# Is Geographical Determinism the reason for Europe's Success? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [October 31, 2016, 12:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-geographical-determinism-the-reason-for-europes-success/770212 "2016-10-31T00:01:00Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Aspidistra](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aspidistra/32/3894_2.png) [@Aspidistra](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Aspidistra)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2016, 5:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-geographical-determinism-the-reason-for-europes-success/770212/21 "2016-11-01T05:15:43Z")
> [@Sampsiceramos](#): > > Jared Diamond is, as a rule, not taken even remotely seriously in academic circles - not only because there are factual errors and gross errors of logic in his work, but also because the entire idea of environmental determinism was already a debunked, discredited theory long before Jared Diamond published Guns, Germs, and Steel. > > That’s not to say that the work is a complete waste of time to read, but it should be read with keen skepticism, and with the understanding that it is the pop-sci work of a geographer intended for the layman, and not the work of an anthropologist or historian intended for peers. I’ve heard this, off and on, before, so I’d be very interested in a broad outline of the problems with it ---
**Author:** ![AK84](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/85e7bf/32.png) [@AK84](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AK84)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2016, 9:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-geographical-determinism-the-reason-for-europes-success/770212/22 "2016-11-01T09:04:55Z")
> [@jtur88](#): > > Give me an example of another place that had this: Northern and Central China? N Iran. The North Indian plain? Anatolia? ---
**Author:** ![lazybratsche](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/ba8739/32.png) [@lazybratsche](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lazybratsche)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2016, 10:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-geographical-determinism-the-reason-for-europes-success/770212/23 "2016-11-01T10:07:36Z")
> [@Riemann](#): > > As far as natural resources are concerned, the evidence points the other way: abundance of natural resources is _negatively_ correlated with economic growth, democracy, quality of life, etc.: > > [Resource curse - Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Resource_curse) > > [The paradox of plenty](http://www.economist.com/node/5323394) I’m familiar with various problems of the “resource curse” in modern states (e.g. all that money sitting right in the ground encourages a dysfunctional “rentier state”). However, all the examples I’m familiar with have been from the 20th century, and require a global market for the resources of the “cursed” state. Are there any other examples prior to the 19th century? Prior to colonialism? After all, the modern “resource curse” seems very different from the sort of “resource curse” where a colonial power invades a country, installs a puppet ruler, and then starts extracting resources for its own benefit. ---
**Author:** ![lazybratsche](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/ba8739/32.png) [@lazybratsche](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lazybratsche)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2016, 10:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-geographical-determinism-the-reason-for-europes-success/770212/24 "2016-11-01T10:26:07Z")
Wandering through Wiki links, I read about the [high level equilibrium trap](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-level_equilibrium_trap) theory. It posits that China, probably the most advanced and prosperous pre-industrial state, had such a stable economy that there wasn’t as much incentive for innovation. To quote: > [@](#): > > The high-level equilibrium trap > > Elvin says that these factors in combination produced what he calls a “high-level equilibrium trap.” He says that widespread technical progress results from some large disequilibrium between supply and demand in the economy, which prompts people to find creative new ways to address the difficulties produced by the change. > > The late imperial Chinese economy had reached an equilibrium point. It had become stable, efficient, and well organized. The rapidly growing population but slowly growing amount of agricultural land largely prevented any significant capital surplus from developing, as almost all production was required for basic sustenance. > > The growing population also provided a ready pool of cheap labor. The Chinese economy was enormous and well integrated. The dense and well-developed water trade networks yielded a relatively large amount of profit to the upper classes and alleviated local supply shortages. Thus, there was no incentive for further technical refinement, and technical progress stagnated. > > Contrast with Britain > > By contrast, the British economy at the time of the Industrial Revolution was much smaller and less efficient than China’s. Local shortages could not be readily