How do they explain western dominance in other world regions?

[GePap]

Originally posted by Dr Strangelove
Maybe the critical question to ask is how did European culture come to evolve the characteristic of fostering innovation and exploration during the Renaissance when for centuries it had very much inhibited both?

The Renaissance begun to gather speed in the 1510's and 1520's..what was happening then? Hmmm? I know, the discovery of the Americas, and soon enough, giant an giant piles of gold and silver to begin a giant economic jump....enough money to fund or make worthwhile more and more trips over the atlantic, after people saw the worth of doing it....

Innovation comes at times when it is adventagous. Think of power cells- the concept of power cells is over a century old..people have known the concept without having the economic incentive to act on it- anyoe who invested too much in it would go broke. Political and societal needs alo matter, but not as much. It's nice to have great breakthroughs in though- but someones has to be paying and feeding these thinkers- that does not happen in a vacuum. Europe in this time had just found the economic means, the political needs to allow innovation- and that those things came into place at this time have little to do with any ingrained "western" values. In 1492 the "West" was as advanced technologically as "the East" (the muslim states and China primarily). By 1550 they were still mostly equal- by 1650 they were not. What was the biggest change in that time? I would say the opening of two now virgin (thanks to germsn and the sword) continents for exploitation an expansion to me seems the single biggest change of this time- and I find it amazin to think the two facts (the 'discovery of America) and Europes sudden dash to be unrelated.

[Ned]

GePap, Rome too had its days of tremendous expansion, but that did not translate into technical progress. Discovery of the New World was not different in kind from Roman expansion from from the conquest of Carthage to the conquest of Britain. Trade abounded. Wealth increased enormously. But still, there was only slow progress technically.

[LDiCesare]

GePap, Rome too had its days of tremendous expansion, but that did not translate into technical progress. Discovery of the New World was not different in kind from Roman expansion from from the conquest of Carthage to the conquest of Britain. Trade abounded. Wealth increased enormously. But still, there was only slow progress technically.

Of course there was a difference. America offered very little in terms of opposition to expansion. The natives were not numerous, killed easily by disease, alcohol and steel weapons. Carthage fought much more, had a commercial empire to back her. The amount of space was much more limited too. Whenever a Roman conquered a country, it expanded the Roman borders and on these borders were people as advanced as the Romans in terms of warfare. In America, expanding the borders didn't increase the threat.
Additionnally, if you consider Roman times, Europe and North Africa under Roman conquest gained a bit of homogeneity, but there was not a big technological jump in any area. Whereas if you consider the Europe + America system, you realise that the biggest part of the system was underdevelopped until the 16th/17th century, and that the conquest indeed boosted the average technological level and population of the whole system a lot.

[Ned]

LD, what you say may be true. But lack of competition with the natives militarily would seem to be a negative in the innovation equation, as necessity is the mother of invention. If the Romans faced serious military challenges in their neighbors, one would think that Rome would have advance the technology of war at a very rapid pace. But this did not happen.

Opening the new world brought trade as had not been seen in Europe since the Fall of Rome. But that only shows just how much was lost when Rome fell. But still the Romans were relatively stagnant in technological growth.

The answer does not lie solely in the advancement of trade or the spread of civilization. The keys lie elsewhere.

[GePap]

Originally posted by Ned
GePap, Rome too had its days of tremendous expansion, but that did not translate into technical progress. Discovery of the New World was not different in kind from Roman expansion from from the conquest of Carthage to the conquest of Britain. Trade abounded. Wealth increased enormously. But still, there was only slow progress technically.

Huge differences- Rome was expanding into relatively a relatively "known" world. Most of their expansion was military conquest of old and settled lands, and most of Rome's wealth came from exploiting the rich and ancient eastern lands, not the un-empty west. Besides, the scope is nowhere the same. in 100 years Spain gained more terrain than it took Rome its entire history to amass- and gained greater amounts in wealth in a similarly short period of time. The Romans made citizens out of Greeks and Syrians and Egyptians, and life there went on mush like it had before the Romans came- life in the New World was utterly upturned, most of the people before died-and the rest made slaves or near slaves to feed an exploitation economy.

You also totally ignore that Rome did face serious military enemies. Rome was never able to make much headway vs. the Persian empire, a onstant enemy in the east. They were able to cross the Rhine only once- had to face growing barbarian invasions repeatedly, and large revolts in Britian and Judea. I did not see many European kings or generals falling to native armies- you do see Roman emperors carted away by the Persians.
The comparison is poor at best Ned, very poor. After all, the Persian empire, or Aexanders empires were bigger than Romes, and grew faster than Romes. In the case of the Hellenistic empires, they had the wealth of Greek civilizatio behind them as well.

