Well, I don’t think a fourteenth century plague would eliminate Christianity, or even all of European culture. If you just fiat the end of all European culture from the beginning, that would eliminate the Roman Catholic Church, and the Helenic influence over Christianity. Different history for sure.
Blaming the white man for all the evils of history is a pretty tired set of prejudices though. Are we assuming that Norse culture would have evaporated as well? Do the Rus get to spread out over what is now Europe? Or how about the Celts, or the Huns? Is it whiteness that dooms us to the mysterious history plague, or Romano/Helenic culture? Obviously the Franks have got to go, and the Saxons. Even without Roman influence, they are just too darned white. Goths, Visigoths, Vandals, all die of sunburn, I suppose.
So the benign wisdom of Ghengis Kahn brings Pax Panasia to the uncivilized west. Hmmmm. I wonder if the primarily internal problems that stopped him last time would still happen without white men to blame it all on? Would the Arabian culture be permitted to survive? The blessed peacefulness of brown folks would certainly apply at least in some measure on the southern Mediterranean peoples. The Turks are toast, of course. Not to mention the Slavs, Boyars, Magyars, and associated Eastern Europeans.
Of course without Alexander, the Gypsies would never have migrated westward from India, and their continued presence there would probably influence the culture of the subcontinent. No Alexandrine Egyptian period. Are we considering Alexander to be European, or does he get a coat of suntan lotion? I suppose that it depends on how you divide the continent.
Do the Basques get to play? Does the portion of the slave trade that took place between the Ashanti Empire and the Oman Caliphate still happen? Do the Mongols stop at Egypt?
Wait, what happened to the Carthaginians?! They certainly didn’t have to bother with those pesky Romans. Without the legions to stop them, Ghengis baby is gonna run smack into hoards of Carthaginians on freakin’ Elephants, when he gets to Hungary! And the Persians! Oh, no, wait, they’re white guys. Never mind.
Well, it would certainly be different. So much more peaceful, and benign without all those damn white folks committing atrocities all the time. And by fifteen hundred, the Iroquois would suddenly look up and say, “Hey, where the fuck are the English? Let’s build some boats, and go over to Europe!”
And the Incas, man, would be piling into their Kon Tiki reed boats, and fixin’ to stomp some Conquistador ass.
Tris
“It was a woman drove me to drink and I didn’t even have the decency to thank her.” ~ W.C. Fields ~