Why has Enlightenment, the Scientific and later the Industrial Revolution started out in the "Western" world?
Before all else, I want to point out that this is a sensible topic and it is easy to go off the well-meaning path — my motives are strictly curiosity and I believe this site can actually have a fruitful discussion around it. I would also like to mention that I have a quite limited, and very Europe/West-centric history knowledge, so please acknowledge my bias/ignorance. I don’t even know enough about the Western part, let alone enough to compare it with other cultures’ respective systems at the time.
I have talked about this topic numerous times with friends and while we had some theories why it might have started there, none of them were particularly convincing. Nonetheless, here are a few reasons we could come up with (of course it is multi-faceted), please expand/argue about them if you feel, or write new ones as well (I try to be brief here, partially due to hitting the edges of my knowledge in many cases, but also to not bias people to any particular topic):
Religion, Philosophy
Christianity is/was the predominant religion of the region. Plenty of important discoveries/inventions came from monks “learning about God through the natural world”, and many branches of Christianity believed in sharing not only their religion, but knowledge as well - Jesuits being particularly famous for teaching, and collecting vast amounts of knowledge. (Obviously, the Catholic Church had plenty of wrongdoings as well, and was not opposed to keeping people in the dark)
Another notable religion which deserves a mention in this topic is Jewish. I am unfortunately even less knowledgeable about it, but the number of Jewish scientists and discoveries is staggeringly high. From what I gathered, they have a strong culture of arguments/discussions regarding the Torah, and blind acceptance is not the way (as opposed to the Bible), which might have some relevance.
The Arab world had an important relationship with Europe, but from this perspective it may not be as important.
With that said, I really can’t argue whether these are significantly different than, say, Eastern religions. Maybe the Abrahamic three are a bit more individualistic, which might have a bigger relevance here in the direction Western philosophy has gone.
Economic system
I know even less about this topic. One important point I do know a bit about is the question of loans, which were forbidden by the Christian Church (for a while) and Islam, but not for Jews (so loans could be obtained in Europe). Not sure if there is a difference between different parts of the world here that is of relevance.
Capitalism itself is also a result of these philosophical ideas, so there might be more to this financial aspect.
Society, societal norms
A prominent theory might be the existence of universities. While different kinds of school systems have existed earlier - to my ignorant knowledge - Europe was ahead in terms of education. This is quite self-explanatory, accumulating smart people and ideas together greatly improves their “productivity”.
Colonialism
Self-explanatory, but if this is the answer, I would also like to extend the question to why the Western world was the first at that at such an extent? That also required technological innovation and a motivation for it. Though it itself has plenty possible explanations like good geographic location.
Climate, geography
Europe has a generally mild climate, well-fit for efficient agriculture and animal husbandry. It also has numerous rivers. It is not the Biblical garden where you have fruits all year long, so you do have to rely on your own work to survive winters, but it is definitely not the desert neither. But that is not a convincing answer either, because plenty of regions are similar, and early scientific advancements come from the more desert-y Arab word, with perhaps harsher conditions.
Europe is also well-connected to other regions.
War, Politics
I quite liked this answer one of my friends came up with (within our circles that is) — due to many, small political entities being so close to each other, there were lots of conflicts, many of which resulted in wars — which are significant drivers of “innovation” even today. Pardon my ignorance, but other regions were mostly ruled by huge empires, that later fall apart and were conquered again, or small settlements with little outside contact. This necessitated less novelty in those conquests.
But even non-war conflicts themselves could have had positive effects, the aristocracy of Europe had strong connections with shared events - besides the more “romantic”/formal aspects, it was also a hub for many intellectuals from different countries to engage in deep discussions. Add to it that most research/discovery/philosophy came initially from people of aristocratic backgrounds.
I could write many more, but I am afraid that would have even less substance. I would be very interested in your input on this, what unique context allowed this intellectual growth that resulted in many aspects of our modern lives we take for granted?
The western world did not develop in an isolated vacuum. It benefited from vast lateral movements of ideas and technology, in a way that those not on a similar latitude did not.
For example, when western Christians had completely ignored and lost much of the ancient wisdom of Greek and Roman philosophers for hundreds of years, this knowledge was kept in the Arabic libraries of the East. The West gradually rediscovered it through contact during the Crusades etc.
Jarred Diamond's book Guns Germs and Steel touches on a lot of the things which interest you, because it sets out to answer this exact question. It isn't perfect but there's a lot of good starting points.
Edit: in the West we are often not taught properly about other civilizations. The first library was in Sumeria. The first university was in Maghadhar (Bihar). The 14th century African kingdom of Kongo was running a full district court system.
China also technologically surpassed the Romans at the time, and had a more humanist culture (through philosophies like Confucianism, which highly influenced social structure and political hierarchy) than pre-enlightenment Europe.
While Europe's Middle Ages were going on, China developed paper and printing (movable type, even, before Gutenberg), the compass, gunpowder, various metallurgy things, etc..
US/European history simply exaggerates their importance and ignores most of the world.
Why did they fall so far behind with such a head start?
Worth mentioning some of the context. China's sea ban wasn't as extensive as Japan's sanoku.
It started to combat piracy that had seized the coasts after a number of tumultuous events (like the second bubonic plague) had left China weak. The policies weren't effective but had carried on for most of the Ming dynasty.
In the ~1550-1750 range (late Ming and early Qing) China was trading with most of Europe. There were retrictions on where and with who, but iirc there was still a substantial amount of contact, and the early Qing dynasty was much more open to the West and had diplomatic channels.
After that period the "one port" / Canton system was put in place for non-Russians. There was still trade then, but only in Guangzhou / Canton.
