Success of the West since 1500

[messick]

What factors enabled the West to dominate civilizations like Islam, India, and/or China, which had so much success prior to 1500?

[Kromovaracun]

That's a rather difficult question - when you look at how European influence developed and expanded, it gets quite hard to pin it down to a few factors.

There are also different kinds of dominance - for example, the nature of the Spanish Empire was very different to the nature of the later British.

Europeans first started having influence in the east with the rise of chartered trading companies - who could go overseas and be legally guaranteed a monopoly of whatever products they could bring back. Obviously to continue trading they'd need bases of some sort in the area and also the means to defend themselves against pirates and other such threats.

European expansion really kicked off when companies were competing or if they received trouble from the natives. For an example of the latter, in 1756, the new ruler of Bengal seized the British East India Company's settlement of Calcutta - Clive retaliated and then pushed forward and defeated the Indians at Plassey next year.

An example of the former would be Wellseley in India in the early 19th/late18th century: It was well known that Napoleon wished to threaten British commerce in India, so the Company exerted further dominance in the region to counter this.

There were other ways Europeans ended up expanding - for example, if the company got along peacefully, the area would just be outright colonised (like the American colonies).

[to be continued in another post]

[Kromovaracun]

But all this is rather difficult to pin down to a certain factor. I think perhaps the rise of navies and sailing techniques would certainly be one, and also I think the better standards of living oppurtunities offered by colonies caused more people to emigrate.

Contrary to popular belief, Europeans didn't weild total firepower dominance (exempting artillery) over native forces until the 1860's with the advent of breach-loading rifles. Settlers were often selling arms to natives (they were usually trading companies, don't forget) and just as inexperienced in their use as their clients.

So... it's quite difficult to pin down to a few factors. I think the most reasonable bets are the rise of naval technology and also the scale of emigration (though to be fair you can also link that with the naval argument)

[Peter Pedant]

which level are you at ?

The usual school answer is that technologically advanced nations (erm us) were allowed by their technological advantage to dominate more civilised nations (them)

You will notice even at school level that the phrase more civilised is subjective

Oh the other bit presumably is that there were internal tensions exploited by the invaders (india and china)

[jno]

I suspect there were also psychological factors, if that's the word. China until recently has seemed very inward-looking - not afraid of the rest of the world but not very interested in it and not interested in exploring, unlike Europeans. Islam (which would include most of India, ruled by the Moghuls) was once very intellectually daring - many of the ancient Greek writings were preserved through the dark ages only by Arabs - as well as militarily expansive, but it gradually became conservative and rigid, which are factors that hinder the spirit of exploration. All this is no doubt very broad-brush but I suspect there's a good deal of truth in it. The West (and don't forget what a loaded term that is) had not just better technology but more self-confidence. And perhaps more greed.