To that end, increase global trade. Dig the Suez canal early.
The original Suez Canal was dug during the Pharonic Period of Ancient Egypt. Keep it going for fifteen hundred to two thousand years and you're in business.
Regards,
John Braungart
To that end, increase global trade. Dig the Suez canal early.
Improve the wealth of the world alongside improving the world's trade networks. More wealth gives more resources for innovation and trade allows for ideas to spread quickly.
But critically alongside these two things, cripple slavery. Cheap labor breeds stagnation and was one of the reasons Rome didn't really innovate for most of its history.
Given that we are post 1600, perhaps avoiding the British colonization of India? India horribly stagnated under the British.
Additionally, perhaps a greater economic liberalization in the Spanish colonies following the war of Spanish Succession?
The Bourbons moved in that direction with their reforms under Carlos III, but doing so earlier would leave much of Latin America in a much stronger and wealthier position, which would allow more people to focus on innovation.
Actually, the Byzantines were the most advanced nation in the Mediterranean, and making tons of innovations. List from this post by /r/AskHistorians user Ambarenya:
[snip]
At one point they were, no doubt, but by the 13th century it was blatantly obvious they were living on borrowed time. Basically like the 5th century Western Roman Empire. I'm pretty sure the Byzantines themselves didn't even have access to a lot of that by that time--like I know the late Byzantine Empire didn't know how to use Greek fire anymore or otherwise simply didn't bother making any more of it.
Actually, the Byzantines were the most advanced nation in the Mediterranean, and making tons of innovations. List from this post by /r/AskHistorians user Ambarenya:
The original Suez Canal was dug during the Pharonic Period of Ancient Egypt. Keep it going for fifteen hundred to two thousand years and you're in business.
Regards,
John Braungart
Its possible that Europe remains the epicenter of innovation, at least for a few decades, but the idea is to by the time industrialization kicks in there are more global areas that join in on the revolution and thus the world is much more economically developed as a whole, leading to further innovations that would otherwise not have happened.It's pretty stunning if you look at the economic and demographic results of British colonisation in India. It's one step above what the slave trade did to Africa. But I guess we'll assume that post-1600, modern tech will inevitably be developed by the West.
Its possible that Europe remains the epicenter of innovation, at least for a few decades, but the idea is to by the time industrialization kicks in there are more global areas that join in on the revolution and thus the world is much more economically developed as a whole, leading to further innovations that would otherwise not have happened.
Uhh, source? I don't think Thorton ever says this. And while development is hard to measure, there's first common sense (Kongo was not part of the Eurasio-African world that Portugal, or for an African example the Swahili, were). And for more objective measuresWhen the Portuguese first found Kongo, the kingdom was richer and more developed than Portugal itself (then one of the more developed European countries).
Disputing this too. Even before the 18th century the OE and Persia were not populated enough to be as economically developed as Northwestern Europe. Even in 1600 the Ottomans had a fourth of the population of China in 1200 AD and India was noticeably economically underdeveloped compared to, for example, Tokugawa Japan. Really East Asia is much easier to develop than India or especially the Middle East.Still, India, Persia and the Ottomans had, up to that point, been innovating at the same rate as Europe.
The idea that Christianity retarded development has been debunked a fair few times IIRC.Oh, and I am not spreading lies or false facts, I think a little bit of what I said was possibly true but, what do I know.
Uhh, source? I don't think Thorton ever says this. And while development is hard to measure, there's first common sense (Kongo was not part of the Eurasio-African world that Portugal, or for an African example the Swahili, were). And for more objective measures
Disputing this too. Even before the 18th century the OE and Persia were not populated enough to be as economically developed as Northwestern Europe. Even in 1600 the Ottomans had a fourth of the population of China in 1200 AD and India was noticeably economically underdeveloped compared to, for example, Tokugawa Japan. Really East Asia is much easier to develop than India or especially the Middle East.
Kongolese cloth was traded, yes - traded by the Europeans because the Kongolese had no capacity to sail in blue water. Other areas of Africa also had developed textile industries (eg Benin) but clearly textiles are not the sole marker of a country's development.The reason was apparently the cloth industry in the region
My point is that the OE and Persia were not nearly as economically as developed as India, or China, or NW Europe, and economic development matters more than military technology when it comes to the development of general technologies. I also find it doubtful whether the OE was really "leading" in war by the mid-17th century, as stated in the OP.they led in most areas of military technology
Ming China was indisputably more developed than the Mughals, as seen from city size (Lahore and Delhi were the biggest Mughal cities and probably had about 400k people in 1700; I can name three cities just in the lower Yangzi that had as many or more people, including one that probably exceeded a million inhabitants and may even have had two million) to urbanization (Ming Chinese urbanization rates exceeded 10%, Mughal ones most likely did not) to population distribution (even in the 18th century much of Bengal was forested and peasants could flee into them - I heavily doubt this was an option in Ming Jiangnan)As for India, India and China followed very similar trajectories up until the end of the 17th Century