Add germs.
KCB615 has it right. Jarrod Diamond traces it all back to the East-West axis that Eurasia enjoys and Africa and the Americas lack.
Eurasia starts with two great advantages:
- Many suitable wild species
- An east/west axis that makes the spead of these species easy (because of consistant climate zones)
These lead to:
Many domesticated plant and animal species.
which leads to:
- epidemic diseases
and
- food surpluses, food storage
which leads to:
large, dence, sedentary, stratified societies
which leads to:
- more epidemic diseases
- political organization, writing
and
- Technology
which leads to:
Guns, steel swords and (real important) ocean going ships
Also draw an imaginary line down from “many suitable species” to
horses, which along with the weapons, ships, and diseases helped the Eurasians conquer the World.
Obviously, MANY non-European societies (the Egyptians, the Chnese, the Persians, the MAyans, etc.) were more scientifically, culturally and militarily advanced than European society at various points in history. It just so happens that Europeans were the first to
-
Turn gunpowder into an effective weapon, which gave them immense power.
-
Build ships that could go anywhere in the world, which gave them the ability to PROJECT that power around the globe.
I mean, in the year 1100, there is little doubt that the Chinese army could have annihilated any army in Europe. So, why didn’t China conquer Europe? Largely because Chinese had no way to MOVE their powerful troops to Europe in a hurry! The great European powers (especially England) developed the big guns, and then built a navy that could send those big guns ANYWHERE.
Whichever society gained those abilities first was going to be in the driver’s seat. It just turned out to be Europe.
Lucky:
Well, I used a poor choice of words…I should have said “Native North Americans”, although it would apply equally to the Africans as well. You’re right in that the peoples of the Indian subcontinent have done a pretty fair job of raising some pretty impressive structures. There is, of course, always the old, tired argument that the Indians are descendants of the Irano-Aryan invaders of 1500 B.C. and are thus Caucasians, but I’m not going to try to defend that position because it’s on pretty shaky ground. The Chinese have raised some pretty big buildings, too, and I will freely admit that I was partially wrong insofar as architecture goes, in Asia anyway. The South and Central Americans put up some impressive buildings, but they were primarily of the pyramid or ziggurat type, which was an architectural style developed by the Semitic peoples of the Near East, and abandoned since at least the time of the Persian Empire. The technology that went into the construction of a medieval cathedral (flying buttresses, etc.,) certainly surpassed this form. As for the North American peoples, as I said: buffalo-hide tipis and bark wigwams; certainly nothing of a permanent nature except for low, squat adobe dwellings in the Southwest, where there were no trees to build with. And in Africa, the same; grass huts and cowhide bungalows framed with tree saplings, or an occasional group of mud/dung huts. In fact, when Europeans first penetrated sub-Saharan Africa in the 16th century, they found some pretty sizable castles there, built on the rivers, but the native Africans weren’t living in them. The castles were abandoned and empty, and the Africans were living in little mud/grass huts next to the castles; the castles had been built by the Phonecians, nearly 3000 years before.
Not quite right. The Chinese invaded lots of areas - ask the ancestral shades of the Laotians, Annamites, Koreans… and don’t forget the forced trade upon places like he Philippines. They didn’t go further because the places they’d got had all the resources they needed.
See PapaBear’s reply: the next [logical] inference is that the political organization was created to maintain the stored resources… hence a need for more labor. Raw materials by the time of the Middle Ages were in scant supply within Europe, hence the need to expand out.
“Proverbs for Paranoids, 3: If they can get you asking the wrong questions, they don’t have to worry about answers.”
- T.Pynchon, Gravity’s Rainbow.
I am sorry, but you all have missed the whole proportion of the “technological” aspect of this question! The invention of the “keel” allowed these ships to do what was not possible before. You allow yourselves to be inticed by other aspects, but you fail to neglect the little things that make the big things possible.
I didn’t get this idea from a high school teacher in Bucksnort, Tennessee. I received it from the Honors director, who also teaches history at a major university. Take a second and firgure out what the heck would happen to a ship without a keel. If it was a canoe, I wouldn’t worry to much… you’re not going far. A large sized vessel??? Figure it out!
The Chinese invented the formula for gunpowder… ask Marco Polo (and ask him about pasta while you’re at it).
All other inventions and strategies may have been conducive to European dominance in the 16th and 17th centuries around the world, but I give you the simple fact of the invention of the keel. Doesn’t anyone at least acknowledge the fact that it might have been a factor? I feel for those who are so blighted. Thanks and good day.