No Ned, expansion by single political units in Eurasia do not compare in scale or importance to the opening of the Americas to exploitation by one group of Eurasians.

Also, you don;t seem to have a good idea of what it takes to advance technologically, and your theory that it all has to do with rule of law is weak- after all, rule of law by your theory did exsit in Rome, yet you say there was little technological advancement then....

[LDiCesare]

necessity is the mother of invention.

This is just wrong. As already pointed out, some inventions have existed for a while before they became useful (worth the money). Others just came out of nowhere. For instance cars: No one worried about automobile cars at the beginning of the previous century. Railroads and horses wer perfect for everyone. There was no need for something new, except if you listened to the predictions that London would drown itself in horse dung by 1950. Still, cars arose, out of no necessity. They were invented while being useless, and later perfected into something actually useful. What was the need for a flying machine? Was it invented successfully by the Wright brothers because they needed it, while Leonardo da Vinci failed when he didn't? Or were they successful because they had better tools and materials available?

I don't deny that patents help foster innovation, but I think they are not important enough unto themselves.

As for the lack of competition with the natives in America, you must see that there was huge and fierce competition between the Europeans to seize that big cake overseas. England, France, Spain and Portugal fought one another, usually indirectly, to get the lion's share. The Netherlands later grew to become and remain an independant country thanks to the East Indies.
-By the way, this period is very very badly modelled in all civ games, since the war between the various European countries was more a war for the colonies than an outright war (civ3's privateer unit being the only, quite weak, attempt to model that which would probably require new diplomatic options).-

[Sikander]

Originally posted by GePap


Huge differences- Rome was expanding into relatively a relatively "known" world. Most of their expansion was military conquest of old and settled lands, and most of Rome's wealth came from exploiting the rich and ancient eastern lands, not the un-empty west. Besides, the scope is nowhere the same. in 100 years Spain gained more terrain than it took Rome its entire history to amass- and gained greater amounts in wealth in a similarly short period of time. The Romans made citizens out of Greeks and Syrians and Egyptians, and life there went on mush like it had before the Romans came- life in the New World was utterly upturned, most of the people before died-and the rest made slaves or near slaves to feed an exploitation economy.

You also totally ignore that Rome did face serious military enemies. Rome was never able to make much headway vs. the Persian empire, a onstant enemy in the east. They were able to cross the Rhine only once- had to face growing barbarian invasions repeatedly, and large revolts in Britian and Judea. I did not see many European kings or generals falling to native armies- you do see Roman emperors carted away by the Persians.
The comparison is poor at best Ned, very poor. After all, the Persian empire, or Aexanders empires were bigger than Romes, and grew faster than Romes. In the case of the Hellenistic empires, they had the wealth of Greek civilizatio behind them as well.

No Ned, expansion by single political units in Eurasia do not compare in scale or importance to the opening of the Americas to exploitation by one group of Eurasians.

Also, you don;t seem to have a good idea of what it takes to advance technologically, and your theory that it all has to do with rule of law is weak- after all, rule of law by your theory did exsit in Rome, yet you say there was little technological advancement then....

Don't forget that Spain had its share of military challenges from France, the Ottoman Empire etc. Also it might be worth pointing out that the vast majority of technological improvements and scientific discoveries were not made in Spain or by Spaniards. It was in fact Spain's weakness economically that caused Spain's high water mark to be during the plunder phase of their campaigns in the Americas, and not during the economic exploitation of their newly conquered peoples. The Roman Empire in contrast made their money by economic exploitation and taking a piece of the increased action that their standards of law, weights and measures, technology and Pax Romana brought to their subjects. For the most part the parts of the world that the Romans ruled grew more populous and wealthy, which is not something that the Spaniards could proclaim with a straight face, even though they had a significant technological edge vs their American adversaries by comparison.

[debeest]

Okay, I'm convinced. Patent law is solely responsible for everything that is good, right, virtuous, and admirable in the modern world.

[Ned]

Sikander, you make a very good point about Spain. Spain apparently had all the advantages in terms of Empire that the Romans did and still technology did not grow in Spain. So the theory that discovery of new world led to the advance in technology must be false.

One could probably trace the rise in technology in Europe with progress patents. Whenever patents went, so did technological advance.

As I mentioned earlier in this thread, when the Japanese studied the West to find out why we were so far advanced from the rest of the world, they concluded that the central reason was our patent systems, especially those of United States, Great Britain and Germany. And it was the presence of a patent system in modern Europe that provides the major distinction between modern Europe and the Roman Empire in terms of technological progress.

