How did Europe become the richest part of the world?

Re:How did Europe become the richest part of the world? by woodandsteel on Friday February 17, 2017 @05:39PM (#13672347)

>The article overlooks a very important factor, that only Europe had colonies in the Americas, and that brought massive wealth to the continent since the XVI century. Before that, the Middle-East, India and China were , in general, more technologically and scientifically advanced than Europe.

That's an important point. However, what was important over the long-term is what the West did with that new wealth, namely feed a significant portion of it into helping the self-propelling dynamics the article describes.

The other civilizations, in contrast, had self-perpetuating dynamics that prevented growth and technological progress beyond a certain level, as least for the most part.

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Re:How did Europe become the richest part of the world? by ttsubotai on Saturday February 18, 2017 @05:04PM (#13676966)

That's the central point of the article. But I still feel it should have mentioned America's colonisation and the wealth it brought to Europe. Italy did not had access to American colonies, but was very important for the Renaisance. Yet some historians say it beneffited from absorbing Greek scholars the fled the fall of Constantinople.

There are other factors that may encourage artistic and scientific advancement. The peace of Edo era in Japan (1603-1868), and a Samurai class that had no wars to fight anymore brough many artistic, cultural and scientific inovations.

The Japanese of the era had relativelly high literacy rates, developed mathematics and astronomy (sometimes discovering principles slightly before Europe [1]). The Japenese were also fond of Dutch science books on mechanics and medicine, and were more adept in using firearms [2] than it is usually assumed.

When Europe and the US, now with industrial revolution technology levels, began to harass Asia, Japan was able to modernize quickly and even defeat Russia. But this was only possible because Japan had their own "mini Renaisance" of sorts in the Edo era.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Determinant#History In Japan, Seki Takakazu (関孝和) is credited with the discovery of the resultant and the determinant (at first in 1683, the complete version no later than 1710).

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bo-hiya https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/originals/cc/43/61/cc43... https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/originals/0c/39/79/0c39...

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