The Canton system is largely attributed to the Flint affair, in which a member of the East India Company hoped he could open up trade but ended up in a breach of etiquette. China had also had concerns about the West:
It's hard to evaluate how much opportunity or incentive there was for technological/cultural exchange, but there was certainly a good amount of contact and trade.
For whatever reason, the East India Company just didn't have much China wanted. That deficit from their tea importing is what lead to the opium smuggling-->Opium Wars, kicking off the century of humiliation.
Maybe that missionary activity set the stage for the Taiping Rebellion where brother-of-Christ Hong Xiuquan leaves ~20 million dead.
China had it's own chaotic internal issues, acts of nature (e.g., floods or the bubonic plague), and external forces that would have been happy to do what the trading companies did. Those complexities and inflection points are why I'm biased towards the Wienersmith view of history. For a roll of the die, if the Spanish armada had a different designer would we be speaking Spanish and making post hoc rationalizations for why it was inevitable?
They knew about steam engines though, as did the Romans. There is a theory that high levels of income inequality stagnate adoption of labor saving or productivity enhancing technologies. The idea is basically that one person can only need so many shirts or brushes or whatever. So if the consumer base is small, with a few rich people on top and a teeming population of subsistence peasants, there’s no strong incentive to invest in being able to turn out a lot more shirts a lot faster.
Industrialization depends on sort of a positive feedback loop where initial investments bring modest returns that are then reinvested in more investment for more returns. But if the initial investment doesn’t bring returns the feedback loop never kicks off. If the demand isn’t there you don’t get take off.
In Europe, actually, the real kick off for textiles was actually needing mills to work around the clock to make military uniforms. That sort of bootstrapped these industries. Early industrial mills turned out crappy cloth, skilled weavers in could outdo them at quality to a large enough extent that nobody who could afford it would settle. But conscripts don’t get a choice of fabrics and all military contracts care about is producing at enough scale to meet demand.
There were similar feedback loops just for technological sophistication in manufacturing. You make a steam engine so now you’re getting better at machining small parts. You make trains so now you need to keep uniform time across long distances. You use your expertise at machining parts to make clocks. Through making clocks you get really good at machining even smaller parts and precision fitting them. This makes you even better at making even more intricate machinery.
Or you need to make iron pipes for steam works so you develop processes to ensure good metallurgy at scale to make useful pipes. But hey, turns out this is also useful for making cannons that are more accurate and lighter weight. And then the military technologies for making cannons and rifles trickles back to industry and on and on.
Obligatory mention that Guns, Germs, and Steel
isn't well received by historiansis controversial. Definitely not as bad as Gladwell and many people have enjoyed or gotten value from the book, but I think reading some of the critiques as a complement would be similarly valuable.The historians who dislike it have just made a meme out of disliking it, but it's not actually that poorly received. They were just loud on Reddit in the same way audiophiles who hate Beats headphones (because reasons).
Diamond was writing a pop-history book for circulation among non-historians/anthropologists. Almost all of the criticisms of him are approaching it like they're critiquing a journal article. There are simply differential expectations of rigor here.
I should have said GG&S is controversial instead of not well-received, appreciate the correction!
I can only speak for myself and say I value rigor, even in pop-* books. You can look at their success/value in two ways:
Gladwell has said he's a story-teller. He uses academia for topics, but at the end of the day he cares about writing an entertaining book (and they are!) so when he misuses "power law", calls an eigenvalue an "Igon value", or cherry-picks evidence to tell a specious but compelling story it isn't a problem to him.
The books sell because they present themself as informative. He presents himself as something of an authority and academic by proxy, when I think he's closer to telling everyone how ice cream causes shark attacks. In line with the expression "a little knowledge is a dangerous thing" I feel like there's something pernicious about telling a mistruth or a half-truth that becomes "sticky" through the talent of the writer, the novelty of it, or the desire to believe in it.
Most of my dislike for Gladwell came from interviews where he was asked about some serious inaccuracies and he openly didn't care, so I'm using him as an extreme end of the pop-sci books. Besides him there are a bunch of authors like Haidt, Harari, Kurzweil, Pinker, or Jared Diamond that touch on "grand theory" books and do a better job on the rigor aspect.
I'm not a historian, so I can't have a strong opinion on the validity of GG&S, but I don't think its fair to characterize the multi-page essays with citations (or 9-part posts on a sub-claim) as memes. From what I've read its a book with controversial claims amongst serious folks.
Grand theory books are hard to get right and also the ones that are going to be appealing to a lay audience. Maybe you can't tell that sort of narrative without a bit of bullishness, but for that reason I think they go naturally with material that is critical of their views. Better Angels of Our Nature was a great read, but it wasn't a full picture, and what I got from it felt a lot more complete after reading a couple of critical essays.
There's a difference between academics and a hobby whose members have collectively convinced themselves they can hear >20k Hz. Come at me audiophiles, I'm waiting with my boys Nyquist and Shannon
I'm confused because your original comment was a criticism of a Jared Diamond book, which lead to your comment heavily criticizing Malcolm Gladwell and praising Diamond in comparison in order to justify criticism of the aforementioned Diamond book.
I looked at the linked 9th part of the 9-part Reddit thread attacking myths related to GG&S and I'm not impressed by what I see. The quoted section on lacking experience with overseas invaders is obviously meant to suggest that European invaders with guns is such a novel threat that no one could have expected such a difference in power, yet the redditor takes it to mean that Diamond is patronizing. Where was Diamond wrong?