alleviated by internal trade; besides being far smaller than China, Britain lacked an efficient internal water-based trade network, which prompted the development of the steam engine and railroads. The early paucity of arable farmland in Britain encouraged technical refinements to improve crop yields at an early date, whereas the vast size of China permitted production to be increased simply by cultivating more land until late in the imperial period. Although overseas colonies provided cheap labor during the Industrial Revolution, local labor in Britain itself was more expensive than in China, providing the capitalist class an incentive to improve worker efficiency. Another factor that’s cited is that the pre-industrial Chinese intelligentsia focused much more on social philosophy, while in Western Europe there was increasing focus on natural philosophy and science. When combined with the demand for e.g. high production in the absence of sufficient labor, some of those scientists started figuring out ways to apply their knowledge to industrial applications. This seems reasonably plausible to me… but most of what I know from this period of Chinese history comes from a few weeks of a 200-level history class. Does anyone else know of further development or criticism of the concept? ---
**Author:** ![AK84](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/85e7bf/32.png) [@AK84](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AK84)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2016, 10:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-geographical-determinism-the-reason-for-europes-success/770212/25 "2016-11-01T10:54:45Z")
The resource curse is applicable mainly to oil; outside some Arab states, that is apparent. But, pretty much all nations who have developed have been blessed with resources. You really are going to argue that the US does not have near infinite natural resources? ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2016, 11:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-geographical-determinism-the-reason-for-europes-success/770212/26 "2016-11-01T11:11:47Z")
Any cultural explanation just pushes the question a bit further - if you aregue that there’s something special about Western European cultures apart from their geography, you have to explain what that is and more importantly, where that came from in a way that isn’t related to geographical factors. ---
**Author:** ![ftg](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ftg/32/2801_2.png) [@ftg](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ftg)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2016, 11:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-geographical-determinism-the-reason-for-europes-success/770212/27 "2016-11-01T11:54:01Z")
Regarding Western vs. Eastern Europe. Western Europe has a _lot_ more access to the oceans. Sailing was a much bigger part of their culture. At some point there was going to be a culture with guns, ocean-going ships and a non-isolationist attitude that was going to jump out of their homeland and start taking over the world. Western Europe was the right place at the right time to do this. Geography was only part of it. Once it started, it accelerated due to feedback in development. Once you get ahead in this acceleration curve, it’s hard for similar other groups to catch up. ---
**Author:** ![Asimovian](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/asimovian/32/172_2.png) [@Asimovian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Asimovian)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2016, 1:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-geographical-determinism-the-reason-for-europes-success/770212/28 "2016-11-01T13:08:23Z")
Thread relocated to Great Debates from IMHO. ---
**Author:** ![Malthus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/85f322/32.png) [@Malthus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malthus)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2016, 1:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-geographical-determinism-the-reason-for-europes-success/770212/29 "2016-11-01T13:36:17Z")
> [@DrCube](#): > > As mentioned, _Guns, Germs and Steel_ is a book about why people from Eurasia became poised to take over the world: Why they had, by 1500, the “guns, germs and steel” required to outmatch almost any non-Eurasian society. And it has nothing to do with race, genes or human biology. > > At the end of the book, Diamond hazards a few guesses as to why it was the _Europeans_ and not the _Asians_ of Eurasia who ended up colonizing the world. One of his guesses had to do with the fact that Europe was comprised of a bunch of small political regions battling it out almost constantly for power and territory, while Asia had places like China which were relatively peaceful and politically homogeneous. So there was far more pressure on Europeans to become very good at political and military conquest. > > Which helps explain why Europe was the armpit of the world up until the age of exploration: They wasted all their time and effort killing and subduing each other (and in the process inventing excellent tools for the purpose) while the rest of the world focused on feeding themselves and participating in (comparatively) peaceful