Poll: At what point did European world domination become (near) inevitable?
- Thread starter SvoHljott
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Minor quibble, but I think that Persia and Egypt could also have done better than OTL, at the least. They just got stuck with a run of bad leaders.
you'd think the philosophy of alternate history, the idea that it could have gone differently, that NOTHING is inevitable, makes inevitability its bitch.
but i guess it's more like the idea of asymptotes, when it approaches the point that it is practically inevitable.
so...
i'll go with North America. because with that, Europe gained two entire continents' worth of resources. and the power that comes with it.
i still voted for the "nothing is inevitable" option, if only out of principle.
but i guess it's more like the idea of asymptotes, when it approaches the point that it is practically inevitable.
so...
i'll go with North America. because with that, Europe gained two entire continents' worth of resources. and the power that comes with it.
i still voted for the "nothing is inevitable" option, if only out of principle.
Spain and Portugal won the earliest colonization battles, and connected the global marketplace. When they unified and Spain got bogged down in Europe, the Dutch came in and took Portuguese possessions all over the place, just as France and England also entered the colonial scene. Furthermore, what silver and gold actually got to Spain often went to German bankers and a variety of European mercenaries (and this is before we tackle the inflation) The Portuguese declined, leaving those other three as the main players in the Asian market. Eventually, the Dutch lost ground to the English, as did the French (in India).
Domestically, new crops, enclosures and the birth of industrial capitalism allowed Northern Europe to bounce ahead. Spain started the engine, the Dutch and then the English took the wheel, and the capital from global trade helped Britain start industrialism. Northern Europe had the industrial resources and institutional health necessary to industrialize- resource-poor Portugal and the Netherlands and unstable 19th century Spain were by then too weak or too small to get ahead in the next stage of global capitalism (industry).
Industrialism helped the Great Divergence, but the capital necessary to start industrialism, and the global trade network which played an important part in 19th century dominance, came from centuries of intrigues, wars and concessions in Asia and elsewhere.
Mapuche accepted the King of Spain´s sovereignty: Peace of Quilin (1641). Mapuche recognized the Spanish soverignty and the right of catholics priest to go to their territory in return they were recognized free and independent.
http://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parlamento_de_Quilín_(1641)
Every fews years they swore allegiance to the Catholic King.
Maybe but I'm not fully convinced that any of the states you mention would have been able to modernise earlier than they did. Given their cultural views, ISTM modernisation was only forced on them once European (and US) dominance became evident. Which was probably only the late eighteenth to mid nineteenth century, as a result of industrial revolution and the boost to Europe's economy relative to elsewhere that followed
Earlier than that the European Powers controlled world trade routes and the Americas but were not dominant on land in Eurasia. In 1800 I believe China was still the largest economy, with India second - though the latter was increasingly fragmented and coming under British control.
However, the control of trade and technological and military superiority were already established by around 1600-1700 and made eventual world domination (almost?) inevitable.
I suppose I'm taking the view that the Industrial Revolution (and the earlier improvements in agricultural productivity) were inevitable given the situation in Europe post-1600, and specifically in Britain. That might be excessive determinism of course.
Point being, that until Europeans became more than irritating barbarians with a few tricks trading from enclaves, there is no reason for successful and stable states to change their cultures to 'modernise'. I don't think it's simply a matter of attracting technicians or sending bright lads to university in the west but requires destabilising changes to laws, patterns of production and upsets vested interests. Japan seems to be very much the exception, along to a lesser degree Thailand.
good point the issue for modernization enters around a strong entral government that takes an active role. See Asi'as issues were that wages were low due to high population. Britain on the other hand had much lower population, higher wages, and a higher capital to labor ratio. tHis forced producers to come up with new techniques to improve efficiency.Maybe but I'm not fully convinced that any of the states you mention would have been able to modernise earlier than they did. Given their cultural views, ISTM modernisation was only forced on them once European (and US) dominance became evident. Which was probably only the late eighteenth to mid nineteenth century, as a result of industrial revolution and the boost to Europe's economy relative to elsewhere that followed
Earlier than that the European Powers controlled world trade routes and the Americas but were not dominant on land in Eurasia. In 1800 I believe China was still the largest economy, with India second - though the latter was increasingly fragmented and coming under British control.
However, the control of trade and technological and military superiority were already established by around 1600-1700 and made eventual world domination (almost?) inevitable.
I suppose I'm taking the view that the Industrial Revolution (and the earlier improvements in agricultural productivity) were inevitable given the situation in Europe post-1600, and specifically in Britain. That might be excessive determinism of course.
Point being, that until Europeans became more than irritating barbarians with a few tricks trading from enclaves, there is no reason for successful and stable states to change their cultures to 'modernise'. I don't think it's simply a matter of attracting technicians or sending bright lads to university in the west but requires destabilising changes to laws, patterns of production and upsets vested interests. Japan seems to be very much the exception, along to a lesser degree Thailand.
