European empires with a non-industrial Europe

I think that at best Europe keeps a bunch of ports/forts and even a few city states. In the end though local/regional actors will largely take even those. Picture the following: Britain has a sweet port in Africa. We are France and going to war with Britain. Now there is a local inland native empire that is hostile to the British and their presence in the region. Let's give those natives guns and send military advisors. In exchange we weaken Britain and get an alliance/favorable trade terms with the native empire.

Imperialism as we know it in this ATL would not be long for this world. At least not until industrialisation started, if it started.
That repeatedly happened OTL before the industrial revolution, and global empires still thrived.
 
Portugal barely conquered West Africa. Mozambique, IMO, isn't a good analogy for far more complex societies like India.

Portugal couldn't get past coastal Senegambia due to poison arrow and disease; Mozambique was a very context-specific, odd situation, reliant on local rulers giving land to prazeiros and distant viceroys confirming contracts in a way that wasn't mirrored anywhere else in the colonial world (the Spanish managed to actually conquer things; the Portuguese a) went really, really native, b) ended up being significantly Goan and c) even with slave-soldiers and strong landowners couldn't truly defeat the Maravi or the Shona/Rozwi).

Without industrialization, I think colonialism will center much more on the 18th century model, given that the need for industrial resources like rubber will not exist. I think these company regimes may well be more durable; they had more cultural competence and involved local elites enough to have "local investment", although obviously no regime lasts forever.

Without industrialization, we also don't have nearly as many developed goods that need to be sold abroad. While the developed-goods deficit existed before industrialization, it was the advent of industry that truly kicked that into overdrive.

Also -- local states would acquire European military technology -- Europe could eventually lose its edge, although its sheer naval power will always give it a leg up on other states.
 
I wonder if this could ironically end up worse for native cultures and the environment than OTL.

Absent Modernism, colonial Europeans continue having 8 kids each and continental Europeans have 5, rapidly populating the New World, Australia, and New Zealand up to the carrying capacity in the early 1900s. After that they begin to look at other places to dump off their surplus populations that are more difficult, like Southern Africa, North Africa, the Middle East, Siberia, and Central Asia, while others like Latin American's begin to look into the Amazon and Orinoco for space to try and avoid famine, or as Australia to tries to irrigate the Outback. This results in horrific wars of extermination against local populations and widespread environmental destruction.

Provided the European's win by the 21st century and run out of space again, during famine they perhaps begin to look at absurd places to dump their populations, like East Asia, India, the East African Highlands, or various Pacific Islands, and try irrigating virtually every desert in the world.
 
Except for that whole Western Hemisphere declaring independence in nationalist uprisings right? ;)
Most of it came after the Spanish heartland was conquered by Napoleon; it wasn't a case of nationalist uprising succeeding because of foreign aid to the nationalists, but rather the unrelated hobbling of the imperial power.

Furthermore, you missed the point that while individual imperial holdings can fall victim to enemy alliances with the local people, it wasn't enough to stop empires in general; the British used native allies in their conquest of Canada from France, but then kept it for themselves. That the British muscled France out of India didn't mean that India was suddenly for the Indians again, and the British occupation of points in the Dutch East Indies did not permanently halt Dutch control there. 'Make alliance with natives to take other peoples' colonies' was a standard tactic for the whole age of imperialism, and it's patently ridiculous to claim it poses a mortal threat to the whole concept of empire.
 
I would like to help the discussion.

Mercantilism - Problems of supply solved by trade. Credit, communications, pricing, stable resource markets are key.

Industrialism - Problems of supply are solved by the application of science. Merit, innovation, patents, stable consumer markets are key.

Now imagine what would be required to preserve mercantilism and prevent industrialism.

What a POD!
 
I would like to help the discussion.

Mercantilism - Problems of supply solved by trade. Credit, communications, pricing, stable resource markets are key.

Industrialism - Problems of supply are solved by the application of science. Merit, innovation, patents, stable consumer markets are key.

Now imagine what would be required to preserve mercantilism and prevent industrialism.

What a POD!
I wouldn`t overestimate patents and the whole intellectual property thing. But science is, of course, highly relevant in this matter. An (even more, cf. Descartes!) anti-empiricist stance at the turn of Middle Ages into Modernity within the philosophical community could hamper progress. Kill Bacon as a kid in a plague? Wouldn`t suffice...
 
I wonder if this could ironically end up worse for native cultures and the environment than OTL.

Absent Modernism, colonial Europeans continue having 8 kids each and continental Europeans have 5, rapidly populating the New World, Australia, and New Zealand up to the carrying capacity in the early 1900s. After that they begin to look at other places to dump off their surplus populations that are more difficult, like Southern Africa, North Africa, the Middle East, Siberia, and Central Asia, while others like Latin American's begin to look into the Amazon and Orinoco for space to try and avoid famine, or as Australia to tries to irrigate the Outback. This results in horrific wars of extermination against local populations and widespread environmental destruction.

Provided the European's win by the 21st century and run out of space again, during famine they perhaps begin to look at absurd places to dump their populations, like East Asia, India, the East African Highlands, or various Pacific Islands, and try irrigating virtually every desert in the world.
Don´t think that would be a problem.
There are always pandemics to cut back overly growing populations. Otherwise China would long have had to conquer the whole world.
 
I wouldn`t overestimate patents and the whole intellectual property thing. But science is, of course, highly relevant in this matter. An (even more, cf. Descartes!) anti-empiricist stance at the turn of Middle Ages into Modernity within the philosophical community could hamper progress. Kill Bacon as a kid in a plague? Wouldn`t suffice...

Science subject to state control FOR the public good.
 
I mean look at our world history before your POD of 1820. America had been established, the French revolution and a truly nationalist movement had been born and Latin America had largely thrown off or was in the process throwing off the Spanish Empire in nationalist movements. [1] So without the Industrial revolution not only does the Scramble for Africa never happen but you are likely to see the same process of nationalist uprisings across the planet with much weaker European militaries to keep them down. Imperialism as we know it wouldn't last for long in this ATL.

Reference:
[1]https://www.britannica.com/place/Latin-America/The-independence-of-Latin-America

Secularization/age of enlightenment and related forces were catalysts for both nationalism and industrialization. While its possible to have one without the either, I think given where we were in 1500, you have nerf the enlightenment to prevent industrialization which then also gets rid of nationalism.
 
I wouldn`t overestimate patents and the whole intellectual property thing. But science is, of course, highly relevant in this matter. An (even more, cf. Descartes!) anti-empiricist stance at the turn of Middle Ages into Modernity within the philosophical community could hamper progress. Kill Bacon as a kid in a plague? Wouldn`t suffice...

Patents are hugely important. Early industrialization was largely enacted by individual economic actors. If they lack the ability to protect their assets, its much less likely they develop industrial processes.
 
Absent Modernism, colonial Europeans continue having 8 kids each and continental Europeans have 5, rapidly populating the New World, Australia, and New Zealand up to the carrying capacity in the early 1900s.
The main issue with your argument is that without industrialization populations wouldn't grow astronomically like OTL. Population growth and environmental devastation would be curbed once the carrying capacity of the land is reached, either intentionally (e.g. infanticide and abortion, systematic Tokugawa forest conservation) or unintentionally (civil war, famine, pandemic).

Without industrialization I find it very doubtful that Europeans could or would conquer the Maori, the vast majority of Africa, or even parts of the Americas.
 
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