economies. > > I’m partial to this explanation, myself, but I recognize that it is no more than a guess. A lot of these theories depend on what I would contend is a highly inaccurate view of Chinese history, which was far from the relatively stable, peaceful and politically homogeneous portrait that has been painted throughout much of it. If you look for example at China immediately before the Mongol conquest, it was split into several competing kingdoms or empire-lits, of which the main were the Southern Sung and the Jin (along with the Western Xia or Xi Xia, and the Da Li): > **[Song dynasty](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Song_dynasty#/media/File:China_-_Southern_Song_Dynasty-en.svg)** > > The Song dynasty (/sʊŋ/) was an imperial dynasty of China that ruled from 960 to 1279. The dynasty was founded by Emperor Taizu of Song, who usurped the throne of the Later Zhou dynasty and went on to conquer the rest of the Ten Kingdoms, ending the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms period. The Song often came into conflict with the contemporaneous Liao, Western Xia and Jin dynasties in northern China. After retreating to southern China following attacks by the Jin dynasty, the Song was eventually ... A map of Europe around the same time would have been more complex (largely because we know more about it), but not hugely so: you would have the Angevin Empire, the Royal Domain of France, the Holy Roman Empire, etc. The primary difference, I would contend, is that if you look at China in parallel with Europe, the Chinese dynasts managed to achieve an all-embracing “gunpowder empire” in the 15th through 19th centuries - first under the native Ming, and then under the Ch’ing. In Europe, the equivalent dynasts failed. First the Hapsburgs failed to achieve continent-wide hegemony, and then the Bourbons failed to do so. In an alternative universe in which (say) the Mongols invading Europe converted to Catholicism, usurped the place of the Hapsburgs, and conquered the whole of Europe (perhaps failing to cross the English Channel because of storms? 😃 ), and then spawning fresh imitative “universal” Christian imperiums after its fall, you may have seen Western Europe later falling into stagnation just like the Chinese, the Turks, Muscovy and the Mughals. Conversely, if the Mongols, deterred by the unsuitability of Southern China for operating herds of horses (that geographical determinism again!), failed to conquer the Southern Sung, you may well have had that “empire” break up into semi-autonomous city-states focused on trade with SE Asian and beyond (as was already happening when the Mongols put an end to it in our universe), and permanently at war with its Nomad-ruled northern neighbors and each other. These cities were technologically far in advance of anything in Europe at the time and, again contrary to modern views, they had nothing against trade and long-range travel: SE Asia is scattered with the wrecks of Chinese ships; they may have discovered Australia, long before Europeans did. If so, it could have been the Chinese, not Western Europeans, to achieve the scientific revolution, imperial colonization, and industrial revolution. To my mind, there was nothing whatsoever “inevitable” that this would happen in Europe, other than the fact that it did. ---
**Author:** ![Bridget\_Burke](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7cd45c/32.png) [@Bridget\_Burke](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bridget_Burke)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2016, 1:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-geographical-determinism-the-reason-for-europes-success/770212/30 "2016-11-01T13:56:15Z")
> [@MrDibble](#): > > Any cultural explanation just pushes the question a bit further - if you aregue that there’s something special about Western European cultures apart from their geography, you have to explain what that is and more importantly, where that came from in a way that isn’t related to geographical factors. Perhaps the OP believes there’s a _genetic_ reason for Europe’s success. ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2016, 1:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-geographical-determinism-the-reason-for-europes-success/770212/31 "2016-11-01T13:59:41Z")
I do think that determinism is the wrong word for how things went down - I think there are good reasons for why Eurasia as a whole was primed for being the location of a lot of developments, as per GG&S, but I don’t think the fact that it was Western Europe was inevitable, and I certainly think it was circumstantial, and that it would take fairly minor changes to have things play out differently (I call this the \*Years of Rice and Salt \*outcome) ---