If for eample lets say Qing china fully centralizes and the government takes active steps to force landowners to increase worker wages through eitherpolicies or incentives that leads to higher growth, more productivity, more movement to cities, coupled with educational investment leads to higher literacy rates and more conditions for industrialization could be fulfilled.
Copy and pasting my response to this question somewhere else with minor revisions...
I'd have to say that Western dominance wasn't actually guaranteed until some point in the 18th century. It was still not a given for much of that century that the West would be able to militarily take places such as India. Economically, China was running rings around the West, Indians such as Tippu Sultan presented a credible military challenge to Western nations in India, and the Ottoman Empire was awaking to the challenge that Western modes of organization presented.
To say that European methods were unquestionably superior from very early on are ridiculous to say the least. Until the 13th century, Europe was unorganized and backwards outside of the Eastern Roman Empire, with cities struggling to break 10,000 inhabitants at a time when many cities in the Islamic world and China broke the 100,000 mark. Gunpowder was widely adopted in India, the Middle East and elsewhere not so long after Europe adopted it. Indeed, it was a big factor in the rise of empires such as the Mughals and the Ottomans.
Europeans largely became dominant in the 19th century due to lucky breaks in the 18th century. The Ottomans spent nearly a century in relative stagnation, with efforts at reform being stomped on by internal forces. In India, British dominance was established almost by chance, and a few key battles could have ensured that the Europeans would not control as much of India as it ended up doing. Unfortunately, I know less about China so I'm not sure what chances they have of avoiding weakness in the 19th century. Then again, without India and other places under their belt, Europeans would have a seriously hard time projecting power there.
Basically, European dominance lasted for shorter than people think, the factors causing it were relatively short term and the roots of its relative decline were sown only a few decades after it became dominant.
I'd have to say that Western dominance wasn't actually guaranteed until some point in the 18th century. It was still not a given for much of that century that the West would be able to militarily take places such as India. Economically, China was running rings around the West, Indians such as Tippu Sultan presented a credible military challenge to Western nations in India, and the Ottoman Empire was awaking to the challenge that Western modes of organization presented.
To say that European methods were unquestionably superior from very early on are ridiculous to say the least. Until the 13th century, Europe was unorganized and backwards outside of the Eastern Roman Empire, with cities struggling to break 10,000 inhabitants at a time when many cities in the Islamic world and China broke the 100,000 mark. Gunpowder was widely adopted in India, the Middle East and elsewhere not so long after Europe adopted it. Indeed, it was a big factor in the rise of empires such as the Mughals and the Ottomans.
Europeans largely became dominant in the 19th century due to lucky breaks in the 18th century. The Ottomans spent nearly a century in relative stagnation, with efforts at reform being stomped on by internal forces. In India, British dominance was established almost by chance, and a few key battles could have ensured that the Europeans would not control as much of India as it ended up doing. Unfortunately, I know less about China so I'm not sure what chances they have of avoiding weakness in the 19th century. Then again, without India and other places under their belt, Europeans would have a seriously hard time projecting power there.
Basically, European dominance lasted for shorter than people think, the factors causing it were relatively short term and the roots of its relative decline were sown only a few decades after it became dominant.
I'll note that While Mehmed II and Murad I were both very passionate and very focused on the acquisition of foreign weaponry and the adoption of new strategies and weapons by the 1600s military innovation had been dropped and the Janissaries were still using outdated muskets and pikes, and Spahis still used lances in the worst way possible. They still had fine discipline and military skill which resulted in the near success of the 1683 siege, but nevertheless they were falling behind. Not to mention the 18th century was actually less of a stagnation than the 17th, where the Kaipikulu system of bureaucracy began to completely fall apart. Thanks to specific reforms in the late 17th century some of this was reverted but there were greater institutional issues in the state. It's really important to note there was no printing press in the Ottoman Empire until the 1720s iirc and literacy remained very low compared to places like England and Germany. Also, after an initial boom of population and commerce where the population of the balkans exploded in the 16th century, it shrunk into a third of its zenith size in the 17th with the collapse of the old system and increasing banditry.
Honestly, the 18th century was much better for the Ottomans than the 17th. As for the question at hand, the issue is that many of these regions were usually pretty despotic and unstable places, even the ones which were more modernized, and the mentality simply was not there. It's telling that when local modernization efforts appeared such as al-Afghani, who to me proposed one of the most natural possibilities for a modernizing Islam, he applied what he had learnt from observing the European powers.
To me the mongol invasions were a red herring and it's honestly kind of insulting since a lot of people love blaming Sufis for the "irrationality of Islam"; never-mind the Sufis produced beautiful works and constituted a continuing literary tradition in the face of apocalypse. What is more important is the effects of the Mongol Conquests, namely the continuing instability in the middle east. The arrival of new tribal groups in these regions and the continued massacre of entire urban centers such as by the Timurids or his depopulation of Northern Iraq and destruction of Nestorianism served to essentially destroy the core of the old Islamic world. It's telling that under the Ayyubids there were over 32 madrassahs in Aleppo alone but by the time of the transition from the Turkish to Circassian Mamluks there were hardly any considering how many times Aleppo had been sacked.