The keel isn’t going to do crap for you unless you have:
Celestrial navigation
Meteorological(sp?) knowledge
Food storage and preservation techniques
Capital and/or tax collection (Ships are expensive)
Maritime culture (you need sailors)
Sophisticated developement in sail, mast, spar, rope, and rudder technology
This doesn’t even take into account that the ship itself is NOT a means of conquest unless you also have guns, soldiers (marines), horses, missionaries, traders, colonists and diseases on board.
Coach’s teacher over simplifies the issue. You need more than a rocket to fly the Space Shuttle, just as you need much more than a keel to sail a ship.
BTW- The keel is not indispensable for ocean-going vessels. Heavy-ballast barges and outriggers are also capable of traveling anywhere in the world.
Coach says,
No, no, NO, NO! It is you who’s missing the whole proportion.
Your saying that ship’s keels are the major contributor to European dominance is like saying that the opposable thumb is the major factor in mankind’s cerebral development. Not withstanding your teacher’s position. Puh-leeze!
There are just TOO MANY factors involved here, and you can not say that one single factor is THE MOST important. Maybe the keel helped, granted, but I don’t think WE are “missing the whole proportion”.
I suggested above the reading of Guns, Germs, and Steel which may clarify the points of this “debate”, and I strongly suggest you pay attention to Jorge and PapaBear, they can teach us all something.
Men will cease to commit atrocities only when they cease to believe absurdities.
-Voltaire
I agree with E1skeptic, Jorge, and PapaBear. I believe that the brief Ming era of expansion and exploration under the Yung Lo emperor should put paid to the notion that no non-European civilization had the material and technological means to expand its influence.
It also probably worth noting in this connection that, although European nations were good at sprinkling coasts with trading posts, “factories”, and whatnot, their real economic and political domination did not occur (and probably could not have had occurred) until the collapse of Mogul authority in the 18th century, and Ta Ch’ing authority in the 19th.
Had the later Ming emperors not adopted the orthodox Confucian position that China neither needed nor wanted anything from beyond its borders, Ming fleets might have sailed into European ports in the middle of the 15th century, and along the coasts of the Americas in the 16th. In which case, we would probably be asking the question, “How did China come to dominate the world?” (in Mandarin, of course).
“Kings die, and leave their crowns to their sons. Shmuel HaKatan took all the treasures in the world, and went away.”
Absotutely right. Chinese culture has, generally, had no real desire to expand. As Jorge says, they went far enough to get what they needed, but the idea of sailing off to Europe and establishing an empire would have seemed like a waste of time.
And while they did invent gunpowder, they did NOT put it to militray uses.
And the whole germs thing is nutty–like there’s no bugs in asia. I live there, and let me tell ya, you can get sick real easy…
furt - “The germs thing” does not apply to Asia (part of Eurasia) but is certainly a factor in European dominance over Africa, Oceana and the Americas. There’s nothing “nutty” about smallpox!
Re. sailing technology: of course other vessels can travel around without a keel. For that matter, Greeks and Romans had known of the keel - but they didn’t occupy the Americas (those urns in Brazil aside).
In fact, sailing tech quite serves as one example, & proves PapaBear’s point:
. Where did you think them materials came from ? No hemp or abaca in Europe; the mooring line materials came from MesoAmerica, Indian and the Western Pacific, making mucho dinero for plantation owners from Merida, MX to Legaspi, PH. In other words, the Europeans needed the raw materials overseas they hadn’t got at home.
As for disease ? Remember: the Europeans never got a real good foothold in SE Asia until they had solved the malaria problem by 1)grabbing all natural supply in S.Am. and 2) establishing plantations in Indonesia. In fact, when Japan coopted all the plantations during the “Asian Co-prosperity Sphere” expansion just prior and during WW2, US forces had to use the military to go to Colombia and Ecuador to find more quinine for the fight. Interesting tale - a Smithsonian scientist actually bought a large supply from some disenchanted Nazis; near Leticia, IIRC.
Disease does matter, directly and indirectly.
“Proverbs for Paranoids, 3: If they can get you asking the wrong questions, they don’t have to worry about answers.”
- T.Pynchon, Gravity’s Rainbow.
Unka Cece has done 2 columns on this topic:
http://www.straightdope.com/columns/970620.html
and
http://www.straightdope.com/columns/970801.html
‘They couldn’t hit an Elephant from this dist…!’
Last words of General John Sedgwick
Another book in the disease as a historical force that favored Europe argument is:
William McNeill, “Plagues and Peoples”
Also, McNeill’s “The Pursuit of Power” is a history of the development of military power primarily in Europe.
Andrew Warinner
Forget it, Tengu. I gave the links last week, but they’re not listening.
Urk…apparently neither am I… ::Bangs head on wall::
Musta skipped your post at some point, Holg. Sorry.
‘They couldn’t hit an Elephant from this dist…!’
Last words of General John Sedgwick