Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by jackcosgrove 1212 days ago
This is the traditional view, but opinions have shifted recently. European colonization was driven mostly by the population boom accompanying the industrial revolution. The military advantage was real in the late 18th and 19th centuries, but that was brief compared to the timeline of the traditional explanation of Europe always being at war.

For example Ming China was the first gunpowder empire and was militarily competitive with if not superior to the European countries of the time. Qing China was caught resting on its laurels after it had accomplished the millennia-long Chinese goal of subduing all neighboring regions. In the case of China's defeat by European powers it was a combination of European ascendency and Chinese military stagnation at the time.
2 comments
qwytw 1212 days ago
Well European powers were already well ahead in their 'quest' of subjugating the entire world in the 1500s and 1600s. Obviously they couldn't directly challenge China and some other Asian states at the time yet but the trend was pretty clear.

However Europe still lagged both economically and population wise behind Asia at the time and industrialization hadn't really started.

link
eternalban 1212 days ago
Strong disagree with this. Merely increasing population doesn't mandate colonialist response. [It could have ended in internal revolts of hungry dispossesed mouths.] There was a socio-economic pathway open to these new people not available to their forefathers: participation in the capitalist economy and possibility for upward social mobility.

It was capitalism and accompanying political restructuring (from feudalism) that released and focused that demographic, intellectual, and technical 'potential'. Would a tiny "aristocratic" minority be able to scale up empire without making emerging (secular, technical including finance) social classes partners in the fruits of empire?

(Convince yourself: Consider demographic and socio-economic trends in China 1990 to 2010. Was it population growth or the socio-political change that catapulted its economic power?)

link