It also handwaves away the idea that a stronger technology could devastate a culture by saying it could be countered with overwhelming odds and fierce resistance. Yes, of course it could! It could also be countered with luck! But just because it could be doesn't mean that the conditions were set or that it's likely to happen. It was not convincing to me that superior technology does not win in that scenario 9/10 times. We saw the same in Africa during British and French colonization, although the Italians did lose. The exception does not prove the rule.
A lengthier argument is not more valid for its length.
Not the person you're replying to, but incidentally here's one from Tildes and from just yesterday,. It contains a link to an /r/AskHistorians thread on the subject, and I do consider those people to have bona fides we can trust.
Which isn't to say that you're wrong, just that GG&S is definitely a hot potato, to the point that some historians who dislike it have certainly made it a meme.
But the criticism provides plenty of examples where it did happen and almost none where it didn't.
Keep.in mind this is not a well supplied army with machineguns but expeditions with muskets and no supply lines.
angry FLAC noises
There's a thinking I often see that the Muslim world is anti-scientific that I don't understand. Idk a lot about today maybe they suffer the same problem Christianity does with very loud minority groups that reject evolutions etc however, I know in the past they fostered scientific study.
The west definitely teaches history poorly. Especially in America were the efficacy of teaching seems to vary wildly from school to school.
I’m not super well informed, but it is important to distinguish between arab, a geographic and cultural grouping, and muslim, a religious demarcation.
It appears that Islam has done some to diminish the scientific and other secular achievements of the arab, persian, and asian world. Exactly what and how much I couldn’t say.
Yes, this is a good point. I was definitely being reductionist in my comment.
Much of what is taught as history in public schools is in fact mythology/propaganda posing as history.
When I was in school it was also taught in a way that didn't really encourage someone like me to dig deeper (that came later on my own as an adult). We were tested on memorization of dates and names as if those were the important bits rather than the overall theme or impacts of events. Knowing that X event took place on Y date with Z person might help you win at trivia night but if we actually want to engage with history and learn from it knowing that X event was caused by Y and resulted in Z changes is much more valuable and much more interesting at least to me.
Here is an article that has some conjectures about the answers.
I'm honestly still really pissed off about how bad my highschool "world history" class was. I knew it was supposed to be a general survey of historical events, but it was so vapid as to be useless. I remember the only things it taught us about Korea was that it used to be called the Koryo empire and we did a war there to stop communism that didn't turn out that well. I think we ended up learning more about ancient Europe than the entire rest of the world combined.
There's so much useful and interesting history out there, but that class ended up having the effect of making you dismiss the idea that history exists outside of the framing of the United States.
There’s more history to learn than you could ever hope to while learning other subjects and living life. There will always be gaps.
Of course. But the thing that bothered me about that class was that it was clearly supposed to get you interested in history, but ended up having the opposite effect.
Though I suppose it's also fair to acknowledge that getting teenagers interested in learning is a challenging thing to ask for.
For those interested in the criticisms of Guns, Germs and Steel, I recommend this set of links. The folks over at /r/askhistorians are rather dim on the book.
Diamond’s book does a good job of examining the role of geography in shaping history.
Tomas Pueyo (Uncharted Territories) also closely examines this.
Daniel Boorstin's trilogy The Discoverers, The Creators, and The Seekers are all refreshingly cosmopolitan.
I read them right after From Dawn To Decadence (which is admittedly focused on the west) and it was pleasant to see so many advancements properly credited to their non-western, and often far older, sources.
Which is not to say that From Dawn To Decadence misattributes discoveries to Europeans or anything, just that it's a big, exhaustive book that is only interested in the west.
As @onyxleopard and @liv both indicated, I think there are some assumptions that need to be challenged, and I think it's difficult to do so, especially since most of the history that the western world learns is heavily Euro-centric. Of course the history books written by Europeans says "Europeans did this first and better", but there are things that even Euro-centric books admit, and I think that it's important to try to at least read between the lines a little bit.
The Enlightenment is being rethought to be less Eurocentric which I think is important. That Oxford paper has a great rundown of some of the issues with how Enlightenment scholars have phrased things, but if I were to sum up the paper, it states that The Enlightenment is not a singular moment in time, but rather the culmination of many, many years of philosophies from across the world, and has references to concepts we attribute to the Enlightenment in other cultures, predating the Enlightenment by a fair bit.
Similarly, the Scientific Revolution had its roots in borrowing from the Golden Age of Arabia; Arabia's scientific revolution occurred in the 8th-13th centuries, and they were far ahead. Another thing which seems to be rarely brought up is that during the Scientific Revolution of Europe, ideas were shared from Europe to China, but China also shared ideas with Europe, and introduced for example Astronomy to Europeans.
These are really simple examples, but what I think should be taken away is that there certainly is not incontrovertible proof that Europe was the epicentre of progress; progress has been a human endeavour, and almost every civilization has contributed to it in some significant way.
As an aside, the Chinese were far more likely to record "guest stars" (comets or supernova) than the Europeans were for much of the medieval period. Some of the historical supernova we only have recorded in China and nowhere else.
What a fascinating paper! I believe I have found plenty of food for thought regarding my question, and as it befits a good paper, it raised plenty new.
For those who may not feel like going down the rabbit hole, I would give a slightly longer summary of its key points then you (they may have been trivial/already known by you, but were absolutely new for me). It starts with describing the two common “metanarratives” about the Enlightenment(s). These share a common point in attributing the origin to strictly European roots, “a uniquely European invention” that diffused from there, but their conclusions differ vastly. One is close to the commonly taught Euro-centric history, while the other is a critical view from postcolonial studies — thinking of it more as a forced cultural imperialism.