Many of these regions, then, suffered from an institutionalized instability that caused them to suffer immensely and refuted dynamism and economic growth necessary for innovation. In other areas, stagnation ensued with the loss of central administration or facilitated banditry. The Black Death also had an immensely negative effect on the main late middle age center of Islam, Egypt, by causing the Mamluks to resort to forcing many peasants into brutally taxing serf labor whilst old urban centers were essentially abandoned by a country which had lost about 35% of its population, analogous to the outcome of the black death in Eastern Europe where it served to escalate, not relax, feudal dues.
The Ottoman system also suffered from an institutional rot and an essential failure; they could not stop conquering and the entire system was based on such. It was not designed for a static state which was the main reason why it had such severe issues following the death of Sulieman. In a lot of ways his own ego and need to conquer things, especially Vienna, was what drove the Empire into a decline from the more dynamic earlier reigns of Murad and Mehmet. It was overstretched and overworked. It's important to remember the Ottoman final goal was not to establish an Ottoman hegemony over one region. It was to conquer the world for Islam; it seems like hyperbole but both Christians and Muslims genuinely believed that the Ottomans would complete the process of Jihad and bring about a final victory over the infidel. As Rome taught us, basing your system on an unsustainable system of conquest to revitalize your economy and propel you forward tends to end in failure, and it's telling that during the 17th century the Ottomans would go on campaigns regardless of whether they would lose or not. They just had to go. It was the Ottoman way.
Really, the shock delivered by the Austrians under Prince Eugene was the main reason behind a massive shift in Ottoman policy away from eternal conquest and finally encouraged a sense of stagnant stability for the state even if it was one where rot continued to exist at every level of administration. The Safavids meanwhile failed mainly because of their succession system (which the Ottomans themselves adopted) that resulted in weak and idiotic heirs, but more deeply it was an institutional crisis owing to the fact that post-Timurid Persia was as much a tribal entity as a sedentary one, with many competing tribes and clans that were increasingly destabilizing central authority. A good ruler like Abbas could get a handle on and even curtail it, but Persia was increasingly starved of good rulers and increasingly trapped between powers greater than it like Russia and the Ottomans. Nader Shah, for example, was not its salvation but a very symptom of the rot, owing his success to murder and civil war and pursuing a reign with a huge amount of conquest and loot but very little of substance to show for it.
What these states require are lasting, stable institutions to encourage growth. Not knick-knacks and do-dads and world-travelling fleets.
Very good post. I think I would say that Western hegemony had a long incubation period (1492-1789) of immense changes, capital accumulation and the change in states, before industrialism combined with all those other previously developed factors and pushed it firmly into first place
One of the most important aspects was actually a lot earlier; cities as centers of commerce and banking and the development of a capital economy in the 1200s is honestly one of the most important developments in the history of Europe. It had no analogy in the rest of the world and allowed for the accumulation of capital, concerted urban growth, and a modern trading and banking system.
I mentioned that upthread (I think), I agree; the redevelopment and widespread growth of the city as a center of concentrated capital was absolutely key for Europe. Decentralization helped- we had burghers and cities all over Western Europe
The development of the city after Rome honestly has gotten me thinking that the post-Roman world may very well have been an improvement, at least in the long long term...
Due to that decentralization, too, most warfare during the period tended to be of the low-level kind without too much structural damage; when you do get cataclysmic wars like the Thirty Years War some areas never recover like Mecklenburg-Pomerania and the economies of the smaller German states. It's terrible until you consider how often that type of warfare occurred elsewhere.
England's economic prosperity and growth had much to do with the fact that it had no major wars after 1650 on its own soil.
Delvestius
Banned
Alexander the Great's empire... I would consider the Byzantines European first and foremost, and China is too isolated to care about the rest of the world. India's way too diverse and their location is kind of poor...
So it comes down to Greece vs. Persia. If the Persians end up winning out then the nexus of world control would probably be centered in the Middle East since the area woulkd be much more stable ITTL.
So it comes down to Greece vs. Persia. If the Persians end up winning out then the nexus of world control would probably be centered in the Middle East since the area woulkd be much more stable ITTL.
Hadn't even realized that, but yeah- it makes sense that feudal decentralization would in turn reduce the overall impact of wars. It makes things like the Deluge or what happened to pre-Mongol Russia stand out even more.
And not having wars on one's soil is always good- America's avoidance of violence on its soil after 1865 has been a godsend for us, and I'm sure the precedent applies for England as well.
Absolutely. What does that say, then, for the World Wars- not only devastating, but also unprecedented in European history in both scale and scope?
I think the simple statistic that global trade did not return to the same level it had in 1913 until 1970 speaks for itself. The depression was mainly as a result of the entire system being burnt to the ground by the first world war and no one believing it, hence the attachment to the gold standard, and because the United States was an unstable foundation for a global economy it wasn't much interested in being a part of as soon as the going got tough.