China was too centralized
India had the Caste System
The Persians and ottomans stagnated under Islam
Russia was always a feudla undeveloped waste
Europe, alternatively, led the world in invention and development. But only after they ditched christianity with the enlightenment.
Europe was leading the world centuries before the enlightenment.
because of the 30 years war and end of Christendom
According to that criteria Soviet Russia should have won the Cold War.
No. The Enlightenment was what allowed Europe to finally edge ahead of the declining East.
Because of Spain and Portugal taking over a continent and establishing trading post all over the world. This was followed by the UK, the Netherlands and France. By then we still hadn't reached the enlightenment.
nonsense, both centralized and stagnated
conveniently not asking why Europe chose to invest in seapower
It certainly had nothing to do with the enlightenment and had everything to do with peculiar geopolitical and social changes going on at that time. Including the Ottoman Empire dominating ancient land routes to Asia.
But the Enlightenment also created the modern centralized, bureaucratic state.
Many traditional states have been very descentralized, such as the Holy Roman Empire and the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth in Europe.
insular societies do not look to external sources of trade. Industrial revolution is what led to serious disparities between civilizations. You are completely wrong
>insular societies do not look to external sources of trade.
They do though a fuckton of times.
>insular societies do not look to external sources of trade
Europe had no choice. Ottoman Empire cut them off from their trade routes. Why do you think Portugal invested in sailing around the African Continent? When the Spanish arrived in the Americas they had an isolated continent with vast wealth in which diseases wiped out 90% of the native inhabitants.
>gains are all that matters
greece and crete should be included in western europe, probably illyia as well, maybe old thrace before the mass slav immigration that wasted pan-celt
>greece and crete should be included in western europe,
No. Greece has been Eastern Europe since the Roman Empire split.
China during the middle ages had a free-market capitalist economy. So your post is dumb and so r u.
no way sparta reigned a thousand years thats honourary, minoans?? mycenaeans??
It's ridiculous to call either the Spanish or Portuguese insular. Exactly because of their religion, both societies spent huge reasources funding wars overseas, expanding their borders and their influence. They were both extensive traders, crusaders and empire builders in the early 1400s, well before even the renaissance.
The Ottomans lost position in the balance of power during the during the Sultanate of Women period. They were more culturally open and accepting during that period then they were before or after it.
>conveniently not asking why Europe chose to invest in seapower
Because Prince Henry the Navigator sensed money could be made via it in in the early 15th century. Which is way before the enlightenment or even the rise of Italian humanism. Before you try to say that he is a secularist or something along those lines I would like to point out that he was the Grand Master of the Military Order of Christ.
>normiefags start realizing that the crazy leftist shit they were indoctrinated into as children is crazy
>confused normiefag: "fuck that, i'm going to assert western values: rationality, freedom, democracy."
>asspained christcuck: *rubs hands together* "no, no, the western world's values are actually worshipping a failed jewish prophet and having a worldview steeped in medieval superstitions. here, look at these artifact-riddled jpegs and youtube videos by google theologians"
>confused normiefag: "wow, it all makes sense nao. praise jesus. tell me more about this /pol/ place you speak of, brother."
What is the point of gains without tradition, what is the point? Suicide isn't against atheism, consider it.
>China was too centralized
Is it worth pointing out that the most anti-traditionalist years of the CCP under Mao, during the Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution, were some of the most destructive and backwards times of modern China?
would you rather be a enslaved Incan worked to death in the silver mines?
relative scales; europe had many power centres which feuded creating competition and not just one.
Exactly. Europe lost it's insularity as traditional authority broke down
ad hoc historical uniqueness is so cliche
>Why do you think Portugal invested in sailing around the African Continent?
Because of a Crusading mentality to subjugate Moors and pagans and make money off their labor to compete with the Venetian monopoly in the eastern Mediterranean.
"Ottomans cut off trade" is a meme.
>"Ottomans cut off trade" is a meme.
lmao. It might have also been partially that but the main reason it started is because of the ottomans cucking them
The Ottomans had nothing to do with anything here. The Portuguese weren't even in the game to be cut out of it, and the Ottomans wouldn't have control over all of the Eastern Mediterranean's sea ports until 1517.
It's not about having control of all the sea ports. It's about cutting off Constantinople from Europe.
Except they didn't cut Constantinople off from Europe, as Venice, Genoa, England, France, and Holland all established heavy diplomatic and economic ties quickly, and Constantinople wasn't the main port of the spice trade to begin with. It hadn't been for a while, serving mostly as a bottleneck for the Black Sea slave and grain trade in the 14th and 15th century.
>Except they didn't cut Constantinople off from Europe, as Venice, Genoa, England, France, and Holland all established heavy diplomatic and economic ties quickly,
They didn't completely cut them off (the Ottomans wouldn't benefit at all if this happened being in such close proximity inside Europe) but what they did was that they raised the prices for the products coming through the Middle East, since they had to come through Arab,
middlemen to get to most places in Europe as well as the ottomans being greedy bastards and wanting as much as they could milk due to their privilege of being the dominant power in Eurasia then.
It being unsustainable for their economy in the long term plus the development of more seaworthy ships in the 15th Century led Portuguese into taking the sea.
The Arabs had been middlemen in that trade for several centuries, even going as far back as the 3rd century. And the Ottomans in the second half of the 15th century had little involvement with them, being mostly confined to Anatolia at that point.
And no, they didn't raise prices any more than was sensible given transport costs. Even when the Portuguese were directly buying from the Indian Ocean they couldn't sell spices in Amsterdam any cheaper than the Venetians did without taking heavy losses.
What you're saying is right, but it's anachronistic to reduce the expansion to a purely economic endeavor. The Ottoman expansion had a large effect on Northern Europeans and it generated a sense of urgency among them as well as the Portuguese having 'crusader mentality' stemming from their post reconquesta days.
>And no, they didn't raise prices any more than was sensible given transport costs.
They may have done trade with them but it didn't mean they played fair. They were still expanding as an imperial power.
>Massive conquests in the 16th century were due to the industrial revolution