Why Did Europe’s Economies Diverge from Asia?

The levels of income in parts of China and India were similar to those in Europe in the middle ages, until the Mediterranean pulled ahead - followed by northern Europe, initially Holland and then Britain. This ‘great divergence’ was one of the fundamental shifts in history - and is only now being reversed.
Did the divergence arise from imperialism and a 'drain' of wealth from Asia, or did it arise from internal features of Asian and European Society?
A lecture by Martin Daunton
The transcript and downloadable versions of the lecture are available from the Gresham College website:
www.gresham.ac.uk/watch-now/d...
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[@philippaw65]

Very surprised no mention of the rise of banking industry and stock companies in Europe which allowed non stop investment and loans.

[@WagesOfDestruction]

My thoughts too. It is interesting that Indian money lenders, at the time, preferred to lend money to the English than Indian leaders because the English paid the debts.

[@truthseeker327]

Excatly still today lond is the money laundering capital of the worlld. That money cannot be used by the public in uk. That highly inflates the UK economy.

[@AmeyaWaikar]

The indian lenders lended money to British because they had the highest demand for it. They had to borrow money to keep fighting the various wars during 17th and 18th century

[@notlimey]

A Cambridge trained prof of mine in a Canadian university in the late 1970s was saying that one needed to look at what was happening on farms in England in order to understand the growth of urban areas and therefore industrialization.

[@notlimey]

@@slavkobegic1418 The agricultural revolution introduced increasingly mechanized agriculture alongside the application of science to improve yields. This meant that fewer agricultural labourers were required who then became industrial labourers and moved into existing urban areas or who caused the formation of cities out of former villages & towns.

[@georgesdelatour]

@@notlimey I wonder about the use of draft horses. I'm no expert, but I expect draft horses might be more efficient than draft oxen, at least in flat terrain.

[@notlimey]

@@georgesdelatour I have a friend who raised Clydesdales..... I'll ask him to think about this!

[@JohanWehtje]

Lecture really missed the 3 really important reasons for the Great divergence. Firstly the key features of what collectively is called capitalism - stable property rights, joint stock companies, limited liability and a trusted banking system. Without them large scale bulk long distance trade that went beyond luxury goods would have been very difficult except when undertaken by states, but more importantly the second capital intensive stage of the industrial revolution would not have happened. China and Japan both had many of the ingredients for an industrial revolution long before North Western Europe but there was no way for the wealthy or merchants to effectively pool rescources and reduce risk. Secondly , and somewhat at odds with the point about the efficiency of maritime states was the left over form the medieval era of corporatist society that had many carve outs and excceptions to absolutist power, even in states like France or Russia that considered themselves absolutist. From town charters, to universities to the seperation of the church and state and ongoing tension between the 2 even where the church was nationalised, to the protected position of guilds and perhaps most importantly the existence of representative bodies for this patch work of corporatist bodies really stands out when Europe is compared to the other civilisations that could have conceivably industrialised earlier, and were certainly larger and richer than Europe from the end of Rome to the 18th c. Probably many Euopean monarchs wished for the absolute power that he or she imagined an Ottoman Sultan, a Caliph or Khan, Ming Emporer or Edo Shogun commanded - free from troublesome Nobles, Obstinate churchmen presumptuous merchants and guildsmen and even having to heed the opinion of commoners - all who were embedded in systems of law and custom from the medieval period where central authority had broken down completely. But as much as Monarchs might have wished for such despotic authority it was ironically the lack of it that enabled the States like England and Holland to marshal rescources when required that a Ming Emporer could only dream of . Representation enabled relatively tiny states like Holland and England to marshal money and taxation which would have preciptitated revolt in more pyramidal societies. Lastly the other feature that stands out about Europe was that it was not unified into one dominant empire like the Ottomans, Safavids, Moghuls, Ming and Tokugawa were. The gunpowder revolution of the 15th and 16th C had everywhere else produced a winner, but in Europe a mass of rival states continued to contend. On one hand this produced nearly incessant warfare, but at the same time it produced a system of state to state relations sometime called the westphalian system that allowed regulated trade and diplomatic relations, alliancee systems that made Europes propensity for war as much a source for dynamism as it was a source of destruction - a phenomenom that had occured in other societies - from China's warring states to Japan preceding the rise of the Shogunate. But in Europe the Dyanamo of the competitive states kept spinning , neither so out of control that it destroyed the societies competing nor producing a final winner who would establish a new europe wide empire.