**Author:** ![Hector\_St\_Clare](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/b5ac83/32.png) [@Hector\_St\_Clare](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hector_St_Clare)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2016, 3:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-geographical-determinism-the-reason-for-europes-success/770212/32 "2016-11-01T15:17:17Z")
> [@AK84](#): > > C Asian horse cultures (who racially tend to be “white” anyway) also tended to prefer to go to the SubContinent rather than Europe. > > I would say the discovery of the Americas is what pushed Europe to the pinnacle. Before that, European naval technology was actually fairly primitive compared to what was seen in the East. > > The Americas provided the incentive for technological development and the means to do so. Also a good place to dump malcontents. I think racial categories like ‘white’ are probably too broad to be useful, but you’re certainly correct that the horse cultures certainly went in large numbers to the Subcontinent and to China as well. They just didn’t _ignore_ Europe, was my point. ---
**Author:** ![Sage\_Rat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sage_rat/32/399_2.png) [@Sage\_Rat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sage_Rat)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2016, 7:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-geographical-determinism-the-reason-for-europes-success/770212/33 "2016-11-01T19:20:37Z")
Personally, I would vote that it’s the introduction of paper into a region where there was a largeish group of outsiders who largely supported themselves by loaning at interest. Geographically, everywhere from India to Japan could have been a contender. Potentially, large chunks of the New World could have been as well, depending on whether you buy the argument that horses are necessary. But I know that I once graphed out a chart which was the quality of life (I think I used the infant mortality index) compared to arable land and economic freedom (in modern day). The amount of arable land, I was surprised to discovered, actually had no impact on anything. The quality of life was purely correlated to economic freedom. If you look at the Arabs, during the Islamic Golden Age, they were just as technologically advanced as the Chinese and the Europeans at the time, if not more-so, despite largely living in a desert. Green growing things really doesn’t seem to be a component of success. But, religions across the Eurasian continent were unfavorable to merchants and lenders. Interest in money and loaning money at interest were both considered disreputable and even sinful. Europe just had the distinct case that the Christians were allowed to loan to the Jews and the Jews were allowed to loan to the Christians, creating the ability for people to raise capital and invest in new technologies. But, in order to really advance technologically, you need correspondence between the great minds. Otherwise, they’ll tend to not check themselves and their beliefs, or go to their graves having not passed on their knowledge to the next generation. ---
**Author:** ![snowthx](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/snowthx/32/10660_2.png) [@snowthx](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/snowthx)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2016, 8:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-geographical-determinism-the-reason-for-europes-success/770212/34 "2016-11-01T20:11:53Z")
I recall reading (may have been Diamond) that Europe’s rapid advances had to do with local topography. The OP asks if Eastern Europe is different from Western. My understanding of the theory is the landscape in Western Europe is fractured by large rivers and medium-to-tall mountain ranges. The landscape being broken-up like that made it so people inhabiting the area were for the most part insular and tribal. As communication and trade became options, as well as need to feed growing populations, so did conquest. And what drives innovation more than inventing methods in which to slay one’s enemy and take their resources? Not much. Add the competition for fertile and accessible farmland - gave the group in one valley a reason and incentive to invade the folks in the next valley for their land. And so on to the next valley, etc. I think the theory was that Western Europe was unique in this regard. China had a largely homogeneous ethnic group and generally un-fractured landscape (yes, hemmed-in on the south by tall and impenetrable mountain ranges, and the north and west bounded by deserts, with the two main rivers). Eastern Europe has the large rivers, but not much as far as mountains between the Carpathians and the Urals. Hence, societies without these barriers more easily communicated and assimilated with one another, and did not compete as directly. So, perhaps the isolation and close quarters, relatively, of European peoples in competition with one another for resources drove their earlier development of technology and ideas, where as other parts of the ancient world lived primarily in non-competitive, stable situations without the topographical barriers? ---
**Author:** ![Hector\_St\_Clare](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/b5ac83/32.png) [@Hector\_St\_Clare](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hector_St_Clare)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2016, 8:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-geographical-determinism-the-reason-for-europes-success/770212/35 "2016-11-01T20:51:28Z")
> [@Sage\_Rat](#): > > If you look at the Arabs, during the Islamic Golden Age, they were just as technologically advanced as the Chinese and the Europeans at the time, if not more-so, despite largely living in a desert. Green growing things really doesn’t seem to be a component of success… The parts of the Middle East that were flourishing had plenty of green growing things. In general, deserts can be highly agriculturally productive as long as you have access to irrigation or rivers (as was the case in Egypt, Mesopotamia, the Punjab, and for that matter much of the modern-day Western United States). I don’t know of too many desert areas that gave rise to flourishing civilizations _without_ irrigation, though. ---
