One theory is that geography helped a lot by kinda hindering a lot.
What I mean is Europe has many comparatively small areas of land. These areas are separated, but not isolated; there aren’t vast deserts or jungles, and not too many interior, impassable mountain ranges.
So Europe was ripe for becoming a fragmented continent with smaller states that needed to trade with each other but also would often engage in conflict.
When longer voyages became possible, we found that while we had been competing technologically and militarily with our neighbours for some time, much of the world had not.
That’s the theory anyway.
ETA: And of course, it’s also true that these nations have not been dominant through all of human civilization, far from it.
Diamond is not really a professional geographer, or wasn’t initially. He started out as a physiologist, and is also a very highly regarded ornithologist, biogeographer, and evolutionary theorist. In fact, his insights draw from an extremely wide variety of fields. With regard to Guns, Germs, and Steel I would regard him mainly as a synthesizer rather than a geographer.
ETA: I see this was already touched on by **Hector_St_Clare **
The Discovery came just as Spain wrapped up 800 years of on-and-off smacking each other, marrying each other, backstabbing each other… the Reconquista turned out to be good practice for the Conquista.
And several of the American realms were Empires, with subject kingdoms and spread over large areas; there were also several large ones in Africa. Empire-building has happened all over the world at different times.
Hardly a uniquely European trait. In any case, at a time when Europeans were gearing up for colonial expansion (i.e. the 15th century), China was undergoing political conflict that actually led it to technologically regress in numerous ways. In addition to guns, germs and steel, Europeans benefited from very lucky timing.
In contrast to the gentle Aztec! (Who did have a fascinating civilization. With some violent quirks. Their need for so many captives won Cortez allies among the other locals.)
A lot of people forget that many religions aren’t all that interested in gaining converts. Jews, for example, feel no real compulsion to convert non-Jews. Same with religions like Hinduism, Confucianism, Taoism, and Shinto.
The big three proselytizing religions are Buddhism, Christianity, and Islam.
I was referring to the Aztec religion specifically, because from my understanding, the Aztecs firmly believed that they must appease their gods by providing human sacrifices, and they did his by subjugating and enslaving the other peoples of Mesoamerica.
True, their religion did demand human sacrifices. But people have noted the sacrifices also served a secular purpose. Forcing subject people to surrender a significant portion of their young men for sacrifice lowered the available pool of potential warriors who might otherwise be used to resist the Aztec.
Re: Jews, for example, feel no real compulsion to convert non-Jews. Same with religions like Hinduism, Confucianism, Taoism, and Shinto.
Hinduism was absolutely a proselytizing religion at one point- much of Southeast Asia (including Java, Cambodia, and Thailand) were Hindu at one point. It’s not really much of a religion of conversion today.
Many of those empires in Asia especially lasted for many hundreds of years, or even thousands of years whereas the European empires have lasted from around 1500 to around 1900 - after which they came into decline.
Most of those Europeans empires did not last even as long as that time, not even the British.
One or two empires straddled Europe and Asia from the natural location of the colonising country.
Scale of geography is probably not a strong point for most Europeans, some of those pre Euro empires were not only much longer lasting, but were also many times larger in terms of land and populations.
Taken from a less Euro-centric view, then Euro Empires could be seen as a pretty short lived interruption that frequently exploited periodic power vacuums in other countries to gain influence, and since the height of those colonial empires things have rolled back more to local governance.
At the risk or providing a non-Diamond reference, this Ted talk talks about what specific traits the western world had that let them pull ahead of the rest economically (which isn’t quite the same as empire-building, but certainly is related).
Specifically, he mentioned the centralized Chinese state, which stagnated because there was only one way achieve in it, vs the European countries with a lot more competing institutions.
Pretty much this. Guns and germs especially (steel too of course) were as prevalent in China as Europe, arguably more so in fact since a lot of the most virulent diseases came out of China (the black death for instance, if my recollection is correct) and of course gun powder was invented there (and Chinese metallurgy was MUCH more advanced than in Europe until fairly late in the game). China and India were also much wealthier than Europe as well, which SHOULD have made them the more likely for exploration and colonization. Yet it was the Europeans who were the ones to not only explore outside of their sphere but to aggressively colonize and exploit. China and India (and a few others in Eurasia) could have, and in fact did explore as far as Africa, but having done so basically said meh and then turned back to their own, internal affairs. India also. I think you hit the nail on the head…Europeans were more hungry than earlier, more technologically superior (and economically superior) nations.
I agree with others that Guns, Germs and Steel is a good read for looking at this question.
"Go forth for the good of the many, for the happiness of the many, out of compassion for the world, for the welfare, the good and the happiness of gods and men. Let no two of you go in the same direction. Teach the Dharma which is beautiful in the beginning, beautiful in the middle and beautiful at the end. Proclaim both the letter and the spirit of the holy life completely fulfilled and perfectly pure.
…
I shall not die until the monks, the nuns, the laymen and the laywomen have become deeply learned, wise and well-trained, remembering the teachings, proficient in the lesser and greater doctrines and virtuous; until, having learned the teachings themselves, they are able to tell it to others, teach it, make it known, establish it, open it up, explain it and make it clear; until they are able to refute false doctrines taught by others and are able to spread the convincing and liberating truth abroad. I shall not die until the holy life has become successful, prosperous, undespised and popular; until it has become well proclaimed among both gods and men." - The Buddha
Fair enough. But there’s a big difference between sharing the treasures of your philosophy, as opposed to confronting random strangers and demanding that they kneel and submit to some fairy tale character.