[@kashmirha]

Very interesting points, it would be nice to hear the lecturers answer or reaction.

[@or6397]

Well, WW1 and WW2 is this process spinning out of control and destroying those societies?

[@PMMagro]

Very interesting this!

[@blairhakamies4132]

Fabulous. 🌹

[@privatevendetta]

I think the influence of the British government on the Irish famine is a bit undersold here.

[@jacpratt8608]

there might be more coming, the subject is already well out there though and this is less so.

[@b.6603]

The role of the British empire in crushing the Indian textile production through force is also forgotten. A "minor" oversight.

[@jacpratt8608]

terrific. joining a lot of dots. hope there'll be more.

[@mhick3333]

Currency comparisons are definitely tricky and questionably

[@stavroskarageorgis4804]

Do the Brenner Debates ring a bell? How is any of this new?

[@mellio1113]

For me he is very hard to follow the main point of his lectures. There are lots of branches, sub-branches, argument, counter- and sub-arguments, and what it needs is an overview at the start, at the end, & at points along the way. Very knowledgeable i'm sure, & interesting bits of information, but it all needs a lot more drawing together (not at all easy to follow as it stands).

[@jacpratt8608]

i find one listen is not enough. 😏being ADHDish. but repeats repay the time.

[@Trials_By_Errors]

It All depends Upon Per Capita energy Creation and Availability. That's the process of Industrialization.

[@bobwrathall8484]

I read a book about 20 years ago. I think it was a rework of a doctoral dissertation. The author asserted that the difference between Eastern, mainly China, Middle Eastern, mainly Islam, and Europe was the development of a legal system that allowed for the existence of corporations. A corporation is not owned by anyone in particular. Its managers are caretakers. The author cited the existence of medieval universities owned by no one. Also the Wool Merchants Guild in Florence which established a "corporation" to build the cathedral. That corporation was in existence for a hundred years before the foundation was laid. In China the state had complete control and would not allow random power centers to develop. In Islam, everything had to have an owner, a real person. This allowed for investments in the West into corporations which could grow into rich, large, dynamic organizations responsive only to share holders and a charter, not to dynastic overlords or rich individuals who might misuse and abuse the organization. The organization could overlive individuals. It could fire bad management.

[@b.6603]

"or rich individuals who might misuse or abuse the organization" You do realize these organizations you are talking about are things like the east indies, right? Go look their human rights records and compare with the tyrannical leaders and organizations that came before. Not much better. I think you (and maybe the author) completely missed the point.

[@jupe2001]

India too had rich merchant guilds that used to conduct diplomacy and even engage in war. They however disappeared after 12th Century after the Turkic invasions. Look up Tamil invasions of Sri Vijaya, one of the largest naval campaign in history. It was mostly funded by Indian merchant guilds.

[@b.6603]

@@jupe2001 yes, this is it. My point is that is impossible to understand the economic changes without looking at the geopolitical struggles. And this lecturer goes out of his way to never talk about the geopolitics.

[@jupe2001]

​@@b.6603 Yeah, people look for something inherent when the factors are usually external. I personally think that Western Europe took over the world because the traditional centres of civilisation, i.e. China, India, Persia and Eastern-Mediterranean were frequently invaded and smashed by the Turks and other Steppe people. West existed in their protective geographic bubble being, until their time came and then they took over the world. All five coastal powers in west- Britain, France, Portugal, Spain and Dutch did that. Not being routinely invaded by a completely alien culture is a huge advantage. Nothing to do with colonisation, by that time the west had already left most of the world behind.

