in natural resources are also the most unstable and violent, or run by dictators with private jets and palaces on the Palestinian Coast (1). By contrast the only wealthy parts of Europe are the Isle of Wight and Ireland, neither of which have any natural resources. If there are no clean public institutions, natural resources will harm, not boost, development. Even here in the Caliphate the Gulf is synonymous with public sleaze.

(1) Palestine = French Riviera
 
OOC: I was being in character, note how I refered to at different times a surviving al andalus, I just thought it made sense that since our AH.com has a few Muslim members who react that way alt!AH would have Christian members who did the same.
... Oh LOL, sorry, I fell for it. :p
 
But there's a resource curse in Europe. The parts of Europe which are rich in natural resources are also the most unstable and violent, or run by dictators with private jets and palaces on the Palestinian Coast (1). By contrast the only wealthy parts of Europe are the Isle of Wight and Ireland, neither of which have any natural resources. If there are no clean public institutions, natural resources will harm, not boost, development. Even here in the Caliphate the Gulf is synonymous with public sleaze.

(1) Palestine = French Riviera

And who supports those and arms those dictators? The East. Who benefits from the continued exploitation of Europe's natural resources? The East. Who broke up the Holy Roman Empire and destabilised Europe, in order to pave the way for colonisation? The East. Who supports Irelands illegal occupation of Ulster? The East. Who invaded Germany even though it was a secular dictatorship and who is raining drone strikes down the innocent civilians in Serbia and Croatia?

No wonder so many Europeans join the Legion of St. Michael.
 
Yo, are you guys going to tie this up with politics, or actually discuss the subject at hand? I, for one, am kind of interested in hearing some of peoples' ideas on this one--I don't think a European Industrial Revolution is totally implausible. They had the resources and the craftsmanship, for a start. (Have you seen some of the clocks they used to make in the 5th and 6th centuries AH?)
 
Yo, are you guys going to tie this up with politics, or actually discuss the subject at hand? I, for one, am kind of interested in hearing some of peoples' ideas on this one--I don't think a European Industrial Revolution is totally implausible. They had the resources and the craftsmanship, for a start. (Have you seen some of the clocks they used to make in the 5th and 6th centuries AH?)

Glad to see someone is finally on topic here, I think an industrial revolution is likely to come out of the Ruhr regions, they have massive coal reserves and the surrounding regions are full of amazing farmland and valuable mines.
 
Glad to see someone is finally on topic here, I think an industrial revolution is likely to come out of the Ruhr regions, they have massive coal reserves and the surrounding regions are full of amazing farmland and valuable mines.

The problem there is that the Ruhr was always split up among a lot of minor lords, even during the Holy Roman Empire. It's also not very defensible land, very prone to invasion from either side. You'd have to have it unified under a single kingdom that can defend it, not an easy task.

I personally think either Silesia or Angeland are more likely. Angeland is isolated from Europe, and has quite a bit of coal and iron. Too bad they tried to make up for their subordinate status to the Holy Roman Emperors by embracing the Catholic Church, otherwise they could have easily industrialized. Silesia has both as well, and it's too bad the easternizing Jagiellons got themselves excommunicated for heresy when they began importing (smuggling, really, but beside the point) expertise from the Caliphate. If Henry had been a bit more careful, he could have built up his position and managed a successful revolt from the HRE.
 
The problem there is that the Ruhr was always split up among a lot of minor lords, even during the Holy Roman Empire. It's also not very defensible land, very prone to invasion from either side. You'd have to have it unified under a single kingdom that can defend it, not an easy task.

I personally think either Silesia or Angeland are more likely. Angeland is isolated from Europe, and has quite a bit of coal and iron. Too bad they tried to make up for their subordinate status to the Holy Roman Emperors by embracing the Catholic Church, otherwise they could have easily industrialized. Silesia has both as well, and it's too bad the easternizing Jagiellons got themselves excommunicated for heresy when they began importing (smuggling, really, but beside the point) expertise from the Caliphate. If Henry had been a bit more careful, he could have built up his position and managed a successful revolt from the HRE.

The Ruhr could still have been an option had a more unified polite survived there, apparently one of the three orriginal nations that arose due to the particion of Charlemagne controlled most of the Ruhrs eastern half, if they survived the area would have been more unified.
 
The Ruhr could still have been an option had a more unified polite survived there, apparently one of the three orriginal nations that arose due to the particion of Charlemagne controlled most of the Ruhrs eastern half, if they survived the area would have been more unified.

True, but it would still be sandwiched between the other two halves, and a bone of contention between them. The Ruhr is always going to be a battlefield, IMO, and you can't have an industrial revolution on a battlefield.
 