**Author:** ![Sampsiceramos](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/8e8cbc/32.png) [@Sampsiceramos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sampsiceramos)\ **Post date:** [November 2, 2016, 12:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-geographical-determinism-the-reason-for-europes-success/770212/36 "2016-11-02T00:58:56Z")
> [@Aspidistra](#): > > I’ve heard this, off and on, before, so I’d be very interested in a broad outline of the problems with it I’d need a while to dig up the specific critiques I’ve read of Diamond, but the most common one is that he cherry-picks data (in terms of which civilizations he chooses to address and employ as examples) heavily, and that he at times draws idiosyncratic conclusions which the academic community within the fields of history and anthropology do not consider to be supported by the evidence. One of the more interesting critiques I’ve seen of him (and one that stuck with me, being rather novel), is that Diamond at one point makes a rather significant claim which is based on the date of domestication of maize, but, due to his unfamiliarity with the specifics of the matter, fails to realize that the earliest archeologically supported date of maize domestication != widespread employ of maize as a food crop. In general, most of the critiques of Diamond take a similar form - he is a geographer operating far out of his field, and this shows both in his data selection and data analysis. It simply is not a well-researched, well-analyzed work of science, despite presenting itself as such. ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [November 2, 2016, 1:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-geographical-determinism-the-reason-for-europes-success/770212/37 "2016-11-02T01:20:20Z")
Muslim and Chinese cultures had the edge, but blew it at critical moments. The first was due in part to Al-Ghazali slamming the brakes on scientific development in the early 12th century, the second was due in part to a Ming policy of isolation and inward-looking in the mid-15th century. If either of those trends had been reversed, these cultures could have held onto widespread dominance. ---
**Author:** ![AK84](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/85e7bf/32.png) [@AK84](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AK84)\ **Post date:** [November 2, 2016, 6:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-geographical-determinism-the-reason-for-europes-success/770212/38 "2016-11-02T06:59:36Z")
[QUOTE=Sage Rat] If you look at the Arabs, during the Islamic Golden Age, they were just as technologically advanced as the Chinese and the Europeans at the time, if not more-so, despite largely living in a desert. Green growing things really doesn’t seem to be a component of success [/QUOTE] They didn’t live in the desert. The lived in fertile river valleys. People don’t live in the desert if they can help it. Here is a nightime map of Egypt;[note where the population lives.](https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/736x/62/49/ff/6249ff2eb789edc5dbf41a07bfcd6fca.jpg) ---
**Author:** ![Grey](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/b782af/32.png) [@Grey](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Grey)\ **Post date:** [November 2, 2016, 1:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-geographical-determinism-the-reason-for-europes-success/770212/39 "2016-11-02T13:45:36Z")
**Sage Rat** was discussing arable land in relation to quality of life - I’d imagine his desert quip was simple hyperbole. ---
**Author:** ![Malthus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/85f322/32.png) [@Malthus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malthus)\ **Post date:** [November 2, 2016, 1:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-geographical-determinism-the-reason-for-europes-success/770212/40 "2016-11-02T13:57:11Z")
I’ll give the geographical determinists one bite: living in a place that relies heavily on irrigation for agriculture makes such areas different from temperate areas that can get by with relying on rainfall. Though the impact on human progress is not straightforward in the least: - it has some aspects that appear to push progress forward (centralized control offers an advantage - so Egypt, Sumer etc. develop complex state-level societies remarkably early: the pyramids of the Old Kingdom were roughly contemporaneous with Stonehenge). - on the other hand, it makes such centralized civilizations very vulnerable to major collapses should the system break down. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-geographical-determinism-the-reason-for-europes-success/770212.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-geographical-determinism-the-reason-for-europes-success/770212.md?page=3)