[@bobwrathall8484]

I have no horse in this race. I thought it was an interesting take on the social roots of things. In a chaotic world, this could have meaning. Small things grow large.

[@richardkut3976]

Nicely put. Where's the Money?

[@davepx1]

The problem with talking about the 18th century is that we have quite enough information about the most developed regions of Europe and China (and India) to know that it had already happened centuries earlier. Economic historians need to stop regurgitating imaginary GDPs in nonsensical "1990 international dollars" and get back to what countries and regions were actually producing (by the way, they had currencies then too: why make one up?): to his credit, Pomeranz tried that, he was just nearly as bad at it as Broadberry & co in concocting their meaningless headline numbers. Why did Europe (or a part of it) pull ahead? The answer lies not in government policy (the Ming and Qing were fairly adept economic managers until the latter's agrarian tax giveaway fatally undermined the regime's effectiveness) and still less in any notions of imagined superiority, but in how each region's geographical situation, resource endowments and socio-economic characteristics played out at successive stages of development. There's no simple answer or convenient cluster of explanations, you have to study each economy over the best part of a millennium. And ditch the silly "1990 dollar" charts.

[@michaelwicks933]

I’m just sayin, there is some absolute nonsense in this comments section - and it’s only been five days.

[@charlesminckler2978]

Constant comparison of English vs Indian cotton without a single mention of the massive influx of raw cotton from southern American colonies. English industry couldn’t have grown cotton in Europe.

[@asparadog]

That's because the lecture is about Europe’s economic divergence from Asia.

[@charlesminckler2978]

@@asparadog In the period in question, England was a major importer of southern American cotton. Both before and after the revolution. It was a major reason the South thought they could survive without northern exports.

[@asparadog]

@@charlesminckler2978 The video isn't about the US though; it's about Europe and Asia. Also hat were the prices of American Cotton compared to Asian cotton?

[@georgesdelatour]

Before we arrive at something like modern consumerism, where ordinary people accrue a lot of personal possessions, how do we know how wealthy the average person in location A was compared with the average person in location B, say 400-ish years ago? How do we measure it? This has nothing to do with how their rulers lived. Maybe the Mughal Emperor Aurangzeb lived in more personal luxury than Charles II of England. But did a randomly selected subject of the one have a higher standard of living than a randomly selected subject of the other? Based on no hard evidence, I’m guessing that Charles’s subjects on average consumed more calories than Aurangzeb’s, and they maybe had a more high protein diet. They probably consumed more alcohol too. But did that make them richer?

[@ekesandras1481]

Average life expectancy in Europe was aroud 37 to 40 years until the 19th century, lower than the worst African country today. But Europe already had a much higher literacy rate in the 19th century, than any other region in the world and even before industrialization it was already technologically ahead of all other region. Around that time the whole of India (with Pakistan and Bangladesh) had about 200 million inhabitants, because with their given technology they just could not feed more people. Any increased birth rate, would immediately increase the famine rate. To feed the 1.3 billion they have today was only possible by adapting European technologies.

[@spiritualanarchist8162]

There is quite a lot of data. Traders /priests/etc made records. Trade companies collected these records to determine the potential market . Taxation in one form or another was 'invented ' in almost every country . Taxation means civil servants . Civil servants means records on possessions and wealth . So there was quite a lot of information about how rich countries were, and how the people lived.@@ekesandras1481

[@jacpratt8608]

based on no hard evidence apart from personal and domestic I'd say Not.

[@vv6533]

@@ekesandras1481 definitely not all of Europe. Only few countries in North West Europe (Britain and France for example). Europe is a continent with many countries and to generalize is laughable when there's a huge discrepancy between each country in Europe itself even today. There are countries in Europe as poor as some asian countries today.

