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Indlæser... Why Did Europe Conquer the World?af Philip T. Hoffman
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Bliv medlem af LibraryThing for at finde ud af, om du vil kunne lide denne bog. Der er ingen diskussionstråde på Snak om denne bog. A book that is essentially an equation, it raises more questions than it answers. Good comparative, global history approach that is wickedly teleological, trumpeting the accuracy of an equation predicting European outcomes that was based essentially on studying the success of European outcomes. What of Islam, that dominated vast swathes of the globe for roughly 1300 years? He's a crisp, clear writer, filled with interesting observations, but who in the end posits 'political history' as a root cause, without really explaining it. How the hell would ordinary non-economically trained mortals critique an equation that reads like a hieroglyph? ingen anmeldelser | tilføj en anmeldelse
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Between 1492 and 1914, Europeans conquered 84 percent of the globe. But why did Europe establish global dominance, when for centuries the Chinese, Japanese, Ottomans, and South Asians were far more advanced? In Why Did Europe Conquer the World?, Philip Hoffman demonstrates that conventional explanations-such as geography, epidemic disease, and the Industrial Revolution-fail to provide answers. Arguing instead for the pivotal role of economic and political history, Hoffman shows that if certain variables had been different, Europe would have been eclipsed, and another power could have become master of the world. Hoffman sheds light on the two millennia of economic, political, and historical changes that set European states on a distinctive path of development, military rivalry, and war. This resulted in astonishingly rapid growth in Europe's military sector, and produced an insurmountable lead in gunpowder technology. The consequences determined which states established colonial empires or ran the slave trade, and even which economies were the first to industrialize. Debunking traditional arguments, Why Did Europe Conquer the World? reveals the startling reasons behind Europe's historic global supremacy. No library descriptions found. |
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Google Books — Indlæser... GenrerMelvil Decimal System (DDC)909.08History and Geography History World history 1450/1500-, modern historyLC-klassificeringVurderingGennemsnit:
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Why? Gunpowder Technology mostly. Why didn't other civilizations make use of it? Well, this is because many of them were involved in conflicts with steppe nomads. And some others were fighting mostly with and against cavalry. In the beginning gunpowder technologies were useless or minimally effective in both these cases. Guns simply had not yet advanced to the point of being decisively useful in these types of battles.
The Europeans, on the other hand, for the most part fought only against each other, with battle formations and tactics such that improvements in their gunpowder technologies paid big dividends. And so they spent time and treasure improving it. This constant warfare internal to Europe forced the combatants to improve battlefield tactics, global strategies, technologies, and everything that had to do with waging war. (Our author refers to this constant warfare as the 'Tournament'.)
There was also a concurrent improvement in sailing technology in Western Europe. Later, as cannons came into common use on ships, gunpowder technology paid very big dividends here too.
On top of that, European governments were more efficient in collecting taxes than the Eurasian powers when measured on a per capita basis. We all know that if you can't fund your war, you will soon find you can't fight it either. Thus, improvements made in gunpowder technology, sailing technology, and increasing (or at least steady and predictable) monetary resources available for military technology and actual warfare (gold and silver from the Americas of course added to this) made European dominance inevitable.
This was a very scholarly discussion. It is not intended to be a thrilling read. And it is not. But it is very thought-provoking nonetheless. Many readers, I expect, will find the mathematical model (mostly buried in the appendices) indecipherable and boring.