Was the rise and dominance of Europe inevitable? (poll&discussion)

Was the rise and dominance of Europe inevitable?

  • Yes

    Votes: 31 14.7%
  • No

    Votes: 43 20.4%
  • They got very lucky

    Votes: 33 15.6%
  • No "inevitable" but it was the mostly likely option

    Votes: 104 49.3%

  • Total voters
    211
  • Poll closed .
I think you're stretching it a bit with Africa / Australia / America (at least until much, much later than the other locations)
I'm not stretching anything except, and I will admit this readily, Australia. But yes, much later are two important words when it comes to the Americas and Africa. For PNG, it's a bit more complicated but if I were to make a one-sentence summary it would be like "taro is actually a terrible crop."
 
So you're agreeing that Europe's rise was a "unique situation" and not something caused by wishy-washy reasons like "disunity" which also existed in many other places?

Well yeah. I never said disunity as the only factor. Rather it was the disunity combined with all the other factors (like the aforementioned lack of luxuries which made Europe dependent on other regions for said goods and drove them to explore for alternate ways of getting them, the strong maritime tradition brought about by easy oceanic access from almost anywhere in Western Europe, the lack of an existential outside threat which allowed disunity to be a positive in the long-term, and enough cooperation that the closest threat; that is to say the Islamic world; could be held at bay but never actually defeated) all combined to give Europe a significant advantage even if it started from the weakest point relative to say the Middle East, India, or China. You were the one who chose to focus on that sole point. Which is why I voted for not inevitable, but most likely.
 
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Transaction cost and spatial issues say yes.
Transaction csts because the states of the middle east and Asia from China to the persians and indian nations experienced economic growth that outpaced their adminstrative growth in the pre modern era. As a result when they started losing control over the flow of goods, information and people, failed to provide for the people, and also got embroiled in foreign wars and the regional adminstrators and towns asserted their indepdnance form the central government.... they fell apart. Europe got super lucky in that the nations of EUrope like Britain or france had much less spacial issues since they covered less territory prior to the industrial revolution than the asian owers. Not to mention they also had access to sea which was a cheap form of transport and coal sources in easy to access locations. These advantages were lacked by much of asia and those states in southeast asia and africa that did possess maritime traditions lacked access to vital resources such as coal and the countries that did possess the resources were busy developing a consumer focused service oriented not industrial economy.

As a result the dominence of Europe becomes very likely. Now could it have been stopped, maybe... if asian towns and cities did not experience heavy economic growth or were dotted with regional rather than unified states that could handle the growth of their economies with admisntrative growth. China would have done much better had it split apart and had states form around the six macroeconomic regions. Ditto for india. Unification proved to be the worst thing at least till industrialisation and late 19th century of the large regions because the poltiies contorlling these vast regions had no way to effectivly exert control over these regions in any meaningful sense due to logistics and spatial issues.

I am not saying the states shouldnt unify just they shouldnt till at least the 1870s if not later.
 
You're talking as if India was always unified. Have you seen a map of India in the 15th century?

India, which was only unified by the British.

Really, I think India's lack of similar economic advancement should be attributed a) to the brutality of the Turkic invasions of the Indo-Gangetic plain, b) to the lack of a mercantile class or state after the collapse of the Chola and c) to the coming of Europeans compounding these issues and slowly strangling the Mughal state with trade privileges and tax collection.
 
Really? So... Rome is not European? A hypothetical space alien/god/whatever that comes and looks at all the Earth is not going to see Rome and China as the two "superpowers" and assume Europe is one of the two centers of the world? You may be taking a very literal geographic definition of Europe. Europe for this purpose should include the Mediteranean Basin (ie- North Africa and the Middle East). "Africa" should not in this purpose include Egypt or the Maghreb; Asia should not include the Middle East.

In AD500 and before, your hypothetical space alien would see multiple centers of urban, literate civilization throughout the Old World and others reaching the same level of sociopolitical complexity in the New World. If asked, This alien might reasonably suppose that one of the Eurasian or North African centers might become dominant eventually, but there is absolutely no way he would presume it would the Roman world. It could just as likely be China, India, Persia.
 
India, which was only unified by the British.

Really, I think India's lack of similar economic advancement should be attributed a) to the brutality of the Turkic invasions of the Indo-Gangetic plain, b) to the lack of a mercantile class or state after the collapse of the Chola and c) to the coming of Europeans compounding these issues and slowly strangling the Mughal state with trade privileges and tax collection.

I think the Turkic sultanates still could have been productive states if they stabilised around the 14th - mid 15th century(e.g. Further invasions didn't keep compounding the previous, succession wars after every single ruler died etc), the one that really made it difficult was actually the Mughals in my opinion, they are what stopped nation states really developing in India (which was similar to Europe in terms of competing states), to something more akin to the Middle East or China (one single state, residing over many different ethnic groups it did not belong to, no real competitor in terms of technology or trade but potentially thousands of conflicts based on rebellions).

Also a large mercantile tradition was present in Sindh, Gujurat and Bengal during the medieval era, although I'm not sure about the rest of the subcontinent.

So in my opinion, whilst the Mughals were a great empire and a uniter of India, they did detriment to India in terms of keeping up with the Europeans. Avoiding a centralised state dominating the whole of the Hindi Belt, Punjab, Bengal and Gujurat (and at times the Deccan) would have greatly helped India.
 