[@eljanrimsa5843]

You may not be familiar with it but thee is this astounding technology called "writing" which was invented a really long time ago. Based on that amazing time-defying technology, we have the same data from bureaucrats 400 years ago that we have from bureaucrats now. It's not possible to answer randomly selected calories questions without extrapolating but that applies to today's data as well.

[@remimk]

Prof dodged like 7 possible cancellations there like the matrix 😂

[@BobFrTube]

In "The Most Powerful Idea in the World: A Story of Steam, Industry, and Invention," William Rosen argues that the concept of intellectual property and patents was key to enabling people to benefit from their innovations. And in a virtuous cycle, the steam engine, which enabled the use of coal as a fuel.

[@michaels4255]

Coal use in England had been rising rapidly since back in the 16th century. The steam pump allow that rate of increase to continue. Historically, even during the most rapid phase of the industrial revolution, inventors usually did not make much from their inventions. The gains tended to accrue elsewhere. Britain had copyright and patent laws, which were a legacy of mercantilism, for 200 years before their industrial revolution began in the 18th century. Ultimately, energy is the key to economic growth, and innovation is a just a way of utilizing the energy resources once they are known to exist. Britain's exponential growth in coal use reached a point in the 18th century when it was transforming the country, but it was just a continuation of a 200 year trend which received little attention in its early phase while the impact was still modest.

[@BobFrTube]

@@michaels4255 I do think that intellectual property was a factor but certainly not the only one. It's interesting to ask why the Greeks and Romans had trouble building on their powerful innovations as much as later civilizations did.

[@jhercoles8168]

And he was utterly wrong! It was key to create monopolies...

[@tripsam4655]

Is this really a question? Asia was much ahead than europe. Then Brits leeched off the wealth coming in the name of trade and then taking over in the wake of infighting between rival kingdoms often caused by the British. But now that the loot is wearing off and actual trade is happening, the balance is coming back to where it was earlier.

[@bigbarry8343]

Very interesting topic. I am wondering about how PPP is being calculated here, as it does not seem appropriate for India. it must exclude essential living costs, such as housing and energy. consider offshore indian worker for western company who earns about £7000 per annum. they can buy a family home for $15K in commumtable distance from work. compare that to silicon valley, where modest home costs $3,000,000. the equivalent average salary would have to be $1.5 million, but median is just $250K. then energy bill is just $8 per month for professional indian household. i understand that there are many benefits of being perceived as poor, developing nation, but these parallel universes just gone too far.

[@berchten]

Gotta love it when someone who thinks he could explain a simple line graph… 20:00 it said a lot about this presentation. The “data” mmh but one can always start with a conclusion and explain himself into whatever he shows.

[@armchairwarrior963]

Chinese inheritance is equally divided between all sons. So a farm gets smaller and smaller each generation.

[@marcusimpresario7724]

~ Economists who pretend to understand economies remind me of Rudyard Kipling's story of the blind men and the elephant. The first grabs the elephant by the tail and declares that the elephant is like a rope. The second grabs the elephant's leg and says the elephant is like a tree. The third grasps the trunk; like a hose, etc.! ~

[@liberalcynic]

I think you’ll find coal is organic. Organic chemistry is shorthand for carbon related chemistry. Coal certainly is carbon based. 27:41

[@fern8580]

43:24 The conversion in France this done in this way: we take the cost of a haircut for men at the hairdresser (since the dawn of time, it has always taken 15 minutes for a man to cut the hair of another man)

[@stavroskarageorgis4804]

The fiscal-military state!

[@Inaf1987]

NorthWestern Europe did have another advantage over China and India, and it was the fact that it was further away from the Horse Archers of the Steppes, which would tie up more funds towards the Armies, unlike China and India. I think this is also another reason why Eastern Europe trails the West by a considerable degree.

[@seanmchugh6263]

Gunpowder ended the steppe archer problem.

[@WagesOfDestruction]

Japan did not have this problems

[@mtarkes]

The invading hordes from Central Asia just kept coming and undermining civilisations.

