this view is however not the mainstream consensus among economic historians, reread the data figure by Maddison, bairoch, et all. Statistics paint a markedly different picture. By 1800 china was sans disunity on parity with Italy, Spain, Austria Hungary, ansd minor tier great powers or secondary european powers.By the end of the Renaissance, European hegemony was guaranteed in my opinion. People point to 1492 because it brought an influx of resources which turned a small jump into a rocket launch more-or-less - but I believe that really it is not a matter of finding America so much as when it was guaranteed they'd be the ones to colonize North America. Once 1492 (or analogous European contact) is inevitable, then world domination is too. I believe the seeds that would grow into colonialism, people like Henry the Navigator and the importance of trade with India (originally via land), are products of the renaissance. It was inevitably at that point that an over-sea route would be developed and eventually this led to colonization.
only post steam engine did europe overtake rest of the world completely. Read the entire post to know why.
From 1500-1800 ample oppurtunities for Asia to catch up. chinese were just one step away from inventing British steam engine. All they had to do was use pistons for the bellows, here luck played a role.
Same with Japan, during sengoku era Japan had some of the best quality muskets and advanced shipbuilding knowledge. Had a daimyo who was pro western eg Date, Oda, Hideyoshi, etc united Japan then Japan too could have retained parity with much of Europe.
The Ottomans: have the sultans curb power of janniseries and modernize. Plus with careful diplomacy could retain French allaince. Russian bear could be stopped if you butterfly away Suvorov and Rumyatsev(Is that how you spell it).
Even in WWI the Russians had difficulty fighting ottomans. Even then post 1700 may retain great power status but honestly cnt compee with Germany, Britian, or France due to statitics on urbaniziation, productivity, exports/imports, literacy, etc.
GDP per capita Europe dominated post 1600 and that too only England, Spain(due to Netherlands and Belgium), and France and early on Portugal dominated. Maybe russia but they were fighting sparsley populated nomads for the most part.
Liike these there are many other WI scenarios that go the other way. These are just a handful.
Even then only some breathing room for these non euro nations. Very unlikely but the possibility existed. Only post 1700 does it become a certainty that Europe and USA would dominate the world.
As for global trade regardless of what people believe about euro dominance of seas, the stats don't lie. Till 1800 Asia dominated world trade. See appendix B, posted above or any of the numerous data sets compiled on the subject.
This post 1700-1800 divergence is the current consensus among historians. course their are detraktors but Rourke et all, Maddison, bairoch, Pommeranz, Wrigly, Parsannan and other top economic historians beg to disagree.
Though their are some historians who support your view. Essentially focus mainly on history vs Focus on economists/statistical models and data to explain history is the current divide among economic historians at least. Eg soft history view historians vs hard history view historians. Both sides just hate each other
Not sure about non economic historians though.
nowadays the age of European dominence is declining due to funnily enough the very reasons why it dominated in the first case so in the future the cycle will repeat. Its all down to imports/exports, urbanization, populations, stability, and real wages/prices
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