Was the rise and dominance of Europe inevitable? Yes! Because:

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"Ask a college student today what he knows about the Catholic Church and his answer might come down to one word: "corruption." But that one word should be "civilization." Western civilization has given us the miracles of modern science, the wealth of free-market economics, the security of the rule of law, a unique sense of human rights and freedom, charity as a virtue, splendid art and music, a philosophy grounded in reason, and innumerable other gifts that we take for granted as the wealthiest and most powerful civilization in history. But what is the ultimate source of these gifts? Bestselling author and professor Thomas E. Woods, Jr. provides the long neglected answer: the Catholic Church. Woods’s story goes far beyond the familiar tale of monks copying manuscripts and preserving the wisdom of classical antiquity. In How the Catholic Church Built Western Civilization, you’ll learn: · Why modern science was born in the Catholic Church · How Catholic priests developed the idea of free-market economics five hundred years before Adam Smith · How the Catholic Church invented the university · Why what you know about the Galileo affair is wrong · How Western law grew out of Church canon law · How the Church humanized the West by insisting on the sacredness of all human life No institution has done more to shape Western civilization than the two-thousand-year-old Catholic Church—and in ways that many of us have forgotten or never known. How the Catholic Church Built Western Civilization is essential reading for recovering this lost truth."
 
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In 1500 I'd call the rise inevitable, though dominance is a rather difficult term.

By 1511, the Portuguese were taking Malacca. In other words, Europe could go over and kick Asians around without the Asians being able to do more than stop them (as did happen aplenty; Jeddah was held by the Ottomans, the Chinese took Taiwan, etc.). This just creates a horrible disparity of power. Local rulers could fight their neighbour or the Europeans; if they beat their neighbour they win, if they beat the Europeans they might be back to square 1 next year when the next European fleet comes round.

Based on the naval situation of Europe & Asia, I find the Europeans (or North Africans who are nearly the same thing) being first to round Africa in force fairly likely - given the seas, currents, etc.

So I say most likely, but not inevitable.
 
In 1500 I'd call the rise inevitable, though dominance is a rather difficult term.

By 1511, the Portuguese were taking Malacca. In other words, Europe could go over and kick Asians around without the Asians being able to do more than stop them (as did happen aplenty; Jeddah was held by the Ottomans, the Chinese took Taiwan, etc.). This just creates a horrible disparity.

There are plausible PODs for Chinese reassertion of hegemony over the Indian Ocean, and with luck even establish themselves in the Med. Or, perhaps, the Ottomans or some other Islamic power definitely win the fight with the Portuguese in the Indian Ocean. Alternately northern Mesoamerica and the Andes don't get conquered so quickly. It wasn't inevitable in 1500 at all.

A multipolar world, even if Europe is the strongest "pole," isn't European dominance, so also keep that in mind.
 
Western civilization has given us the miracles of modern science, the wealth of free-market economics, the security of the rule of law, a unique sense of human rights and freedom, charity as a virtue, splendid art and music, a philosophy grounded in reason, and innumerable other gifts that we take for granted as the wealthiest and most powerful civilization in history.
I'm going to say that I take issue with the phrase "the wealth of free-market economics."

But: China already had suggestive elements of a rational scientific method with 18th-century philology
"The security of the rule of law" isn't that great compared to certain societies that lack institutionalized law entirely, and generally it's a feature of a "developed" society rather than Western civilization in itself; probably similar with "a unique sense of human rights and freedom"
"Charity as a virtue" is found (almost) everywhere
"Splendid art and music" is entirely subjective
"A philosophy grounded in reason" is a very recent development, especially compared to many Chinese philosophers of the Confucian tradition.
 
Yes but am talking abput india from 17th-19th century the mughal maratha period not medieval.

That period is when the idea of Indian domination of the globe becomes completely impossible. Before the Mughal conquest there is a possibility of it being a rival centre of domination along with Europe, and the era in which they genuinely could have been the most dominant of several dominant civilisations would be before the Turkic invasions. This could be anytime between the likes of the post Gupta states such as Cholas or Palas all the way to Privthiraj Chauhan. (Also I'm under the belief that India could never dominate the entire globe in the way Europe did OTL, purely due to its geography and history of regular steppe invasions).
 
That period is when the idea of Indian domination of the globe becomes completely impossible. Before the Mughal conquest there is a possibility of it being a rival centre of domination along with Europe, and the era in which they genuinely could have been the most dominant of several dominant civilisations would be before the Turkic invasions. This could be anytime between the likes of the post Gupta states such as Cholas or Palas all the way to Privthiraj Chauhan. (Also I'm under the belief that India could never dominate the entire globe in the way Europe did OTL, purely due to its geography and history of regular steppe invasions).

what are we arguing here then the explanation i have above is the reason for why the European powers by the 18t-19th century had dominance over the asian powers.

If we go back to a pod of the earlier eras than yeah Europe might not dominate. Their dominance became set in stone post 1400. Till then fair game between asia and europe, though china is still screwed due to size unless something like the sixteen dynasties or ten states periods lasts. Hell butterfly the mongols and the tripartate division of china could work. Maybe get the persian empire to not be massive either. Same thing with the egytions. hell for asia to retain its parity with europe just break it up into small states roughly the size of the western european powers.

However even in the 6-10th century economics wise byzantium was the msot advanced. Based on researchof world gdp per capita levels, the gdp per capita of the roman state during the 4-11th century trumped the rest of the eurasian and african world. Ditto for agricultural productivity, literacy, birth and death rates, etc...
 
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