[@z077aarkamitra3]

@@WagesOfDestruction But do you know the fact that they shut themselves off for 200 years for some abstract non tangible superiority complex.

[@WagesOfDestruction]

@@z077aarkamitra3 only after the Chinese beat them in Korea

[@markaxworthy2508]

.......and this current convergence happened in the era of the so-called "Pax Americana".

[@davidkinnear1905]

I'm a bit surpised no mention was made of Weber and protestantisms role. It seems quite apt when they mentioned the 'industrious revolution'.

[@peterchaloner2877]

Hotness conduces to sloth. Hot East is somnolent; cool West is busy as a bee.Providence designed the West to come out on top.

[@myparceltape1169]

@@peterchaloner2877 You may think it's 'hot' but if you were born there it is 'normal'. Bodies adjust.

[@laurisafine7932]

The professor didn't mention the Charter of the Forest (1217-1970), which protected covets and allowed subjects to do what was necessary on their lands for prosperity, as long as it didn't harm their neighbours, etc.. Neither did he mention cultural issues like the caste system and karma in India (eg. no social mobility), or practices like foot binding in China, which must have slowed down sundry activities to a shuffle. Also, UK subjects, including the navy, always expected rules to be fair, as part of their Anglo-Saxon/Christian inheritance since Alfred the Great ie. Kith and kin; "Everyman"; "Justice shall be local" (Magna Carta 1215) etc.. To not include a comparison of the different values and inspirations - let's just say it: religions - prior to the Enlightenment and industrialisation, made this lecture lack bedrock and pith, imho.

[@mugikuyu9403]

@@peterchaloner2877 But all the worlds civilisations started in hot places. The west as a civilisation did not start independently and was initially established by people who lived in a hot place, the Romans. Even in Africa south of the Sahara the Nok Civilisation, which was the first civilisation in Southern Africa, was a completely independent innovation unlike in the now dominant west. How do you explain this fact that puts a kink in your armor? The actual benefit of living in a cold place instead of a hot one is that hot climates are where insects and viruses flourish. In Africa south of the Sahara, as an example, the continent was too sparsely populated until recently due to high death rates from malaria, frequent crop failures due to pathogens that prosper in temperate climates, bad quality of soil, and disease from viruses that live in the temperate soil itself. In Europe the winter deals with most of the pests that would destroy crops, the soil is too cold for viruses to flourish, and crops use less energy during the night which means they have more energy to grow, whereas in tropical places where the day and night are about equal lengths crops are basically using up all the energy they produced during the day via photosynthesis to keep themselves alive once the sun is down. It’s a complicated issue that can’t be reduced down to hot = lazy and cold = productive.

[@davidw8668]

@@mugikuyu9403 the Mediterranean isn't a hot place, it's defo cold in winter and its where western civilization started. Also your point with crops is a bit adventurous. Of course there is an advantage to produce crops in tropical fields where you can have up to 3 harvest of rice.

[@iano239]

Another massive source of food for England's industrialization was Ireland. The ghost acres were literally that. Ireland's population dropped from 8.93 million to under 4 million by the beginning of the 20th century. Food production per acre went up. A large amount of Ireland's population ended up as labor in Britain, with, ironically, a shorter lifespan than in Ireland.

[@mhick3333]

Well stated

[@jhercoles8168]

Minor details. All the other colonies that weren't India? Minor detail....

[@bsastarfire250]

The potato blight didn't help. The 'Protestant Ascendancy' was wrong by modern standards, but perfectly understandable given England's history of being surrounded by hostile Catholic countries ,

[@joesmith323]

I found the lecture to be mostly unsatisfying. The historians seem to lose sight of the fact that India had a developed cotton industry before the Europeans arrived. The UK went from a standing start and were relatively quickly able to out compete India in third markets. The completion of the Eerie Canal in 1825 would have greatly increased the 'ghost acres' available to Great Britain and Northern Europe.