[debeest]

At some point -- 1450? -- people around the world might have asked, how can we explain Portugal's preeminence? Later -- 1550? -- they might have wondered why Spain predominated. At another time, they might have asked the same about the Netherlands. Later, France. Later, Austria-Hungary. Later, England. Later, the United States. Arguably, all of those countries represent Western Civilization. But at different times along the way, for hundreds of years, people would have had to ask why China, or Mongolia, or various Middle Eastern countries dominated. And they would also have had to ask, "Why are those Europeans so backwards? Once upon a time they had it all; how did they let it fall apart so completely?"

It's silly to discuss this as if western civilization's current dominance were a permanent feature rather than a historical fluctuation -- long by individual standards, but modest in terms of historical longevity.

The vast bulk of modern knowledge has been derived in recent times, inevitably, because knowledge increases at an increasing rate. Much of that knowledge has come from western countries, simply because western countries are currently on top of the heap. Western civilization's current position is largely a result of accidents of geography, particularly their having been in the best position to exploit the New World at the particular time when it became possible for any civilization to exploit the New World.

Or, of course, it could all be directly attributable to patent law....

[Agathon]

The invention of the printing press probably has more to do with it. Add to that the geography of Europe, a small area that could not be effectively dominated by any one power, and it's resultant pluralism and need for military innovation and you are probably closer.

[Agathon]

Originally posted by Ned

I find it the concept that Constantinople was completely bereft of ancient texts and classical knowledge. I hardly think it had lost all civilization even though it had lost much of its power.

Um, the Byzantine empire is not traditionally regarded as part of Western Europe. Many texts we have, for example Aristotle's Ethics were recovered from the Muslims. It's no coincidence that the Crusades resulted in the reintroduction of many Classical texts to Western Europe.

Baghdad was the centre of world learning at the time. Why do you think we use their numbers? Why do you think that most of the stars bear Arabic names?

Have you ever read the works of the Great Muslim philosophers like Al Ghazali and Averroes? Only Aquinas can compare to them and he got most of his ideas from texts which the Islamic world held in trust for the people of the world.

Look, the Crusades were not a case of the enlightened Westerners fighting uncivilised barbarians, it was the other way around.

However, as we all know, it was the contact between Constantinople and the West that brought about the Rennaissance, especially after its fall when most of its citizens of note, plus their books, etc., found their way to Italy and the West.

And there was no cross fertilization between the Arab world and the Christian world in the hundreds of years before that?

So, even though most of German-dominated Europe had indeed fallen into a dark age, islands of Roman civilization continued to exist, such as at Venice, Rome and Constantinople.

While the Arabs were busy running Alexandria, the successor to Athens as the centre of world learning. Hmmm...

As well, when the Spanish took Cordoba, they found a major library that also had many of the classical texts.

Yes, which the Moors had established. Córdoba was the birthplace of three famous philosophers: the Roman Stoic, Seneca, the Arab, Averroes, and the Jewish Maimonides.

But, just bringing back Roman civilization does not itself explain the tremendous advance in technology that took place in Europe from the late 1400's and on because, as we know, Rome was not known for rapid advances in technology outside of civil engineering. The explanation for the tide of technical advances include a patent system that protected inventions and the printing press that spread technical knowledge.

It doesn't by itself. But the renaissance is in part characterized by new styles of thinking about political organisation which were spurred by the rediscovery of ancient texts. Who the hell do you think invented democracy?

[LDiCesare]

As I mentioned earlier in this thread, when the Japanese studied the West to find out why we were so far advanced from the rest of the world, they concluded that the central reason was our patent systems, especially those of United States, Great Britain and Germany.

They singled this out because they could reproduce it themselves. Whether or not geography was the ultimate cause, as Jared Diamond would say, was of no concern to them as they wouldn't be able to act upon it. If there were causes which are outside the human reach, the Japanese wouldn't consider them. If you scratch deeper, why did these patents law come to be, will you find geography?

[Agathon]

And which renaissance do you want to pick? The Italian Renaissance, the Merivingian Renaissance, the Carolingian Renaissance, or the 12th century Renaissance?

[Ned]

Originally posted by Agathon
The invention of the printing press probably has more to do with it. Add to that the geography of Europe, a small area that could not be effectively dominated by any one power, and it's resultant pluralism and need for military innovation and you are probably closer.

As I said before, I agree the printing press helped contribute to the technological progress of Europe. But that was not a complete solution to the problem of technical advance. But many here fail to appreciate it just how the patent system works. Most here would focus on the exclusive rights given the inventor and the incentive that gets the inventor to invent. But just as important in a patent system is that the patent itself explains the technical advance.

Nothing like this happens in any other kind of technical literature!

People working in the arts can look at patents to find technical solutions and make further improvements. The system builds on itself to not only incent new inventions by providing protection, but also by spreading to others technical knowledge.