The main topic of the paper is about a third one, where this strict European origin is called into question. It cites works that tries to draw parallels between Confucian thinking, and Protestant Ethic, that Max Weber singled out as as the driving force behind Western capitalism.
The reason I single out this point (beside being very interesting) is that Weber’s work does actually attempt to/answer my question and is a point I will definitely look into more.
Back to the topic at hand, a core tenet of the paper is:
It also mentions that scientific discoveries were "not confined to the academy and the laboratory, but
came out of forms of “open air science” in a multiplicity of contact zones in Latin
America, Africa, and Asia".
Another thought-provoking point was about the philosophical aspect. The 'humanité' touted in France was based on an abstract concern with natural rights -- only its real life "test" in the Caribbean turned it into 'humanity' that has its universal reach (which was retrospectively applied to the original).
The next bigger section of the paper talks about foreign Enlightenments, which's date expand well into the 19th century. These are not delayed versions of the "original", but reinventions of the thoughts around it with respect to the actual-politics of the land at hand. This is a longer part, but it is not particularly relevant here, so let me skip ahead.
And finally the ending accords:
But this diffusion didn't happen through the power of reason, thought -- but that of power.
I have thoroughly enjoyed reading this paper, I can only recommend doing so.
Protestant Ethic sounds quite convincing, at least as one factor of many (though I will have to dig deeper). But I still have open questions left, maybe even more :D If the Enlightenment was a necessary "synchronization point" upon joining this globalist structure of asymmetrical powers, and that globalism can be traced back to the Age of Discovery -- perhaps we have arrived at an easier question to ask: Why did Europe was seemingly the first at large scale colonialism (with Japan also having to be mentioned, though chronologically later)? The tiny, resource-less main countries? The race against each other? Something like my reasons above?
Why indeed? Your question contains an implicature that I don’t accept. I’m no historian, but there have been humanistic and scientific developments all over the world, besides Europe and besides the past ~500 years. From the invention of agriculture (in many different parts of the globe) writing, paper, and gunpowder—I don’t think it’s fair to say that human achievement has been Western-centric. Sure, the Enlightenment occurred in Europe, but that was a localized movement that was reacting to the “dark ages” where scholarly endeavors were encumbered by Christian zealotry and dogma.
In other parts of the world, such as the Middle East, Asia, and the Americas, you had thriving scientific and philosophical inquiry going on independent from the West. It’s a Western bias (that certainly colors my knowledge) that downplays or even appropriates the achievement of other societies.
The Abrahamic religions were influenced by and maybe even are directly descended from Zoroastrianism originating in Iran. If you limit your geographical and temporal lens, you’ll surely argue yourself into a conclusion that ignores everything else that you’ve filtered out. Look at the totality of human achievement, and Europe is just one part of a much larger whole.
With all due respect, I think you read something into my question I did not say, nor mean.
It quite clearly references three concrete, well-defined historical events that all originated from Europe. I never claimed, nor think that “human achievements” have been Western-centric. But that is undeniable that the recent, explosive rate of improvements that happened since the Industrial Revolution had an initial hot spot in the Western hemisphere and that Western influence is overrepresented in many areas of modern life (which is due to many things, some positive, some overly negative, like imperialism). I don’t think that claiming that would take anything away from the subtotal of human knowledge that came before, or was developed elsewhere and found its way to the continent. Quite clearly more knowledge and smart people at the same place will result in faster development, so only that initial critical mass’s formation is the interesting part.
My question is strictly about why have this hotspot occurred in Europe, over, say, China.
And with all due respect in kind, I don't accept your premises as true.
I think this is a circular argument. How can I refute your claim here? You say this claim is undeniable, so how can I engage with your argument if I don't accept this premise? If I deny what you claim I cannot deny, we don't have any common ground on which to debate.
As an onlooker, you are not arguing with OP with good will, and you're also not showing his question any sort of charitable interpretation.
His might be a circular argument, or not, but you're also not furthering or contributing to the conversation in any way.
Edit: this is a proper way to engage with this question https://tildes.net/~humanities.history/1844/why_has_enlightenment_the_scientific_and_later_the_industrial_revolution_started_out_in_the_western#comment-9jy2
I think that there are a few important things to consider, and I'm going to cc: a couple of other people because it kind of addresses a variety of comments. cc: @unkz @space_cowboy @onyxleopard
One of the things that I felt immediately when reading this was that it is that there are some problematic things here; "Why is Europe so much better than everywhere" is frequently a white nationalist dogwhistle, which would be a huge concern. I spent about a minute looking at @gf0 to see if it was meant as a leading question and I concluded - probably not. They seem pretty genuine.
The other side is that it's actually an interesting question, but the underlying issue is that some of the assumptions are really circular. "Why did the Enlightenment happen in Europe" seems like a deep question - like there's something about Europe that makes it the place that the Enlightenment happened - but the reason that the Enlightenment happened in Europe is because that's the name that Europe gave to a movement that happened in Europe. It wasn't a big singular event, but a change in Western Culture. There have been loads of things like the Enlightenment in other cultures, but in Western Culture, we tend not to read about them or learn about them very much.
What I would stress to everyone here is that one of the core tenets of Tildes is to remember the human that is on the other end of a discussion. It would be wonderful if we could approach things with more kindness and more understanding and more safety. I'm going to assume that gf0 is interested in a discussion, and that any foray into dog whistles for nazis is purely accidental. That's the insidious thing about these kinds of dog whistle questions, and why approaching them with openness, honesty, and sincerity is important; they can be interesting, and lend themselves to interesting conversation.