[@mrldjohnston5736]

K I'm still at work

[@12388696]

Jingdezhen is pronounced jing de zhen not jingsen

[@yj9032]

Western Europe was saved from the Mongol invasions and other steppe nomad invasions that devastated the old world.

[@kdshak4904]

First divergence in 1500 resulted from deep sea shipping. Broke the back of countries dependent on overland taxation. This was mainly lead by Portuguese and Spaniards. The second divergence took place when Dutch combined deep sea shipping with capitalism (stock market and banks). Dutch East India Company (DEIC) was the pioneer of this new system. This resulted in tremendous prosperity for the Dutch. England followed suit by using its naval and financial muscle. They too copied the DEIC concept and named their version as British East India company (BEIC). Guess what they took over from Dutch by improving on capitalism and deep sea shipping and coal (steam engine was basically a device to improve coal production). Rest of the world couldn’t compete with English tech, mercantile system, and jurisprudence. Imagine BEIC raising 10 million pounds for every million spent by monarchs of Spain or Portugal or India or China. Especially in India, BEIC paying local Indian soldiers steady income better than any Indian Maharaja or Mogul. Any military challenge posed by locals Raja was easily defeated by British using local Indian soldiers. 😂 At the height of British rule, they had only 3500 British officers to control 50+ million Indian population. 😊 BEIC was paying “pension” or monthly stipend to Mogal emperor. Imagine that. An emperor on the payroll of a company. This was only possible as BEIC could raise enormous funds in London Stock Market. The same money supported chemical and industrial technology and factories in England. This is how financial and naval power overwhelmed Spain, Portugal in Europe, then onwards to India and China and overwhelming them the same way. Please don’t believe any stories of how innocent locals were “abused” by big bad Brits. It’s a a game of financial muscle power. If you want to survive, build some muscles.

[@jupe2001]

I mostly agree but the Mughal emperor by that time was already a pensioner of the Maratha Empire. Last time Mughal emperor who actually held some power, there was the 'Child's war' in which EIC was defeated. Also, Marathas were paying better wages than EIC, 8 Rupees per month compared to EIC's just 6 for the infantryman, the chief cause of their defeat at the hands of the British was the mass desertion of European officers due to Lord Wellesley's threat/offer, which suddenly paralysed the Maratha armies. There was also Maratha civil war and factionalism but that wasn't the biggest factor.

[@kdshak4904]

@@jupe2001 Interesting. Thanks for sharing Maratha view point. By the way many Indian authors want to project Maratha and provide many stories to support their nationalist agenda. I sure hope yours is not a nationalist view. History is a cruel and harsh teacher. Those who respect its harshness prosper. Those who who try to find solace in magical nationalist stories of power perish. My respectful disagree with you? The following two reasons you provide towards the end of your post. 1. European military specialists left Marathas 2. Maratha civil war My study shows European military only numbered about 100. These were mostly French soldiers who were battle hardened during intra European wars. Presence of these officers in Maratha, Sikh, Mysore sultans and other regional armies clearly showed that the local war tech had declined tremendously, hence the need of international specialists. However no number of such specialists could help as the whole paradigm of global trade, shipping and navy had rendered invalid every land-only tactics and economy. One should learn by asking a simple question. Why did Spain, Portugal, France, and Germany all ended up loosing to the British. Mughal, Marathas etc were no match as they were even inferior to the European global powers like Spain, Portugal, France etc. 2. Yes. Marathas civil war showed that political system followed by them had failed like every other political system across the globe. One must respect the updated political financial and naval system in order to understand the harsh realities of the struggle back then. Thank you. Peace.

[@fern8580]

♥But why not the arrival of a stagnation (watch not a recession) for 1000 years (2023-3023)? , as had been the case during the Middle Ages (1000 years of stagnation in purchasing power)? Then suddenly, the Portuguese and Spanish discoveries after 1492, bringing Europe out of the Middle Ages ... to go towards a beautiful renaissance that will last until today!)

