JimBowie1958
Old Fogey
- Sep 25, 2011
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I have always found this to be an interesting subject, and to set the record straight, I do NOT, REPEAT DO NOT think it had a thing to do with any racial causality whatsoever.
And yet something happened that caused Europe to explode in technological and process development from about 1500 that took once impoverished backwater of the Eurasian continent and turn into a completely dominant powerhouse of Empires within 500 years.
What were these causes?
Great Divergence - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The Great Divergence, a term coined by Samuel Huntington[3] (also known as the European miracle, a term coined by Eric Jones in 1981),[4] referring to the process by which theWestern world (i.e. Western Europe and the parts of the New World where its people became the dominant populations) overcame pre-modern growth constraints and emerged during the 19th century as the most powerful and wealthy world civilization of all time, eclipsing Qing China, Mughal India, Tokugawa Japan, and the Ottoman Empire.
The process was accompanied and reinforced by the Age of Discovery and the subsequent rise of the colonial empires, the Age of Enlightenment, the Commercial Revolution, theScientific Revolution and finally the Industrial Revolution. Scholars have proposed a wide variety of theories to explain why the Great Divergence happened, including lack of government intervention, geography, colonialism, and customary traditions.
Before the Great Divergence, the core developed areas included Europe, East Asia, the Indian subcontinent, and the Middle East. In each of these core areas, differing political and cultural institutions allowed varying degrees of development. Western Europe, China, and Japan had developed to a relatively high level and began to face constraints on energy and land use, while India still possessed large amounts of unused resources. Shifts in government policy from mercantilism to laissez-faire liberalism aided Western development.[citation needed]
Technological advances, such as railroads, steamboats, mining, and agriculture were embraced to a higher degree in the West than the East during the Great Divergence. Technology led to increased industrialization and economic complexity in the areas of agriculture, trade, fuel and resources, further separating the East and the West. Europe's use of coal as an energy substitute for wood in the mid-19th century gave Europe a major head start in modern energy production.
And yet something happened that caused Europe to explode in technological and process development from about 1500 that took once impoverished backwater of the Eurasian continent and turn into a completely dominant powerhouse of Empires within 500 years.
What were these causes?
Great Divergence - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The Great Divergence, a term coined by Samuel Huntington[3] (also known as the European miracle, a term coined by Eric Jones in 1981),[4] referring to the process by which theWestern world (i.e. Western Europe and the parts of the New World where its people became the dominant populations) overcame pre-modern growth constraints and emerged during the 19th century as the most powerful and wealthy world civilization of all time, eclipsing Qing China, Mughal India, Tokugawa Japan, and the Ottoman Empire.
The process was accompanied and reinforced by the Age of Discovery and the subsequent rise of the colonial empires, the Age of Enlightenment, the Commercial Revolution, theScientific Revolution and finally the Industrial Revolution. Scholars have proposed a wide variety of theories to explain why the Great Divergence happened, including lack of government intervention, geography, colonialism, and customary traditions.
Before the Great Divergence, the core developed areas included Europe, East Asia, the Indian subcontinent, and the Middle East. In each of these core areas, differing political and cultural institutions allowed varying degrees of development. Western Europe, China, and Japan had developed to a relatively high level and began to face constraints on energy and land use, while India still possessed large amounts of unused resources. Shifts in government policy from mercantilism to laissez-faire liberalism aided Western development.[citation needed]
Technological advances, such as railroads, steamboats, mining, and agriculture were embraced to a higher degree in the West than the East during the Great Divergence. Technology led to increased industrialization and economic complexity in the areas of agriculture, trade, fuel and resources, further separating the East and the West. Europe's use of coal as an energy substitute for wood in the mid-19th century gave Europe a major head start in modern energy production.