It's really easy to get caught up by various other sites that have problems that we have been on - twitter & reddit most notably - but I think we should try to give the benefit of the doubt most of the time here.
I am having a hard time understanding what the dispute is here.
https://www.caltech.edu/about/news/why-did-western-europe-dominate-globe-47696#
Why are we cherry-picking this particular time period? If you shift the timescale at all, the thesis doesn’t make sense, because Europe’s presence isn’t the same. If you cherry pick some date range then the “overrepresentation” is due to picking the dates that include that representation.
The question is about this particular time period. It’s not cherry picking, it’s examining.
This is the circularity I was referring to, though. The reason why this period was dominated by Europe is because Europe happened to build an empire that dominated much of the rest of the world during this time. We could move the clock back, or forward and the question doesn’t make sense any more. “Why was the United States dominant during the 20th century?” “Why was the Roman Empire dominant from the 8th-16th centuries?” These questions are circular because they are predicated on a presupposition that human history should reflect some sort of equilibrium. But, when we select specific spans of time, and there happens to be a particular empire that has achieved dominance globally or locally, we have to ask why we’re focusing on that particular timespan as opposed to some other timespan in which the dominance does not hold. For any random span of history and geographical territory, there may or may not be any dominant empire. So, unless we can explain what is special about the span of the 15th-19th centuries other than that this was a time of European imperial dominance, then we have no justification for the inquiry. Europe was dominant during that time because we picked the time when Europe was dominant.
This is a nonsense way to respond. History isn't just some intangible unknowable. If I ask "Why was China fractured during the warring states period?" There are certainly tangible reasons we can discuss which go well beyond the lazy "well that's because China was fractured then, because you chose the period of political instability."
I think you’re misinterpreting my objection to the framing here. Maybe if I use a different example it will help?
What if I ask the question “Why is Mount Everest the tallest mountain?” Well, firstly, we have to contextualize this. Everest is only tallest for a peculiar definition of tallest mountain that ignores mountains whose base is the ocean floor, or whose existence is now and on planet earth.
But, to truly answer this question is to understand why any mountain is tall, and what we mean when we say tall. Which ultimately has to do with geology and plate tectonics, and pedantry about how we measure mountain heights, and nothing to do with Everest in particular and in fact shows us why Everest isn’t necessarily worth fixating on (as opposed to Denali, which is the tallest mountain from base to peak, but not the most topographically prominent, or Olympus Mons on Mars, etc.).
When we ask a question, we need to be sure to frame it without introducing presuppositions or biases that will lead us to infelicitous conclusions.
You make a great argument for why this question is not strictly answerable in the same way "Why did Europe dominate the world in the 16-18th centuries?" is not answerable as well. However, where you lose me is in your execution. Part of good civil discourse (especially when someone is admitting ignorance and asking a question) is that the person who knows more shouldn't just tear down OP's question because of its deficiencies, but also then reformulate OP's question (steel-manning it, if you will) into a much better question which gets at the spirit OP is asking about but in a much more nuanced way.
To this end,
becomes,
The answer is because the Indian tectonic plate has been crashing into the Eurasian plate for the past 50 million years. As it subducts into the mantle and sinks, the Eurasian plate has been upthrust and crumpled forming the Tibetan plateau and all the mountains in the Himalayans including Mount Everest. Due to the mass of the Earth, Mount Everest is nearly as tall a mountain can get on Earth before being compressed down by gravity.
Isn't a response like the above far more satisfying than simply picking out the flaws in the question? Find those flaws and address them yes, but what is the spirit of the question? What is the kernel of insight OP is seeking?
Answer that.
The problem is that if I admit the premises that the OP’s question is based on, then I am destined to provide an infelicitous answer that assumes a Eurocentric view of history. To engage under the false premises that are presupposed is to already start down a road of inquiry that will lock us into ruts of bias. Thus, while my initial response may be perceived as uncooperative, I stand by it.
edit: removed because I wasn't contributing anything useful. Apologies.
The question is why was Europe dominant in that period.
Yes, what was special? Something was because they achieved almost total global domination.
The same question applies to every period where there is a dominant power in any area — why the Roman Empire? Why Aztecs? Why ancient China?
Justifications like “Europeans had more resources.” Or “Europeans made better use of their resources, had better education, …” are Euro-centric from my perspective. This is a framing that assumes competition from other non-European factions with imperial desires.
The framing I’m objecting to here is that there isn’t much special about the European empires as opposed to any other empires throughout human history. Europeans were willing to spend resources to invade, subjugate, enslave, inflict genocide upon, and otherwise domineer other peoples. If we slice up Europe into its constituent states, the encapsulation falls apart. For instance, the Portuguese Empire was not the same entity as the British Empire or Spanish Empire, or any other European power. This notion of European superiority is a construct erected on false premises.
There was nothing special about Europe during that time other than their various hegemonies. But, I stress, this is circular—we identify hegemonies with the label of empire in retrospect because it is a label that encapsulates our observations. Note that Americans are loathe to label the US’s hegemony over the past century or so as an empire, despite that being an apt label.
and
This framing sounds like the implication is that Europeans were uniquely violent compared to the nations they were conquering, who were apparently unwilling to spend resources to invade, subjugate, etc. Is that the claim being made here?
I find this claim to be suspect without evidence. At minimum, there were clear technological advantages they held over their adversaries. Effective use of gunpowder being one of the main ones IMO.
Effective at what, other than killing others in the interests of imperialism? I don’t think that should be counted as evidence for European superiority. This isn’t unique to Europeans, but unique to empire builders through history.