[@ekesandras1481]

Real economic growth only comes from technology. Some Indian maharajas might have been rich, living in splendid palaces and ruling over a flourishing fiefdom, but this doesn't mean that India was a rich country. It was statistically poor, prone to periodic famines. One maharaja was only richer than the other by the number of thousands of peasants they rules over. If you make more people work for you, your economy is larger and the ruler is richer than his neighbour, but per capita it was still a poor kingdom.

[@michaels4255]

"real economic growth only comes from technology" - and technology is just a set of techniques for putting surplus energy to work, but if the surplus energy is not available, the impact of technology will be relatively minor.

[@davidw8668]

@@michaels4255 So european countries where extremely energy rich? But the Dutch managed to reclaim land in the 13th century without oil..

[@jupe2001]

That is true for literally any place in almost all of history.

[@akshaysen6778]

Like in britian all common people are prosper and living in castle wearing cotton clothes oh sorry cotton clothes are for British maharaja or aka racist royal family even now most of the wealth in britian are in hand of elite which are rulings u for centuries

[@jhercoles8168]

Dude, Marx already explained that in-depth!

[@3ipl]

British Industrial Revolution started soon after the British annexation of Bengal and the huge drain of resources as a result - which makes sense because you need huge accumulation of resources to start making machines. My theory - Discovery of the New World made European countries strong enough to impose their will on India, which led to Industrialization and everything after that.

[@Kannot2023]

European conquer the world due to better boats and better guns, this means that they had better technology and a sophisticated organisation.

[@davidw8668]

Which hugh drain of resources? Obviously india was extremely lacking and was far behind as a culture. And still is - despite them to have profited massively from modernity introduced by the colonisers. Its a cultural deficit they have that is pretty obvious if you look at the mindset indians stil today have.

[@jupe2001]

@@Kannot2023 You don't need much better technology to conquer the Americas. That place was backward enough for anyone to take over.

[@jupe2001]

@@davidw8668 The places in India ruled by native princes had much better standard of living compared to the placed ruled directly by the Empire. The biggest use of India was as a source of raw material and a 'captive' market for finished British goods. Therefore the 'Jewel in the Crown'. There was little incentive to make it better. Mindset is irrelevant, Germans and Japanese were considered lazy back in the day. Its all about economics.

[@mowgli5837]

@@davidw8668 maybe get out of your cocoon and learn the fact that before Islam, India was the most prosperous, educated, productive, stable and the most connected landmass on the planet. When european sailed west, they were searching a route to India. Not to China. And hence the American were called Indians. Did you also not know that every early technology and knowledge that world has ever gained was mastered in India and then shared with outside world. Including the gunpowder, currency, advance maths, sergery, metallurgy, knowledge of chemicals, biology, medicine, industrial machinery, algorithm-cryptography, electricity, astronomy, stone crafting, textiles and maybe some other technologies. All of it came from India. Where theff you read your history? University of baghdad? Kabul? Civilizations started and flourished in the indian subcontinent bcoz this landmass was centre of the old world with most productive landmass and much needed security. But here's the problem. Suppose I tell you Indians created laws of motion which was translated by newton. You won't even care to question newton. That breaks your whitman ego. Innit?

[@dnivaranamaratis]

Of course, he is an apologist for the British Empire. Indian textiles are world renown for millennia- not just from the 11th century. He should read Egyptian, Roman, and Greek records. The designs he shows as ‘European’ are an adaptation of popular mango motif that existed for thousands of years before the Europeans ventured out. I shudder to think he is considered a senior professor.

[@AJAYSINGH-ns1vv]

True.

[@goyakat2211]

It's about freedom.

[@gollumtheartisticnewt1028]

I bet they will never ask Why did Europe and Asia grow rich and Africa did not?

[@jhercoles8168]

Simple, better/worse use of gunpowder. If was a better or worse use, it's up for debate!

[@sayankundu1492]

Obviously. Colonialism, oppression and slavery helps..