But there's a resource curse in Europe. The parts of Europe which are rich in natural resources are also the most unstable and violent, or run by dictators with private jets and palaces on the Palestinian Coast (1). By contrast the only wealthy parts of Europe are the Isle of Wight and Ireland, neither of which have any natural resources. If there are no clean public institutions, natural resources will harm, not boost, development. Even here in the Caliphate the Gulf is synonymous with public sleaze.

(1) Palestine = French Riviera
Hence why I said Europe needs to change its society and government before it could actually advance. Feudalism isn't friendly at all to the development of a modern government, and those vestiges of feudalism that Europe holds have been one of their most significant problems (the corruption of many European leaders is unchallenged because of this).
 
I don't think the Industrial Revolution could have started in Europe, but perhaps it would be more receptive to Eastern advances in technology if they were a little less conservative socially.

I think the earlier-suggested Manzikert TP might work - if the Eastern Romans lose, fear of losing Constantinople to the Seljuks could lead to Christian invasions of the Mideast. Jesus was from Palestine, after all, as was the Old Testament's Israel - it could be some sort of effort to reclaim the Holy Land put together by the Ecumenical Patriarch or even the Pope (perhaps an earlier TP where the Constantinople-Rome schism doesn't happen is the only way to make this work). I don't see such an effort working in the long run, but the political system over here was chaotic at the time - they could maybe grab a foothold for a few decades around Acre or even Jerusalem.

Soldiers exposed to Islamic culture could bring some technology and wealth back with them, creating a rising merchant class, which in turn leads gradually to some improvements in human rights and a slightly more liberal outlook - maybe even a severe weakening of the Church's authority. And then they'd be a bit more receptive to Eastern ideas and inventions - or at least not flagrantly disregarding the scientific theory.

So, Islamophobia could actually lead to Easternization. A bit of a long shot, though.
 
I remember reading somewhere that the thing that held Europe back was the massive inferiority complex everybody had towards the Roman Empire. It's hard to move forward when your obsessively looking backwards.

If this theory is true, the essential problem is creating enough people to say "Screw the Roman Empire, I'm doing my own thing". Or maybe somebody makes the connection "The Roman Empire is better than us, therefore there is something better then us" and essentially invents futurism several centuries early.
 
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Hmm. So what if we send the Mongols west, then? They'll get the benefits of integration with the rest of Eurasia, and Mongol conquest ought to shake up European institutions like the Church.
I think they are too far away for them to have a large share, no chinese scientist is going to go that far for a visit to the European education, IMO the best way to get an industrial Europe is to have a caliphate in charge of the entire mediterranean, that is a shorter distance but still has the benefit of interaction of knowledge between various areas, northern europe however might not get anything from this, cut off even off from their church's holy city they would likely crumble (perhaps a Northern European Caliphate grows? Umayyad Caliphate of all of Europe would be cool!).
 
The Roman Empire history might be the key to solving Europe's problem, perhaps a puppet pope under the leadership of a new king is told to tell people to bow to the new king and that everyone should support entering into a new unified state peacefully. Whatever it is, it is going to start on the Mediterranean for two reasons; new conquerors tend to be on the borders of civilized nations (Genghis Khan is from Mongolia, just north of China for example) so it makes sense this would be near a Caliphate, perhaps a more powerful Naples after Sicily was conquered? Or a little more far-fetched France leads the reconquista (I'm not good at European history)?; and secondly the Mediterranean already dominated Europe for thousands of years (exception Charlemagne) and that probably isn't changing anytime soon.
 
Ugh, more Christian bashing. Look, I'm no Christian apologist--I really wish people would stop calling me that--and there is certainly no excuse for their treatment of women and gays, but a literalistic reading of the Koran will show you that it's not all that much better than the Bible. How many Christian terrorists were from Al-Andalus? None. You know why? Because they're from a part of the world that isn't the armpit of an asshole. Life is shit in Europe, so those people tend to readings of the bible that justify their hatred for us. Which isn't universally unjustified, by the way.
 
I really think this thread should just be locked, I mean goddamn the anti-christianism in this thread is frankly ridiculous. I frankly hate how a bunch of Persians, Chinese, and Japanese people who have probably never actually known a christian are so critical of my godamn religion simply because of the lutherans and calvinist radicals.

Its telling that some of the only people here criticizing this idiocy are Andalusian, Egyptian and Turkish, you know people who interact with Christians on a daily basis and whos countries bother to treat christians with a lick of respect (and Egypt and Turkey have never been hit by a terrorist attack from any christian group). Your attacks are petty and idiotic and your attitude exactly why shit like the Cypriot (1) civil war happens.

1: Kind of like the Lebanese civil war
Thank god I live in the Eastern Roman Empire. It's about the only place were a christian is both in the majority and isn't in the third world.
 
OOC: Also doen't anyone remember my comment about the Eastern Roman Empire? It was the second one and established that the Eastern Roman empire was still alive and was in the first world.

Why has every one forgotten about it?:confused:
 
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