At this point, I feel like there's some particular reason why the actual point of this discussion is being so studiously avoided, and I don't know if there's any value in trying to continue it.
Don't know where to enter the thread, so I will use your comment.
You are absolutely right. Most people in this thread are either misinterpreting OP or straight out assuming Malicious intentions from his side.
He comes with a question and is assualted for it, even when he put up a disclaimer of his possible biases and stated that it is a honest question which is meant to teach him or show some new light on things.
Yet the title question remains unanswered by the crowd.
I’ve tried to explain this several times now, but I’ll try one more time.
Disagreeing with the premises of a loaded question is not “assault”. Disagreeing with the premises of an argument is not assuming malice. The OP has made claims which they believe are undeniable, but which I simply don’t agree with. I don’t see how my disagreement with the framing of the question entails malicious assault.
To entertain the presupposition of the question is to admit Eurocentrism. I am respectfully declining to work within that framework. I’d rather not argue based on premises I believe are false, but rather point out the biased framing, which I believe I’ve done. If you insist I’ve misinterpreted the point of this topic, I’d kindly ask you to reframe the question without the objectionable Eurocentric presupposition.
While OP may be making some weird claims, they are mostly irrelevant to answering the question he asked.
The question: Why has Enlightenment, the Scientific and later the Industrial Revolution started out in the "Western" world?
He is asking about specific events and what set of cirmustances or realities on the ground allowed them to materialise. You are disagreeing with his backround text, where he offers his view which he himself claims is imperfect and broiled in biases and explains that is why he would wish more in-depth or wider answers.
'Your question contains an implicature that I don’t accept. I’m no historian, but there have been humanistic and scientific developments all over the world, besides Europe and besides the past ~500 years.' Why do you have to reply to the question of 'Why did something happen in this place' by saying: 'Your question is stupid as different/similar things happened in different time periods in different parts of the word.'
Do you not see this? OP's presupposition is irrelevant for your ability to answer the question.
My response to this is that Europe has an outsized influence on the rest of the world, considerably more than the rest of the world has on it. And this goes back to the 3d century, and includes the Americas.
The US/Canada are basically an extension of Europe at this point. And if you go anywhere (almost) in the world, the European influence (often born in 1600-1900 period) is obvious and pervasive, wheras the reverse influence is limited to nonexistent.
We can talk about the goodness, superficiality, and sequencing, but its clear the contemporary world bears an outsized mark from the actions of Europeans since the rise of the Catholic church proper.
The interesting thing in this is that these cultures contributions seemingly wanted after exposure to the west, I'm guessing because we conquered and killed many of them and the ones we left behind we enslaved.
OP. I recommend you check out /r/askhistorians on this topic. The users there have dealt with this question more effectively over the past decade than likely any user here could do it justice -- with sources more often than not.
FAQ page on Diamond's Guns, Germs, and Steel. They are pretty critical of it there.
https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/2mkcc3/how_do_modern_historians_and_history/ - more criticism
https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/pmu2ft/recommendation_whats_the_contemporary_equivalent/ - alternative books
https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/4o1n26/i_want_to_read_a_book_like_guns_germs_and_steel/ - more alternatives
https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/wiki/renaissance#wiki_european_exploration_and_colonialism - FAQ on early modern world
I recommend you scroll through the FAQ there and do some searching. It's a good place to read.
Thank you, while I have been a redditor, somehow I didn't "dare" participating in r/askhistorians, even though I knew how high quality it was/is.
I rarely ever post there either, but I love reading it.
Just to add, I think the two books 1491 and 1493 by Charles Mann might well be up your alley. The first book is just a great read about the pre-Columbus Americas that just isn't taught in schools and is eye-opening. The second book 1493 is about how the Columbian exchange dramatically changed the entire world both in the Americas (of course) but also how Europe and thereafter the rest of the world was affected. It doesn't quite reach the time periods you're asking about -- but it does "set the table" so-to-speak for the Rennaissance, and Enlightenment periods in Europe.
I think this discussion is going to be a mess and unfruitful, because it's one of the most complex topics in history with thousands of starting points, and it intersects with contemporary issues and sentiments around race, nationality, and achievement.
There are already detractions from OP's premise with comments that X civilization has done Y first. I think that efforts to de-eurocentrize the Enlightenment and the Scientific Revolution prove unconvincing, because at the end of the day, we are talking in English on a forum written in a programming language created by a Dutchman through telecommunications infrastructure developed by Western academic and military institutions on appliances developed through centuries of Western computing, scientific, engineering, and industrial innovation and achievement. English and other Western languages dominate scientific and engineering literature.
While there were certainly significant non-Western contributors to the Enlightenment and the Scientific Revolution, the fundamental question still remains: why did it happen in Europe and not elsewhere?
And framing the time period of these necessary developments are on the modern end Asian manufacturing and on the other end centuries of scientific development by Greeks, Arabs and Indians and other peoples.
In 3000 they may very well be asking "why did China dominate the information revolution if the 21st century so hard, what was it about their X,Y,Z" and western scholars might be left saying "hey wait a minute!"
I have a related question, not as eurocentric, but still related to why different geographical areas did or did not develop specific technologies:
Why was metalworking with non-noble metals confined to the old world? I know south america had gold and platinum metallurgy, but things like copper, bronze, iron and steel seem to have been entirely confined to europe, asia, and africa. (apparently there are some copper artifacts from south america, but it is belived they only came from native copper deposits, and copper smelting was never developed) Why did austrialia never develop metallurgy of any form?
Were local geologies less condusive to easier smelting needed to 'bootstrap' metallurgical knowledge? Is metal smelting inherently such a hard thing to discover that it was only discovered once and spread to connected landmass, and was never independently discovered?