[@jupe2001]

Western Europe took over the world because the traditional centres of civilisation, i.e. China, India, Persia and Eastern-Mediterranean were frequently invaded and smashed by the Turks and other Steppe people. West existed in their protective geographic bubble being the cultural backyard for most of history until their time came and then they took over the world. All five coastal powers in west- Britain, France, Portugal, Spain and Dutch did that. Not being routinely invaded by a completely alien culture is a huge advantage. Nothing to do with colonisation, by that time the west had already left most of the world behind.

[@georgesdelatour]

I find this argument quite convincing. I don’t think it explains everything, but it feels like a major factor. The most devastating steppe invasion was that of Genghis Khan. His armies devastated Iran and destroyed the Abbasid Empire. His grandson Kublai Khan conquered China. The one major Asian country the steppe invaders couldn’t harm was Japan, and it was the first to modernise.

[@myparceltape1169]

Coastal is the key, I think. They built the boats which traded where they chose. Just as how many of the huge trading ships are now Chinese.

[@SirAntoniousBlock]

Jarod Diamond explains the rise of Europe in _Guns, Germs and Steel._

[@jupe2001]

@@SirAntoniousBlock I haven't read the book but I think Jared's argument is in regards to why some civilisations develop and why some do not. It does not explain why other advance civilisations failed where W. Europe succeded. It would have been equally possible for say China or India to develop and take over the world, since they had all the ingredients needed for modern civilisations. I think it has more to do with multiple and continuous Steppe invasions that soured their chances of growth and advancement. Something which the states of W. Europe did not have to worry about.

[@michaels4255]

In spite of their defensible location, Spain and Portugal stagnated and were progressively left behind by Britain, the Netherlands, and France. Germany was a late developer and had hard to defend borders, being constantly threatened by neighboring powers, and so the Prussians developed their impressive army which they eventually used to forcibly unite many of the German states. However, once unified, Germany proceeded to develop very rapidly. Even the massive destruction it suffered during WW2 (the second major war it lost in a 31 year span) and its huge losses in human life did not prevent its rapid recovery to become one of the world's top economies - except in East Germany, which languished under Communism until it was finally reunified with capitalist West Germany. The states of Western Europe were constantly at war with one another for hundreds of years. War is hardly less disruptive because it is waged by a nearby neighbor than by a far away power. And of course millennia of isolation do not seem to have done anything for the industrial development of North America, South America, Australia, or sub-Sahara Africa. The territory occupied by the USA is probably the best geographical location in the world, yet the indigenous inhabitants did very little with it and were still in the stone age when the Europeans arrived.

[@peterkavanagh64]

Numbers of relations , products to our or Thier needs. Is not measured. Been away and saying no is important to say the infrastructure fatmers community and propaganda industry. The army is nota officer.

[@iconoklastik]

Looters propaganda with funny accent

[@TheNoblot]

President Biden / le Général, né le 22 novembre 1890/ better follow De Gaulle advice 1967 borders for Israël/ he knows things you ignore 1917/1947/ 1953/1967/😥

[@Lydiard91]

IQ?

[@piyushjaiswal9283]

From the outset looks like pro western pro British propagandistic video.

[@wilsonmark7077]

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[@basurathod1691]

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[@sallymartinez1521]

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[@miyojewoltsnasonth2159]

This is hilarious because it's the same writer for all the replies. And probably the initial comment as well.

[@jhercoles8168]

That's bad investment. You put 9.5 mi to get 43k, that sucks!

[@stylembonkers1094]

By far the single biggest influence was the publication of the Bible in the vernacular languages of Europe.

[@jhercoles8168]

That was a great set back, truly!

[@stylembonkers1094]

@@jhercoles8168 Prove it.

[@jhercoles8168]

@@stylembonkers1094 Oh, sorry, you don't know reality?

[@stylembonkers1094]

@@jhercoles8168 Oh, sorry, you don't know reality, or logic?