I'd like to address the colonization part, which I think has a major impact.
The first thing to realize is, Europe was NOT the only entity trying to colonize. Countries in Asia were trying the same thing. Unfortunately, I can only give you a few scant details, since like many here, my knowledge is very Western-based. For example: I only know for certain that Japan was trying to colonize Korea- and even partially succeeded- but then events both back at home (such as Japan also being in a civil war at the time) as well as weather-related events (ill-timed typhoons) stopped that progress. I don't know about China's efforts, but unless events happened in Indonesia, I can't say much about what China may have tried to colonize.
So let's go back to Europe. My understanding is that France, England and Spain (probably also Portugal) were all in a race to out-do their rival countries. And so the New World was "discovered". I think this plays an important part. In the arms race amongst the European countries, they were definitely more technologically advanced than the Native Americans. And this is also ignoring diseases that Europeans brought over. The last factor to consider is that in running across the Americas, they also ran across a land filled with natural resources. Assuming that China- or even India- went into the Indian Ocean and tried to colonize Indonesia... well, those are islands which are resource-poor.
The final thing I'd consider is geography. Keep in mind that Europe is a relatively flat land overall- so consider that you have multiple cultures who can easily encounter each other, and it was far from friendly encounters probably half the time. This would lead to the aforementioned arms race. Meanwhile, this leads to that old meme "Never fight a land war in Asia". You have to keep in mind that not only is the vast majority of China (and even Japan) very mountainous, you either have to travel a long distance through those mountains or cross by sea to go to other countries. I can't speak for Korea, but Japan at least admired China for a very long time- and then by the time of what you're defining as Enlightenment, Japan had broken out into its own civil war. The same can also be said of China- I think it went through several dynasty changes. And while China may have invented gunpowder, it wasn't until it made its way to Eurpoe that it became refined. Though I'm not sure why this is the case.
And one more point to consider- Asian countries have, courtesy of Confucius and other scholars, a few strict systems of honor which were very distinct from European ideas on the same topic. Europe seemed more to be "by any means necessary" whereas Asia is more "We must do it this way to be honorable".
OP, I am not a historian, but the Anarchy by Dalrymple is a book that tells the story of the conquest of India by the East India Company. It may have some of the details you are looking for.
My two cents are that the ability of Western European nations and later the US to effectively conquer and colonize much of the world between the 1600s and the 1900s came from a wide variety of causes. Military tactics were part of it. The conquest of North and South America, defeating people who did not have the wheel or metallurgy and instituting plantation slavery and mining, led to an influx of resources and wealth into Europe that was used to further expansion. The missionary aspect of Christianity provided extra motivation. China was also rich in knowledge and technology but not focused outside its borders in the same way that the Western Europeans were.
I think you want history of technology, history of military tactics, specific histories of the colonized countries you are interested in.
One thing that I think is often underrated is the invention of the joint stock corporation.
Having studied a bit on the military development of India in the early modern period, it's pretty clear that Indian powers were well able to run "modern" gunpowder militaries in the European style when they bothered to do so. The Marathas actually had several such modern units trained and put together by European adventurers that were highly effective.
Their big challenge was actually funding these reliably. They were still supported largely by irregular cavalry forces that relied mostly on pillage for their compensation. These governments simply didn't have the bureaucratic "technology" to collect revenue. The EIC won, in large part, because they paid people on time. And when they did pay people, they were better able to train and enforce discipline. They also won over the support of native merchants and bankers because, unlike the irregular forces fielded by Mughals, Marathas, and other Indian powers, they didn't loot and plunder friend and foe alike.
Corporations created a great mechanism for pooling financial resources for common purpose, making long-term and forward looking investments in productivity improvements, and maintaining loyal and disciplined military forces. Asiatic powers just couldn't match it. They were extremely wealthy largely because the baseline economic production they presided over was extraordinarily valuable. But in terms of being able to foster investment and growth, and then recouping revenue from that growth due to investment, they just weren't able to.
The book I suggested, the Anarchy, matches your analysis and goes into more detail. There may be a better option out there, but it was written by a historian and was for me a fascinating introduction to what is clearly a complex topic.
I'm a big fan of Dalrymple. His podcast, Empire, is excellent as well.
If you read about Cortez's or Pizarro's conquest of the Aztecs and Incas respectively, their victories far more relied on making alliances with aggrieved indigenous neighbors and playing politics than the usefulness of guns.
Using exploitation to fuel further exploitation is entirely accurate though. The population collapse in Mexico in the 16th century alone is apocalyptic.
You hit a couple of interesting points talking about:
As someone suggested "Guns, Germs and Steel", despite the flaws, makes a strong case for why agriculture and animal husbandry were very important.
As a way of flipping your question around, I suggest to consider the other potential places in the world that could have driven an "Enlightenment" and an industrialization. The only serious contenders (~1000-1600) besides Europe are India, China and the Arab World. Through large parts of these periods the Arab World and India were ruled by large, foreign dominated empires - Seljuks, Mongols and Turks in the case of the Arab World and the Mughals in the case of India. They didn't have the political situation that would have allowed for a competitive flourishing.
China is an interesting case though, through most of history China was ahead of Europe technologically and organizationally. Why didn't they industrialize first? Perhaps it was going through a period of stability just at the same time that Europe was picking up steam. Maybe if one of the more turbulent and creative periods of Chinese history such as the Warring States period or the Three Kingdoms coincided with industrial technology then China could have industrialized first.
I might repeat some of the points that were mentioned above, but I hope I might add some more information to this discussion.
The Enlightement and Scientific revolutions were partly possible to the branching of Christianity. Many protestant faiths had progressive views on finding new knowledge. Even the knowledge of forging bells was crucial, when gun powder became more available in Europe, as the bellmakers would be skilled eneough to forge a cannon. As mentioned, the competetive geography of Europe also played a role together with the ruling dynasties, who had to compete over control and power. King Rudolph II. Habsburg for example is famous for promoting 'sciences'. And ofcourse also the advancements in navigation and sea-faring which allowed the European kingdoms to accumulate vast knowledge and wealth from across the world.
For Industrial Revolution it is a mix of resources availible, already existing industries which would heavily benefit from the industrialization process, sufficient population and ability to feed non-agriculture workers en masse and also the liberal progressive opportunity of thinking secured by the Protestant revolutions centuries earlier, which showed that 'Dogma' can be broken.
idk a lot about most of the countries but i assume that is our perception as europeans. i think every civilization teaches their version of who was the best and the most technological. the same historical period would be taught differently based on where are you from, i am sure of it.
the truth though probably would be based on luck and circumstances mostly. if you country has a winter, your nation has to come up with some technology to survive it. if you have a lot of countries around, you'll probably get lots of wars, so you need to improve your war technology or your civilization will be wanished. more technology - more domination potential. britains defeated native americans because they had guns, i.e. better technology, and they had it because they got the gunpowder from china, who invented it. so in this example if america was closer to china and it's people could develop trade earlier then european countries, world would be totally different.
another example, just how the history works. i am from belarus. it is a small eastern european country which was a part of ussr. ussr positioned itself as a very very technologically advanced country. it was one of the biggest propaganda points. several generations of post-ussr people grew with the idea that soviet technology was the best. ask anybody today, they will say something like "oh i had a fridge from ussr and it still works 40 years later". pretty impressive right?
but all these technology was not invented in ussr. the truth is that stalin invited american engineers to help with factory building and teach soviet engineers the technology. then he arrested these engineers and killed everyone who knew that the technology was foreign, and only today you can find some info about it. most people never knew and just believed what government told them - that the country itself is superior and came up with everything.
I mean, that's just going the other extreme. There were plenty of scientists and discoverers in the USSR, its education/universities were generally of very high quality. I'm sure there are examples to what you claim, but USSR was a prominent source of inventions up until its eventual fall. They wouldn't have been first to go to space otherwise, and that's just one area where Soviet contribution furthered humanity. But it is quite off topic here.
of course, when there was a background set up, it did developed quite a bit. but without foreign inventions there would be nothing to work with. oh, let's say, it would be way, way harder to go to space. you can't make something out of nothing.
for the better understanding, when 1917 revolution happened, the russian empire was not doing great. the country had endless wars. most places were very rural. people's life in the few big cities was drastically different from everywhere else. the electricity was an exotic thing. soviet union promised better life and people were on board for the revolution because they had it very bad under the current government. then when lenin won, bolsheviks said that they will build very conceptually new society and deconstruct everything. before revolution russian empire was somewhat like britain i guess, it was a class-based society. you had educated aristocracy and then you have working class. working class was made from former enslaved peasants mostly, and if you born working class you'll struggle, that was pretty much a guarantee. so the revolution was promising the revenge and justice for the working class who was suffering for 100s of years. after revolution who was on the top found themselves on the bottom. to be an aristocrat was no longer a good option, because bolsheviks repressed them ruthlessly. that means, the most educated part of the society was stripped of all their belongings and either killed or exiled (or ran away). so the regime got rid of the vast majority of the potential native specialists, because they were mostly a non-working class, and it was no longer acceptable. so the new generation of educated people must've been created pretty much from scratch, and when technology started bummed everywhere (30-40) soviet union had no other chance then to invite people from other countries to help, while telling people that they will come up with everything themselves, and show the rest of the world the new way.
i used that example because it was a literal attempt to create something new in the vacuum, but things doesn't work like that, so even that closed and unapologetic country as ussr had no other choice then exchange with other world, and then lie about it to maintain the illusion of exclusive and independent path.
I just read Stalin’s War by Sean McMeekin and he covers in depth the aspect of how American engineers were integral to building the industrial infrastructure that the USSR relied on. It’s a big chonker of a book, but really worth reading if anyone is interested in a non-Brit/American POV of World War II era actions of the Axis powers.
One thing this dynamic highlights when it comes to world history is that people have been moving around and “exploring” for the entirety of human history, influencing one another, serving as catalysts for change. It’s never so simple as this culture developed this thing and if they hadn’t, no one else would have figured it out.
yes! i was trying to explain that very thing, hope my english didn't botch it too much
This is really a good question to think about. I am entirely a layman, so whatever my opinion is, it might amount to nothing. I am also talking exclusively about your last two examples (scientific & industrial revolutions), because before those, there have been many innovations outside of the western world.
I think that exploitation through colonialism played some part in this. A lot of the minds that contributed to the scientific & industrial revolution were definitely not part of the lower class of citizens, but on a higher rung; aristocracy or generally wealthy.
Part of this new wealth was developed by outsourcing domestic expenditure via slave labor, unjust land & resource acquisition and extraction.
These activities in turn drove a precursor to what we currently call supply & demand. Immense gains in productivity driven by slave labor established entire new markets (sugar & cotton). Abolition in turn played no small part in an increased demand for technical innovation, to satisfy the existing productivity needs.
This topic, just like the world, is immensely more complex than I make it sound. There are many, many factors that played some part in this
The plain answer is it was bound to start somewhere and couldn't start everywhere at once, which means that where it started was random.